April 2024 Google Search Observations

[Whitey]

@Micha

To me it looks more like the leading media outlets have too much trust from Google and the automated rating systems downgrade the trustworthiness of other sites because of this. But of course I can only speculate.

Could be. A contact of mine is complaining that Reddit is outranking the source content in their observations.

@EditorialGuy

My experience has been the opposite. In the current update, and especially in the last couple of weeks or so, our informational travel site's top pages seem to focus even more on "topical authority" than usual. Currently, the top 10 pages are almost always about [Destination 1] + [our most popular subtopic] and [Destination 2] + [our most popular subtopic].

A travel related site that I monitor uses a similar technique. It is ad heavy to the point of being a pain to enjoy reading the good content, but the content itself is about [Destination 1] + [popular subtopic's]. The traffic to this site grew very strongly since 2018 as content was added. Articles did not all rank straight away, but let's say 1 in 3 or 4 went straight into the top 10 within days or a few short weeks.

I wonder if these types of sites could be vulnerable to the ongoing march on AI where images, and subject matter can be written on all subjects and referenced to "headline authorities" (ie brand, Reddit's etc). Topical authority may be playing 2nd place to just "authority" in the eyes of G.

Again, just me saying as I don't know.

PS I think the current guidance from G is way too vague. Folks deserve not to be blindsided by this incredible life changing effect on business without a better level of accountability for webmasters to respond to. G is so pervasively dominant in the business World it needs to be brought into line with a better level of transparency IMO.

[edited by: not2easy at 12:28 pm (utc) on Apr 1, 2024]
[edit reason] April thread split cleanup [/edit]

[Micha]

Is Google completely crazy now? Some of my well-placed search terms have slipped completely (in some cases -50 places) and have been replaced by English-language websites. Who searches for English websites with a German search term in German-speaking countries? The same applies to some product searches, according to Google some products only seem to be available in the USA, at least I don't see any German sites in the results. That's total rubbish ...

Up to now I've viewed the whole thing with gallows humour, but with this nonsense I'm really losing faith in human logic.

[Conro]

@Micha, Google has been using sites in languages other than the language of the country in which the search is being made for some time and translating them. The problem is that AI has created a disaster that I don't think can be repaired anymore. Sites that deal with the topic are often found after position 3, preceded by articles that have nothing to do with it except for a common term and paa. Maybe this update is taking a long time because they're waiting for things to sort themselves out

[Micha]

@Corno Hm, but the pages weren't translated and some shops didn't even sell to Germany.

[Martin Ice Web]

@ichthyous

but Google knows exactly where to hit you to make the impact really hurt:

We are manufacturer and before this update we had steady sales for our products. It took google 2 days to vanish all traffic to our main products pages and sales.
Now poeple buying our products from amazon.

[Conro]

@Micha if they are not translated, that's another matter.

@Martin Ice Web, when they noticed from google that you were selling something, they penalized. Google want you sell only with google ads you their money-eating advertising. Have you ever thought about using ebay as well?

[EditorialGuy]

Google has been using sites in languages other than the language of the country in which the search is being made for some time and translating them.

Italy has always been one of our English-language travel site's top countries in terms of traffic, probably because we have so much content about a major tourist destination there. I assume that most of our visitors from Italy are English-speaking travelers who are looking things up while on the go, and that Google can identify these searchers as Anglophones because of their language settings.

[ghostofseo]

15 DMCA notices have been sent this am and it's not even noon.

All these parasite sites, scalpers, scammers. Karma has a special place for people like you. My site will recover.

I believe there are hundreds if not thousands of webpages on the internet that are exact copies of my reviews. It's flattering actually. I just got a 3,000+ review site pulled from Google completely. That feels good, especially since they were #1 out ranking me for my own content. #2 running Google Ads.

Is Google really this stupid to not understand. My website which has been creating authentic product reviews in the Mountains since 2008 needs to use other peoples photos. My office is in Jackson F*cking Hole.... There is a reason all the sites are stealing my photos, they are HIGH QUALITY. Yet I need to manually ask Google to remove these sites and re-give me credit. lol... Google your a sh*t show these days. The public will catch on.

My Linkedin feed is very interested in Google now... Marketers from around the world. PR firms, friends etc. The general pubic is still not aware to the latest mishap

[ichthyous]

Now poeple buying our products from amazon.

I wish I could sell on Amazon, but my items are rather unique and high-priced. It's one of the few categories that Amazon was not successful in selling. I would kill to have other options to sell, but at Amazon it's a downward price spiral

[BigKat]

at Amazon it's a downward price spiral

Only if you're selling the same items as other sellers. If what you sell in unique, then you would experience upward pricing pressure because shoppers on Amazon are the worst of the worst. We were scammed by shoppers on Amazon in so many different ways that we finally determined it was best to leave. My only regret is we didn't leave sooner. Being found in Google was all we really needed for steady new customer acquisition, but Google has squeezed us out too. Sometimes I wonder if Google and Amazon are working together, because we've been getting bombarded with Amazon onboarding emails ever since the HCU. At least for now the other search engines are generating more sales to help replace some of what we lost with Google.

[ichthyous]

At least for now the other search engines are generating more sales to help replace some of what we lost with Google

I wish I could say the same here, but I am finally publishing longer form editorial pieces now that I have the time and I am finding that they are being seen somewhat at Bing. The big surprise is how many social media clickthroughs I'm getting. They don't click on my original site content but the articles seem to appeal. I am out of options for selling the product without Google. It requires reaching basically wealthy clients and that isn't through Amazon. The platforms that promised to deliver them were all a joke...they locked me into very expensive contracts and delivered nothing, then acted shocked when I terminated at the end of the contract and deleted all my content. We are all in a tight spot, trying to get sales with the few days a month that google let's the floodgates open for 12-24 hours.

[ghostofseo]

Guess who submitted another 20 DMCA Google Take Down Notices today. With 37 pages removed from Google search by stealing my content. With the CORE Google HCU Update I couldn't figure out what I did wrong. Perhaps it was all these websites stealing my copyrighted material.

It's time sucking, it's not fun but oooh boy is this rewarding!

I may have mentioned I also got a site that had stolen 500 of my articles and photos (and was outranking me in the process...) removed from Google and finally after way to many DMCA request, only 10 urls at a time. The host removed their entire website, total 404 5,000+ pages all scraped from news outlets and review sites like mine, Thrasher Magazine, Backpacker and Outside Magazine.

I believe one of the main reasons if not the only reasons my site has lost all the traffic is Google was crediting other websites for my work. When looking up the source of all the ebike photos we shot. The majority are being credited to other websites. Google Images won't even show my website but is happy to show all the parasite, copy cats, and even the big established e-bike retails and manufactures.

My thoughts are with enough DMCA request I will be the only one left with my images, and words. I hire professional photographers here in Jackson, WY for our shoots. There is a reason soooo many companies are stealing our stuff, it's actually really flattering. Just need to teach Google a little better

[Whitey]

I believe one of the main reasons if not the only reasons my site has lost all the traffic is Google was crediting other websites for my work.

@ghostofseo Good luck with this big step and for your generous inputs.

Don't loose sight of what the intent of Google's search quality objectives are which may also be playing into the recent drops. Stolen content didn't seem to be the only reason that the site's I'm monitoring got dropped IMO. The focus must be on the "information satisfaction" as described in this quality article by Pierre Far [searchengineland.com...] which cites Pandu Nayak’s testimony in the Google anti trust case.

Weave that into what Gary Illyes is communicating in a 5 part series over here: [youtube.com...]

Although I'm happy to read about the energy and enthusiasm that you've put into this, there's a lot more factors to work through in determining whether this alone will bring you back. But it's a big first step, and don't forget that the quality algorithms working in the background will take time. I hope this gives you and others hope.

It would be good if you and other folks could comment over here: HCU and ongoing core updates. How do you improve and restore? [webmasterworld.com...] , so that WebmasterWorld members have somewhere to go to focus on discussions, remedies and eventual recovery and put yourselves ahead of the rest. Otherwise, important inputs, like yours, get lost in these long threads. We need all the help we can get.

Just saying ;

[ghostofseo]

Google Lens is now showing Reddit as the source for my photos. The Reddit post are simply a link to my website that people have posted.

I need Google to understand who the owner's of the photos are. Our copywrite information is shown on the photos in Google search yet still being credited to Reddit.

Any ideas on how to fix this.

My photographers charge $250 an hour and all these images are registered with the copywrite office.

[RubicCubed]

Any ideas on how to fix this.

My photographers charge $250 an hour and all these images are registered with the copywrite office.

Contact your attorney.

[ichthyous]

Google Lens is now showing Reddit as the source for my photos. The Reddit post are simply a link to my website that people have posted.

I need Google to understand who the owner's of the photos are. Our copywrite information is shown on the photos in Google search yet still being credited to Reddit.

Any ideas on how to fix this.

My photographers charge $250 an hour and all these images are registered with the copywrite office.

When you say "a link to my website that people have posted" do you mean they are hotlinking your images so that it loads on Reddit? If so, then block hotlinking to the images on your site, and you can limit it to Reddit.

If people are copying and reposting your images there is nothing you can do. Forum sites like Reddit with user-generated content are currently protected. They cannot be sued for copyright infringement. I have had this happen to me many times...especially when Pinterest was dominating google image search. I watermark ALL of my images so people know the ultimate source website.

You can request that Reddit take down the offending posted images but they are not required to do so as it's not a commercial use. I find that my requests always result in take downs of the images though...I have never had one not be removed if I filed a request.

[Micha]

Slowly it's not fun anymore. Since Friday, Google's traffic has dropped considerably on my site and all the other sites I monitor. Many keywords have disappeared without a trace, even for the main keyword my site no longer ranks, in first place is now a cleaning company that has nothing to do with the topic, but well, people certainly want a cleaning when they google for the keyword.

Result since Friday -56 per cent, unfortunately the trend is still downwards. As I am also currently monitoring my friend's online shop: it's exactly the same for him, -56 per cent since Friday, we no longer need to talk about sales, although his ranking is stable.

[Treud]

Have a lot of KW that usually converts going from 2/3rd position to 6/7th.
No more conversion as well, or on low value products that I totally forget I was selling them.

[Whitey]

Again, same same since Friday. No let up and remaining sites heading to zero. I thought I had it figured. Not so unfortunately.

Since Friday, Google's traffic has dropped considerably on my site and all the other sites I monitor.

[christianz]

Since Friday, Google's traffic has dropped considerably on my site and all the other sites I monitor.

Yes, they are rolling out something awful since Friday. Sensors confirm that too.

[Billy85]

For me, the decline started last week. (Germany)
My traffic was going up for 3 weeks since the update and then, suddenly a decline, despite relative stable positions of my primary keywords.
Evening traffic is completely gone.

I also lost all my preview images 2 weeks into the update and they haven't returned yet.

[tom_010101]

This is my page since updates... [i.ibb.co ] A site that I use to make my living. Nobody knows why. Over 30,000 blog articles disappear from the internet in around 12 years without any explanation. I wish Google everything bad in this world and have long since declared the search engine to be my enemy. However, it doesn't do anything for me... :p

[Fluff_Nutz]

This is why half of me feels like pulling away from the websites. Google have gone mental, it is no fun any more. My website that is full of long form content (2,000 words or more), white hat, Youtube videos. Table of Contents. Full SEO. No AI. Well this same said site has dropped -48% over last week. I understand sites fall due to lack of trends and competition but this is too much in such a short time.

As, has been mentioned before, G are no longer interested in organic sites. They want forums and AI. Which my site does not qualify for. So I'm in two minds to just spend the rest of my budget on other platforms and give up the Google chase. I have only been in it for 2 yrs but I learned a lot. How SEO works and, more importantly, to never rely on a single platform and company. Over this whole situation I have gone mad myself with moving to different platforms. From never diversifying to making sure I'm at the front of the queue.

The whole world has gone AI mental. Accepting new possible dangerous technology into the world. Now the higher-ups say they regret releasing it but do nothing to remove it. Hypocrites. How idiots get into power is a puzzle that will likely never be solved. It is funny though as G fail to realise these forums need organic links for source material. A platform I follow and is owned by Amazon wanted to decrease creator revenue to 30% until competition stepped up. They then changed their minds when the bigger creators fled. Its fun to play pawns to higher-ups, who are actually idiots.

These companies do not care about their creators. Though they are nice to them at first but that niceness doesn't last. Its more manipulation than anything. So there will always be winners and losers, just hope G is in the latter category. They already own so much of the monopoly that it makes me sick. Every sports game is full of their toxic ad boards. Tv ads are the same too. Can't wait for the Google toilet rolls so everyone can wipe their *** all over it.

[Micha]

Let me put it this way: it doesn't matter if our websites offer quality, if they are technically perfect or if they offer great information. Google classifies us as useless and there is nothing we can do about it. Everything this company says you should do to not be useless is nothing more than a placebo. For me, I would end up having to completely rebuild my website and it would lose what is very important to me: personality.

That's putting it harshly, and yes, I know there are other examples that are currently rising in the rankings, but it remains: Arbitrariness. At least in Germany it looks that way (I don't watch other markets), because here it's quite clear that the visible ones are the websites that:

1. pump a lot of money into Google advertising

2. are very well known

3. receive a lot of money from Google [big news sites].

My theory now is that Google has a big problem with recognizing AI content and is therefore redirecting traffic to large, well-known sites so that this is not noticeable and user trust is not completely lost.

So, now I'm going to make myself a coffee, turn off my computer and enjoy Sunday. If I keep thinking about Google, I'm going to get an ulcer and I'd rather do without it.

[Fluff_Nutz]

So they destroy the SERP in hopes that AI goes away? Completely ignoring it and choosing the easy way out. How incompetent can a company get? If G are smart, which they are not, one can hope, in this case, that its all temporary until they find a fix. But it should be part of their business to find a work around without killing everything off. Causing more law suit issues, court cases and potentially destroying their own platform. The way things are I really don't see working long-term.

I do agree though, at present, it does not matter what your website is like. I came to that conclusion a while back but my site is extra proof as I poured everything into it. Taking everything that I learnt with my older site with it. I am proud of that site which is why this current situation is annoyingly frustrating. I should also mention that it, too, does not matter if you are running ads or affiliate links neither. As my site, which I just mentioned, does not have any ads. Though it got accepted into Adsense it was never turned on. I no longer run affiliate links on any of my sites.

G are just adamant with their ways right now of killing smaller sites off, even the innocent sites. Such is life having to put up with other people's mess. Those that created AI should be fixing this, those that say it was an accident to release it. If its such a big accident then get rid of it. No one wanted or asked for it.

[Conro]

It's easy for guys to rank with Google in 2024. You just need to be a brand, i.e. an already well-known site that doesn't need Google to get visits, but even if you have a populated forum it can be fine like reddit and quora. And if you want to offer guides on the "best products" just sell them and Google will like your site, it doesn't matter if you're pushing grist to your mill. Oh I forgot, if you're a site with a lot of money behind you, don't worry that You will be untouchable by their algorithms no matter what you do

[Billy85]

It's a myth that being a blogger and having a shop will give you an advantage.
The reason that many ecommerce sites weren't affected is not because they have a shop, it's because:
1. Most of them advertise aka they are valuable to Google. (I believe this it THE main reason)
2. Their classifier doesn't penalize your site, because you don't have much content outside you product listings.

I have a shop, I have expertise and I bought all the products, my site still got hit and traffic continues to decline.

Google is like Boeing right now. Their stock is at an all time high because they do everything to maximize profit. They don't care about SERPs, as long most people keep using Google.

[Conro]

@Billy85 It may be a myth, but actually affiliate sites have been demoted to make room for ecommerce with their guides that refer to their products, Other times they don't even have guides but lists of products they sell. I've seen this, it's not that I've heard it from anyone, but it's been like this since summer 2023, it's nothing new. An ecommerce site is easy to penalize if it uses descriptions of manufacturers and has very short product descriptions. Many people then go to "google shopping" directly because they find things before they search in the serp. The others are left with crumbs.

[Billy85]

@Conro
not affiliate sites have been demoted, it's specifically small affiliate or niche sites.

Those large and medium "review everything" affiliate sites with mostly thin content and no hands on experience won.

[Conro]

@Billy85 In Italy of the 100% affiliated sites that have remained alive are only 2 that I know. They are well done no doubt, but even sites that have been penalized were done very well. Those 2 sites belong to a network of big sites that together make a lot of money. Google obviously didn't touch them

[Whitey]

I’m on the mailing list of Aleyda Solis and received this from her about an indicative survey on SEOFOMO. Thought it would be interesting to post here for WebmasterWorld members:

The March 2024 core update is still in progress (!) and with so many conversations about sites getting hit, I wanted to check how bad it has really been so far among my network. So I created a poll on both Twitter and LinkedIn, asking how followers' sites had been affected by it.

Despite a similar number of votes in the two platforms, the results were very different:

On LinkedIn, 46% of the 404 votes said not seeing an impact so far, followed by 28% seeing a negative impact and 26% a positive one.
However, on Twitter 52.8% of the 411 votes said to have seen a negative impact in most cases, while 31.4% said to not seeing an impact and 15% seeing a positive one.

I hypothesize that my contacts on LinkedIn might likely work more with brands whether agency side or in-house, across many different sectors, from ecommerce to SaaS, as well as publications in some cases. However, on Twitter, a higher share of my contacts might be niche website owners and/or affiliate SEOs, who have seen a bigger negative impact. I know I work with mostly well-known ecommerce and SaaS brands and haven't seen a major negative one.

I mention this because Google has directly told us that they were going to do this in their "Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content" guidelines, specifically in the section about "Avoid creating search engine-first content", while sharing questions like "Is the content primarily made to attract visits from search engines?" or "Did you decide to enter some niche topic area without any real expertise, but instead mainly because you thought you'd get search traffic?" to assess it.

I mention this because Google has directly told us that they were going to do this in their "Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content" guidelines, specifically in the section about "Avoid creating search engine-first content", while sharing questions like "Is the content primarily made to attract visits from search engines?" or "Did you decide to enter some niche topic area without any real expertise, but instead mainly because you thought you'd get search traffic?" to assess it.

Seeing this, if you're purely relying on ads or affiliates as a monetization method: It might be a good time to develop your own direct product/service offering based on your niche expertise, to diversify your business model and establish a brand around it.

Aleyda seems to suggest that non-brand niche sites may have been hit harder, especially affiliate sites. Whilst we don't know the full extent of the impact my limited observations are that:

- large scale affiliate earning websites have been badly affected where written content is their drive (has written a lot of non core subject matter e.g. a financial site, then writes about non financial subjects)

- strong affiliate brand sites are holding strong (travel and some other verticals)

- bloggers that earn from affiliate income seem hard hit

- I've heard from a significant supplier that their affiliate distribution network of around 200 sites has been badly hit - these comprise of websites that produce sites either via api data (pSEO) or are blogs.

- I can't see any change for major brand sites that i watch that do pSEO in meta search. So brand protected?

Take this with a grain of salt, as there will be more and better data coming in from others, but thought I'd share it.

There are reports with @rustybrick over at [seroundtable.com...] about weekend volatility and a quoted mention by Glenn Gabe of 373 affected sites that he tracks. Here's some of it:

I shared yesterday how the tools were all spiking and I picked up serious volatility across several sites I'm helping and tracking. Just wanted to share more about that this morning. Whatever Google updated, it's definitely having a big effect on some sites. I have several documented that reversed course (and some reversing course for the *second time* during the update). For example, I shared rank tracking yesterday for one of those sites, which is even clearer today (see first screenshot). That site surged with the March core update, then reversed course half way through losing all gains. And it just surged completely back yesterday. The site owner is on a roller coaster. And yep, he's ready to get off the coaster and hoping this surge sticks. :)