May 2024 Google Search Observations

[Billy85]

When I checked my site, 90% or so were some Spam links, but I wouldn't disavow them because I've heard that some sites were worse off after disavowing.
Almost every site has to deal with this and from what I understand, Google only regards those that are listed in your search console?

I also think it has also to do with the amount of people that click on it, meaning, if you try to build backlinks and nobody is clicking on it, google disregards them or gives that link less relevance.

[edited by: not2easy at 1:30 pm (utc) on May 2, 2024]
[edit reason] split thread cleanup [/edit]

[saladtosser]

I'm in the process of developing an AI bot called "OhDannyBot", OhDannyBot can reply up to 0-5 random Twitter messages that have tagged your company each day, (except on weekends and monthly bot Vacations, oh and Sar wars conventions).

It can reply to any message with a choice of 3 random terms, "I'll pass it onto the team", "I've passed it onto the team" and "This has been forwarded to the team", I'm seeing if I can work in a 4th Phrase but its hard going.

I believe I can sell "OhDannyBot" to business's like Google who currently pay liaison's 300k per year, for a mere $2.99 a month I believe I can render liaison's obsolete and save companies like Google almost 300k a year!

Is this a good idea? Or are some jobs safe and just not replaceable by AI yet? Can AI do it better I guess is the question?!

[Martin Ice Web]

Something is going through again. Traffic dropped and sales stopped completly with google traffic.
Again there is no user engament from google users.
google is working hard to become the worst SE in history.

[Micha]

@Martin Ice Web I can confirm this for Germany, I spoke to a few shops earlier and they are all dead today.

[ichthyous]

@ Martin @ Micha - Today? This has been the case since the end of 2023. This week I had one new inquiry, and the inquiries are completely useless. He requested something that costs $6000 and his budget was in the "low to mid-100's". This is the norm now...for the first time in my life I am not bothering to respond to customer inquiries...straight to the trash. We are clearly just getting the leftovers. I do not anticipate sales ever returning...this is how Google is making record profits now. If you can run ads and make it work for you then do that. I have tried numerous times in the past and the absolutely abysmal, fraudulent clicks did not amount to any real sales from google. I had to pay about $110 in clicks before one serious client inquired...no thanks.

[Micha]

Well, I'm talking about small online stores where sales have gradually collapsed. I looked at the store data in Sistrix and wondered if Google just wants to destroy the web. It's no longer a ranking crash, but a ranking massacre for all these stores. Most of them have lost their rankings due to absolute nonsense, I mean if you search for certain foods, you want to find the foods, not a manual for a TV. Have the lunatics at Google given up thinking by now? I mean, they must also see that their search engine is getting worse and worse ...

However, I had the most fun with Gemini today: when asked what magazines there are in my subject area, he mentioned my magazine, but presented a link to a construction machinery manufacturer with a completely different name. And 7 news sources that don't even exist.

And this thing is supposed to be the new ultimate for Google? It's like swapping Windows 10 for Windows 95. If Google wasn't so big, the company would soon go bankrupt with the business acumen of its managers.

[Sodero18]

Received this via email from an SEO consultant regarding the impact of Google's updates on her small business clients (not a fan of the second part of the article but you can judge for yourself): [mariehaynes.com...]

[Markedd]

@Sodero18 What is this confused child (Ms Haynes) doing writing things on the Internet? Basically the entire article can be summed in three sentences.
1. Google, be more transparent! --- And I agree, but it will be counterproductive to what they're trying to achieve right now.
2. Get a job. --- Learn machine coding.
3. She is excited by the future. --- I am going to look back to this moment in time and will spit in disgust, but yeah, I am currently building other businesses. It's just a far more painful process than it had to be thanks to the hacks at Google.

[Sodero18]

Yes the article is all over the place. I'm assuming the excited by the future part is to say sorry Google for writing this. The story of the impact on small website owners who have absolutely no idea what to do was what resonated most. Unfortunately, these people likely don't read this forum.

[superclown2]

If Google wasn't so big, the company would soon go bankrupt with the business acumen of its managers.

Looking at the number of legal issues that Google faces that's not impossible. Take away their monopoly and even their billions wouldn't last for ever.

In the meanwhile their track record with 'other bets' is so awful that it's scarcely believable. If Mr Mehta doesn't bring them to heel someone else (possibly from another country) will sooner or later and without advertising masquerading as search they are very burnt toast.

Would all these legal issues exist if Google was still a real search engine, rather than an advertising agency pretending to be one? I doubt it. They are gambling with the company's very existence.

[ichthyous]

However, I had the most fun with Gemini today: when asked what magazines there are in my subject area, he mentioned my magazine, but presented a link to a construction machinery manufacturer with a completely different name. And 7 news sources that don't even exist.

And this thing is supposed to be the new ultimate for Google? It's like swapping Windows 10 for Windows 95. If Google wasn't so big, the company would soon go bankrupt with the business acumen of its managers.

I watch the business news all day while I work. Most of the people interviewed just spout out "AI, AI, AI" all day as a sales pitch and a justification for stock prices going up, including Google's stock. Most of them have no clue what the reality is, they are just useful idiots and just want to see prices go up so they can cash out and look like geniuses to their clients.

The reality is that AI is half-baked now, and will take a lot of improvement. In the meantime Gemini, GPT, and Llama are competing and robbing us all blind of our original content to make the uber-rich now impossibly rich. It doesn't matter if everyone's little store is wiped out, and it doesn't matter if all of these companies intend to fire half their employees in order to raise the share price. This is how greed and the markets work. I can't complain, my investments (including in Google) have skyrocketed so I am not as worried about the loss of sales...but having a very good 20-year sales history reduced to rubble makes me very nervous. I don't like being put out to pasture at this age just because freaking Google feels like it.

[Fluff_Nutz]

In todays news

Four Google execs got 200% stock payouts after strong company performance: [businessinsider.com...]

AND

Judge grills Google in DOJ antitrust case: [marketwatch.com...]

Everywhere I look its nothing but negativity regarding Google. I find it both sad and amusing. Google was, once, a loved company. Now its a mere shell of its former self. Ridiculed in a toxic workforce. Powered by greed. Leaving many innocent websites dead or barely hanging on to life.

[jchiff]

Reddit users have recently reported that the chat function has become completely glitchy, while the main feed will now occasionally fail with a "try again later" message.

So... when Reddit has a massive technical failure one day, what happens to Google?

[Micha]

Doesn't seem to be going very well for google in the usa in court.

[twitter.com ]

I for one have now given up trying to understand Google. After the end of the update, my website crashed again. Since Thursday, suddenly all new articles are in Discover, the number of visitors to the site is literally exploding. This is more than illogical, because yesterday the big news sites wrote about my niche, normally we have absolutely no chance in such a situation. Besides, we haven't changed anything about the articles, the style is the same, the template is the same and so on. Normally an article appears for one day, then there is a long break, the current situation is new.

I'm curious to see how long this will continue, but I really don't understand it.

[superclown2]

I for one have now given up trying to understand Google

It's simple really. The people who are in charge now are not the ones who were in charge in the past, when Google was the best search engine in the world, and they will not be the ones in charge in the future either. Someone else will be dealing with the results of their decisions, long after they have retired to enjoy their huge bonusses.

Google is completely beholden to Wall Street and their priority is profit. The company may well be severely restricted by litigation in the near future so making hay whilst the sun shines could be seen as logical.

The future will look after itself and hopefully, in the meanwhile, they can make a success of yet another 'other bet'. There were, of course, quite a number of bankers who felt the same way in 2008.

[shadowlight]

USA traffic is clearly waning after all of these "updates". The sheer number of ads now on mobile is mind boggling.

I came across a mobile SERP recently that looked like this:

AD
AD
AD
PASF
Organic
PAA
Organic
AD

The two organic results combined were smaller than any one ad or PA

[Rick_Mh]

I believe there is something wrong happening, my traffic has dropped by 80% in the last 24 hours without any changes or changes. There is something very strange happening right now

[Treud]

It’s not the 5/5 core update that is a bit early ?
I see some strange metrics as well.

[ichthyous]

A huge, disastrous drop starting this morning...traffic is at zero from 8am-10:30am so far and a sudden loss of ranking keywords. USA and Canada traffic have been abysmal since these "updates" ended, while UK, Germany, UAE and most of the rest of the world is much higher. Google has decided that USA traffic monetizes far better and is the most valuable so that is what is vanishing. I am reconciling myself to rebuilding using other platforms, but it's going to be a very long, slow and painful process.

[Micha]

@Ichthyos Then send the traffic from Germany back to us, because it's currently at a standstill here, at least for the store I currently manage. Almost all bots today, diligently sending out spam reviews. No sales at all. Traffic from Google is practically non-existent. However, the ranking has improved today, but what good is that if there are five advertising blocks before the first organic search result? Nobody clicks there anymore.

[christianz]

Traffic looking very week here too, based on the untrustworthy GA.

[mosxu]

All traffic on my converting keywords including brand terms has been replaced right out with zombies!

This is an attack not an update!

[Treud]

The zombie traffic, I have this since end of February, many many bots, no real users…

But the weird thing, my supplier (which is a factory), said my case is same for many of their reseller, and in the end they are selling less, because we do. My question is ? Where the sales are going to? Because in the end even the factory is not selling !

[ichthyous]

Atrocious this weekend...my home page is -66% this morning at 1pm. Yesterday traffic ended up way down across the board. Today just as bad if not worse. Graduation is this weekend so some of this has to do with school finishing but certainly not all of it. Impressions have been trending downward for three months straight (solid line) now compared to the same three month period in 2023 (dashed line):
[ibb.co ]

[Markedd]

So.. did the 'site reputation abuse spam policy' update already rolled out or did I miss something? Wasn't it supposed to start (or end or whatever) on the 5th of May?

[christianz]

I don't know what they rolled out on beginning of May but traffic past weekend has been very weak. Meaningful drop compared to last week when it was very good.

[Micha]

@Markedd I'm sure it's already up and running, but it may be a while before we notice anything. Only small websites will be affected anyway.

[Martin Ice Web]

@christianz,

a quality update has been started to find more and faster quality content. :(

But u are right. Since last friday sales are gone. Traffic quality from google is on yahoo niveau. google serps layout is all but user friendly.
Some of the keywords in my niche are now linked to irrelevant other niches. Like all fruits are not linked to vegetables. Searching for fruits will bring up more sites about vegetables. Thats kind of silly. But this explains why google is that bad. We know google can do better, just, they don´t want to.

[Rick_Mh]

Google destroyed my traffic in the last 72 hours

[ibb.co...]

[Micha]

@Martin Ice Web This isn't just the case in your niche. No matter what you search for on Google, you only get useless results and today it got even worse.

The traffic pattern is also strange, the store had a record number of visitors yesterday but zero sales. But every visitor that came from Google left the site immediately. I suspect they were all looking for something else. Nevertheless, the keyword ranking is rising again.

My website's ranking is also improving, just like the other websites I monitor.

And what does Google do? Gimini no longer links to external sources. This could be illegal, but the company doesn't seem to care.

[twitter.com ]

[renatovieira]

I read a lot of people celebrating the drop of Google at Statcounter. It was some internal failure.

[seroundtable.com...]

Still good, less worse. Even though the search is truly garbage, G continues to put money in my pocket :-)