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]

[ichthyous]

The big drop off in top three ranking terms continues...all in a very short span of time. Haven't seen that in a while, but it doesn't seem to be making traffic any worse than usual so it must be low volume terms that are dropping off. I am also seeing a lot of movement in the competitive terms this week...I dropped from #1 to #2, then to #3 on some terms that I have been #1 for for years. Then I jumped up to #1 for other terms, and jumped up 30+ spots for others. Is anyone else seeing this?

[Dooku]

Anyone with an e-commerce website seeing this weird thing also?: google bot visiting the SAME product page like 20 times in a row and ALSO placing the item in the cart!? What could possible be useful about that?

[Micha]

I haven't noticed that yet. The only thing I can say is that in all the stores I monitor, sales have dropped sharply again since Sunday (if they had any at all). Only between 9am and 12pm, after that there are still visitors but no sales.

What I am currently observing on my website is a sharp increase in the number of visitors. The number of visitors, who come from all kinds of countries, rises dramatically for a few minutes and then falls again just as quickly. This has been going on all day today.

All in all, a very strange situation.

[Treud]

@dooku

It’s the Google Merchant center, they are checking several datas, price, shipping etc etc to see if it’s inline with what they have. They can also initiate some checkout (John Smith, if I’m correct).
I see this a LOT since the March update.

[saladtosser]

How does that "famous" SEO lily ray chick get paid for doing SEO? Shes literally posting on X all day everyday, does she get paid for tweets?.

[RedBar]

@saladtosser - Because some people are well-connected to the SS BS venture, knowledge, experience and expertise is not required in those circles!

[NeapTide]

I got only 3000 pages on my website but Google search console shows 110,000 internal links. That's insane number. Don't know where they found all those internal links.

[Billy85]

For anyone who hasn't noticed yet:
Bing has had an update in the last days and it looks like they are going a similar way to Google.

Bing SERPs are now Google SERPs on Wish.

[Markedd]

@Billy85 They follow what Google is doing to make more money, while also not entering Google's turf. It's quite clear that they don't truly want to compete. I don't know the reason and it's perhaps the same as why Google search has been the default for so long on Safari.

[superclown2]

Bing has had an update in the last days and it looks like they are going a similar way to Google.

They still hide their ads by giving them the tiniest possible labels, and those popups and popouts are so irritating.

Their designers have so much to learn about elementary marketing.

[Fluff_Nutz]

I get the feeling no one wants to compete with Google because of their monopoly and how corrupt it all is. With that in mind is it even worth the investment? Their monopoly needs to somehow be crushed before any new search comes and helps. Before competition is actually a thing. God help us small websites right now. Just thinking about the fact that my timing to creating a small website business, sucks. If I had started years ago at least I'd be left with something and used traffic to diversify and keep the business going. But starting now, impossible.

As expected my traffic, despite diversifying, has been terrible these past few days. No growth at all. In the space of a week I have seen another -30-40% drop. It used to be great, once. My content was all over Google. Top ranking articles. Images were also easy to find. Now its a different story. My articles were good enough to be top spot, now, apparently, they are so bad they deserve to disappear. Like magic. I even decided to write a 2,000 word article a few days ago. Complete with images, no AI and I was confident this article would help as it was helpful. But nope I, instead, was rewarded with another -14% drop. I'm hoping that once this AI mess has been implemented and the updated ended I can see light, doubtful I know. But this is all we can do right now. Wait and hope.

Content creators go in to these platforms expecting stability. In the website and Youtube scene, not a chance.

[superclown2]

I get the feeling no one wants to compete with Google because of their monopoly and how corrupt it all is.

There is also the massive investment needed to service millions or billions of queries every day. DDG is down now here in London; overloaded servers perhaps?

[ichthyous]

I get the feeling no one wants to compete with Google because of their monopoly and how corrupt it all is. With that in mind is it even worth the investment? Their monopoly needs to somehow be crushed before any new search comes and helps. Before competition is actually a thing. God help us small websites right now. Just thinking about the fact that my timing to creating a small website business, sucks. If I had started years ago at least I'd be left with something and used traffic to diversify and keep the business going. But starting now, impossible.

I started my site in 2003, and I can tell you that Google powered my business year after year. There have always been ups and downs, like when 90+% of image traffic vanished in 2010. But starting from 2018 onward Google has really taken off the gloves and now it has just morphed into something vampiric that is sucking the blood out of small business online. That is the power of monopoly.

There is a lot of press right now on the new "economic populism" emerging in the US...that is, that the right has realized that Reaganomics and laissez-faire economics never worked and has destroyed the working class, and is moving toward regulation / action against monopolies - [cnbc.com ]

It seems that for the first time there is some awareness that an economy based on a few mega-monopolies where all the wealth keeps concentrating into fewer hands is not sustainable. With both left and right agreeing on this I see a lot more action coming down the pike against Google, Amazon, Apple, and all of the large tech companies. Part of the problem in the US has always been this blind trust in the market...those days are coming to an end. By the time any concrete action actually happens though we will have all closed our businesses and moved on. It might be for those after us to start over.

[ichthyous]

Is anyone noticing a huge drop in external backlink count from real, high-DA domains on GSC? Google dropped over 1,000 links in one shot, leaving the crap .id site links (that I have blocked in my disavow file) intact, and instead removing links from very high-quality / high domain authority sites.

Is Google zapping valid links now or is it just not indexing the content anymore, so the links are dropping off? Could it be that once Google includes the page in its AI dataset that it no longer intends to keep the page in the live index?

[brightstone]

@Dooku I had 4 items in my cart on Etsy today and was about to check out. I checked the price of one item against another seller, and when I came back to the cart to checkout, it only had 3 items. So it apparently not only adds items to a cart, it removes them also. Very strange.

[ichthyous]

9am - 20 unique visitors
12pm - 2 visitors

Every single day now....

[Micha]

@Ichthyos I empathize and add: 12pm to 8pm average of 50 visitors and 1 shopper in the store I currently manage, and this has been going on since Monday (a total of 8 small sales is really ridiculous for a grocery store). I ask myself: how can sales drop so drastically within 4 weeks, despite good rankings?

Well, at least my own site is up and running, although traffic from Google is also inconsistent. Discover has been completely at 0 for 2 weeks and Google News no longer plays a role in traffic. Instead, more and more traffic is coming from DuckDuckGo, Bing and other search engines that I didn't even know about before. And my WebApp is also being subscribed to more and more frequently.

By the way, I've also noticed that with the links. In addition, the pages in the index continue to fall, now there are already 20,000 URLs that are not indexed according to Search Console.

[ichthyous]

I ask myself: how can sales drop so drastically within 4 weeks, despite good rankings?

Only 4 weeks? My sales vanished by early 2024 and have never returned. All I get now are people who submit short, one line requests with misspellings on my site, or people with ludicrously low budgets...I delete the requests and don't respond. It's clear that either A) We are in a drastic recession because nobody wants to spend money OR B) Google has very effectively stolen all of the converting traffic and is now working on reducing all traffic, whether it converts or not. The last I checked my ranking was still quite impressive...so my bet is on B.

It's very frustrating as bricks and mortar is just not the viable in my area due to rents being astronomical...people are still closing their physical locations in my niche. Social media does not work for higher priced items, so I do not see where to turn at this point.

[Micha]

In fact, it's only been 4 weeks, in March sales were in the 5-digit range, in April they dropped but were still in the 5-digit range and now they are just in the 4-digit range and nothing is really coming in (the last few days per day just 2-digit, so not even worth mentioning.

There is a nasty decline in real wages in Germany, but that can't be the whole explanation. So I'm betting on your B, but how does Google do it? There have always been a few ads above the search results, that's nothing new. The store ran ads through the Merchant Center for the first time today, I'm curious to see if this isn't money wasted. But if things continue as they are, this will be the next store to go out of business.

Incidentally, social media does absolutely nothing for groceries either, newsletters obviously do nothing either, etc. No matter what he tries, it doesn't increase sales.

[x.com ]

And Google spits in our faces

Avoiding creator burnout

Who is responsible for the current stressful situation?

[edited by: Micha at 5:20 pm (utc) on May 23, 2024]

[seokees]

I am the lead gen business. Conversions are low to none existent for days. I am active in The Netherlands in the lead gen of aircons among other things, unrelated to a grocery store in Germany for example, but I recognise the same trend.

Since 2024 the leads are becoming worse. More bogus leads, or people that are less serious, not enough budget etc. Nothing is really changed on my end. There is less traffic yes, but the lower lead quality stand out by miles.

[ichthyous]

There is less traffic yes, but the lower lead quality stand out by miles.

I always had the more affluent buyers, even until 2023. But I really noticed that changing by November 2023. I started to get buyers stringing me along for weeks. Requesting pricing for more items, changing the sizes, then changing to a different item. Finally they just back out or stop communicating.

I have been selling the same single kind of high-value item since 2003 and I have never seen it even remotely this bad. I have never had so many buyers waste my time and keep going back and forth endlessly because they just don't want to pay the price.

I closed my physical showroom back during the pandemic but still get people trying to book appointments. It's very clear that they just want something to entertain them, so they think that coming to my space will be fun...they have no intention of purchasing anything at all. That is why many of the retail locations in my niche have closed...no real buyers coming in. It is somewhat of a generational shift too I think...older (Boomer / GenX) had the money to purchase. Millennials and GenZ want the same items for a pittance and it's not possible.

[Dooku]

There is also the massive investment needed to service millions or billions of queries every day

People simply do not understand how extensive the infrastructure of google is around the world:
[en.wikipedia.org...]
Please note that the above list is incomplete, and many datacenters of google contain thousands, some tens of thousands of servers.

I do not consider ANY of the other search engines even a search engine, their data comes from either google or Bing anyway.....they are just a spec of dust compared to google. Google have nothing to fear at all. That is the reason why google went from a "for lack of better" to an "immoral bunch" to an "outright criminal gang" company.

@Brightstone, that is some freaky sh|t right there.....obviously they are testing something...but what?

@Mischa and Ichtyous, if you use google tools like GA on this scale:
[w3techs.com...]
Then it's very easy for google to direct ANY traffic to profit themselves instead of your website. It's like handing over all your most valuable CRM info to your competitor and than actin surprised why they have put you out of business!

[Micha]

@Dooku I use Matomo and GoAccess, the sites I manage have no connection with Google scripts (the only exception is the Merchant Center for this one store)

[ronron]

"Is anyone noticing a huge drop in external backlink count from real, high-DA domains on GSC? Google dropped over 1,000 links in one shot, leaving the crap .id site links (that I have blocked in my disavow file) intact, and instead removing links from very high-quality / high domain authority sites.

Is Google zapping valid links now or is it just not indexing the content anymore, so the links are dropping off? Could it be that once Google includes the page in its AI dataset that it no longer intends to keep the page in the live index?"

Just checked and my total backlinks today has dropped ~60%.

Was consistent for months prior.

[jchiff]

To sum up the latest SEO wisdom:

- Write more compelling copy, or maybe not
- Strengthen your trust score, or maybe not
- Develop your brand, or maybe not
- Wait until the next update (bingo)

In August, a major update usually coincides with the holiday season kick-off, although who knows how it will play out this year. Steady as she goes.

[Dooku]

Easy way to search using the "Web" filter in google:
[udm14.com...]

[ichthyous]

@Mischa and Ichtyous, if you use google tools like GA on this scale:
[w3techs.com...]
Then it's very easy for google to direct ANY traffic to profit themselves instead of your website. It's like handing over all your most valuable CRM info to your competitor and than actin surprised why they have put you out of business!

Haven't used GA in years...don't want Google having access to my site analytics. I don't miss it at all. I highly recommend that everyone remove GA from their sites.

[superclown2]

Is anyone noticing a huge drop in external backlink count from real, high-DA domains on GSC?

I often wonder if links are all that important now - or is it clicks to our sites via those links that count? I read a claim during the trial by a Google employee that number of click to a site was all that really matters. Any thoughts?

[Shepherd]

number of click to a site

That would be full circle, back to a time when links were how we discovered the web.

I hear it all the time from "link builders", we can get you "links from high DA, PR, UR, ..." but ask them if they can get you links that send traffic and it's crickets and nervous laughter.

[Dooku]

Google employee that number of click to a site was all that really matters

The usual BS, what is displayed in search console for links is also BS.
The only metrics you need to look at are your rankings and traffic, the same for your competitors but only to check the differences between your and their pages.

@Ichtyous and Micha, my wordings were not clear about GA, sorry. I meant that this tool is used on such a large scale that(url ref) that we see the results now in the serps. I did not mean by you two particularly.

@Ronron, see my comment above about external links. I have noticed the same on several of my websites but also on many client websites of a friend of mine who operates an seo agency. He doesn't give any sh|t about the links section in search console.

[Micha]

Any thoughts?

Yes, it comes from Google, so this statement cannot be believed.

[ichthyous]

I often wonder if links are all that important now - or is it clicks to our sites via those links that count? I read a claim during the trial by a Google employee that number of click to a site was all that really matters. Any thoughts?

If Google is going to wipe out entire swaths of links from high-DA sites for no reason then it appears that they are either A) trying to obfuscate the true link count to convince us that links are no longer important, B) not bothering to index those pages anymore so the links are dropping off, or perhaps C) devaluing masses of links from the same site...in other words, discounting your links if you have too many from the same domain. I have thousands of links coming from some domains, and those are what got reduced the most. I do find it odd that Google ignores my disavow file and continues to count and report links from what are blatantly spam sites though.

[superclown2]

Yes, it comes from Google, so this statement cannot be believed.

If this was an official statement I would agree absolutely. But it came from a former employee His actual comment was:

"Pretty much everyone knows we’re using clicks in rankings. That’s the debate: ‘Why are you trying to obscure this issue if everyone knows?"

So, is that link from a high ranking site whose content has nothing to do with your site really worthwhile, or is it possible even a liability? Or is a link from a much smaller site that actually sends you a bit of traffic far more valuable?

Fortunes are spent on links by SEOers and I am seriously wondering if much of this is wasted. Has anyone done any research?

[oldog]

Jump off from a bridge and eat Rocks ! This is Google AI :-)
[theguardian.com...]

[oldog]

Game Over for 99% of websites......

"The announcement that AI overviews would appear before traditional search results immediately sparked concern among publishers that it would devastate traffic coming to their sites from Google – which many are heavily reliant upon for advertising revenue – if people no longer need to click through to links to find the information they are looking for.

While Google has argued that the overview is “taking more of the legwork out of searching”, the company said links included in AI overviews get more clicks than if it had just appeared as a regular search result.

Google said it would “continue to focus on sending valuable traffic to publishers and creators”.( we are laughing out loud) .....
Source: the Guardian

[ichthyous]

So, is that link from a high ranking site whose content has nothing to do with your site really worthwhile, or is it possible even a liability? Or is a link from a much smaller site that actually sends you a bit of traffic far more valuable?

In my 20+ years of experience, every single link from a reputable high DA site is worthwhile and should be obtained. Links from random thematically related sites may drive a bit of traffic, but nothing in comparison to the traffic from ranking higher in search...which is why you accumulate the high-powered links to begin with. This model may be somewhat outdated now...Google seems to be sending signals that it intends to devalue our links. But it still remains to be seen, and I wouldn't put it past Google to stop showing us an accurate link count in GSC.

[EditorialGuy]

Re the Guardian article on "Google AI search tool reportedly tells users to jump off a bridge and eat rocks":

The Guardian's Web site now states: "This article was removed on 24 May 2024 because it contained incorrect information."

[shadowlight]

The Guardian's Web site now states: "This article was removed on 24 May 2024 because it contained incorrect information."

You can see the Guardians original article on the waybackmachine.
[web.archive.org ]

I don't think the article was incorrect, I think maybe Google has corrected those particular AI responses and the Guardian has removed the article at the mighty G's request. There are lots of Articles from several news outlets about G's AI telling users to use glue as an ingredient in pizza to stop the cheese falling off and eating rocks etc, amongst others.

Here's an article from sky about G's AI providing inaccurate information:
[msn.com ]

The above article reports that G's AI has also given users the incorrect temperature at which to cook chicken. And contains a response from a Google spokesperson:

"The examples we've seen are generally very uncommon queries, and aren't representative of most people's experiences," said a Google spokesperson to Sky News.

"...we're also using these isolated examples as we continue to refine our systems overall."

Typical G response imo.

[Micha]

I have a question as I am not familiar with US law. Can Google be held legally liable for its AI answers? I mean, what happens if the user follows the advice and gets harmed?

[superclown2]

The above article reports that G's AI has also given users the incorrect temperature at which to cook chicken. And contains a response from a Google spokesperson:

"The examples we've seen are generally very uncommon queries,

That particular query is one that I have made twice myself during the last couple of weeks so I fail to see how it's uncommon since it is one of the most important questions a cook could ask. Salmonella poisoning from undercooked chicken is a very serious matter which is extremely unpleasant and could prove fatal in certain circumstances.

Frankly; until AI is trained on 100% true, unbiased information (which can never happen on one taking it's data from the web) it can never reach the heights of accuracy which Google, misguidedly, thinks it will. The prospects for it being a trusted source of information is far lower than the chance of it becoming a complete laughing stock (which it is not far off already).

This is so obvious that not realising it hardly creates a vote of confidence in Google's top management.

[EditorialGuy]

I have a question as I am not familiar with US law. Can Google be held legally liable for its AI answers?

I've wondered about that myself. Maybe they can try to protect themselves with a TOS cop-out, but one can only hope that taking on the role of publisher (as opposed to pointing users to third-party sites) would leave them vulnerable.

[jchiff]

Giving a whole new meaning to the phrase "Google is killing it."

[bbc.com...]

[superclown2]

Here is my prediction: Google will play 'Whack a Mole' with their Bard2 data until they either abandon using it for 'search' voluntarily or they are forced to because of the trouble their 'hallucinations' cause.

I only hope that no-one dies or is seriously injured before they finally see sense.

[Micha]

I only hope that no-one dies or is seriously injured before they finally see sense.

Someone is going to get hurt, we're talking about people here, and it only takes one kid to read and try this nonsense, so it's only a matter of time. But I'm willing to bet the following will happen: Google will deny everything, accuse the actual author of the text and confirm that its AI also sometimes copies texts 1 to 1.

By the way, I don't think Google will change anything, because all the managers of the company want AI because you have to serve the dollar signs in the eyes of the investors and believe that this is the only way. The hype around AI is extremely high, especially on the stock market, and if Google doesn't play along, investors will be quick to say "Google is no longer innovating".

Nobody is interested in what happens outside the stock market. You can see that very clearly in the interviews of the last few days: "People want AI", "Website operators get more clicks" and so on.

There won't be more clicks, but fewer, as anyone in their right mind knows. And as for "people want AI", surveys around the world show that many people are skeptical, and Google Trends also shows this, because it's not for nothing that "how do I turn off AI search" is currently trending?

In my opinion, Google managers are on the wrong track, because every good manager knows: yes, a hype should be served, but not like this, because a hype tends to die down very quickly. Putting a company's reputation at risk in this way shows that Sundar Pichai in particular is a bad CEO. He is only pursuing one goal: maximizing profits and completely overlooking the consequences this has for the entire ecosystem and ultimately for Google.

Sorry for the long text, but since I just checked my website, I had to get this out.

[superclown2]

and as for "people want AI", surveys around the world show that many people are skeptical, and Google Trends also shows this, because it's not for nothing that "how do I turn off AI search" is currently trending?

I go to a search engine because I want information from websites, in the same way I used to go to a library to get it from books.

I don't want an instant answer that I can't trust because (a) it could be biased; (b) it may not answer my question properly ; (c) an answer to a question usually leads to further questions which are often covered by specialist websites; and (d) I like to see a range of opinions.

I don't want YouTube videos; I have neither time nor patience to sit through the inevitable ads and exhortations to subscribe to a channel.

I don't want to know what other people ask; I am only interested in what I am asking.

I don't want some of the words removed from my query and be offered results with a 'Missing [search word] label.

I don't want results from the same half dozen mega companies, which have no expertise in anything I am looking for.

In short, I would like the same fast, accurate results that I used to get when Google was a search engine run by dedicated engineers, instead of by Wall Street.

[jr3074]

I go to a search engine because I want information from websites, in the same way I used to go to a library to get it from books.

I don't want an instant answer that I can't trust because (a) it could be biased; (b) it may not answer my question properly ; (c) an answer to a question usually leads to further questions which are often covered by specialist websites; and (d) I like to see a range of opinions.

I don't want YouTube videos; I have neither time nor patience to sit through the inevitable ads and exhortations to subscribe to a channel.

I don't want to know what other people ask; I am only interested in what I am asking.

I don't want some of the words removed from my query and be offered results with a 'Missing [search word] label.

I don't want results from the same half dozen mega companies, which have no expertise in anything I am looking for.

In short, I would like the same fast, accurate results that I used to get when Google was a search engine run by dedicated engineers, instead of by Wall Street.

Google is a search engine. It's not a social media specialist like Google+ competing with Facebook. It also doesn't seem to be an AI specialist competing with OpenAI.

[christianz]

@superclown2

You are not getting anything you want, because, with SGE, Google is now fully en#*$!ified.

[NeapTide]

Regarding Backlinks Decrease: Yes Google is now reducing external backlinks count coming from good DA/PA websites but they are not bothering to remove spam links coming from trash websites. To get rid of spammy backlinks I have now deleted 5 pages that got most spammy links. 2 of them are now removed and 3 of them are yet to be crawled and removed.
Google did not crawl Disavowed link files since months. I submitted it several months ago but none of the backlinks are disavowed. Removing pages with most spammy links myself as a last resort now.

Regarding SEOs making fun of publishers: I am active on twitter where I found several SEOs making fun of publishers that their websites are bad and so should be removed. I just opened personal website of 1 SEO that has worst layout on mobile , took its screenshot and shamed him that actually your own website is bad and should be removed from internet. He went silent. Same kind of psychos are now working in Google who would tell publishers their websites are bad yet their own Google search is worst these days

Regarding AI: Daylight robbers stealing website data by hook or by crook and their AI plagiarizing it and displaying it like an authority. "Use glue to stick cheese with Pizza", "cook chicken at 38C", "fruits ending with am like applam, peacham, melonam" and so on. AI can be a good plagiarizer but never be an alternate of human intelligence. Even those AI generated videos, you can easily catch them they are fake by looking at the characters strange movements. AI generated images are often too smooth and leave mistakes that could be caught that it's AI generated.

ChatGPT trainer on X telling people it wrote Tetris in python all its own: I searched on github and found exact matching tetris game code in python that chatgpt stole from, made some custom changes as commanded like changing block sizes and their colors and presented it like it wrote entire game all on its own. People promoting such plagiarizing tools should be ashamed of themselves. All these AI tools are trained on content made by real human being. AI is nothing without human generated contents.

[edited by: NeapTide at 12:51 pm (utc) on May 25, 2024]

[superclown2]

You are not getting anything you want, because, with SGE, Google is now fully en#*$!ified.

It seems the BBC may well agree [bbc.com ]

Roll on the day when we can search for something more than nonstop ads, AI generated unreliable junk, major publishers with no expertise in the subjects they write about, Reddit and Quora; and find specialist sites than can actually answer our queries.

Those phone manufacturers and browser creators who accept Google's mammoth payouts because they are 'The Best' need to look at what this once excellent company has now become.

[edited by: superclown2 at 12:52 pm (utc) on May 25, 2024]

[RedBar]

DDG is down now here in London; overloaded servers perhaps?

I have been having this issue with DDG for several months now in my office however not so much when roaming on mobile.

It's a holiday weekend here in the UK, I think the same in the USA, traffic across my sites is very low including the hotel, the town is dead!