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]

[NeapTide]

Has anyone else checked their Google Search Console and see all backlinks gone? I have 1 website that merely had 40 - 50 backlinks and they were normal backlinks and not even spammy and they are all gone. External Links showing "0" and Top Linked Pages = No Data.

I never submitted Disavow file ever for this website.

On another websites. even authority backlinks from top websites are gone.

What's going on? Instead of removing crappy backlinks, Google is removing all good backlinks from popular forums, quora etc as well.

[Fluff_Nutz]

It is technically slave labour. They need our content to scrape and use for their own income, yet we get nothing in return, of course. Every day now, for the past month or so, the traffic from Google has been a drop of anywhere between 10-30%. I have gone from getting 4,000 views per day to a mere 100. It's business sure but its also livelihoods. Going from a service of 25yr+ to now changing it and ruining countless lives. Destroying their own reputation. Why did they not just create something new? I mean the leak is enough proof that a lot of sites were never going anywhere. Now, what they are doing seals it.

On a personal note I was, sigh, hoping to use the revenue gained from the site and use it to pay off the mortgage. It was great at first and I never suspected a thing. Using the site to pay off the mortgage was, indeed, possible. Now, just this minute, I have had to see my father's car been driven away in order to help pay the mortgage. We are now relying on public transport. I wanted to help him but because of Google all plans went through the window. I now get barely any revenue from the site and I hope the company eventually rots, no one will miss them.

[Cyril TechWebsites]

Alphabet stocks are falling in price and stopped rising. Those of you who still receive some amount of traffic from Google — prepare yourself. In the nearest update they will vanish your websites from the SERPs absolutely to please shareholders.

[Dooku]

@Neaptide

see all backlinks gone?

There is a fresh few hours old Reddit thread about this same issue, many people complaining about wiped out external backlinks.
However, it might be just a bug, SC is broken, maybe google just using a whole different method to calculate and disply links...whatever, it's all speculation, but it's prevalent at many websites.

[superclown2]

Over here Forbes or Quota sit at the top of nearly every major search term in certain verticals, not just in Google but Bing and Duck too.

These sites are just affiliates They have no specialist expertise whatsoever. What happened to EAT?

[ichthyous]

Alphabet stocks are falling in price and stopped rising. Those of you who still receive some amount of traffic from Google — prepare yourself. In the nearest update they will vanish your websites from the SERPs absolutely to please shareholders.

Alphabet has risen plenty since 2023, I bought shares several times and it has done well. I figure if you can't beat 'em join 'em.

My traffic plummets every single day now at 8-9am...both usa and uk. It doesn't pick up again except for a small spike in the afternoon if I am lucky. Overall search traffic is down about 10-15% so the difference must be international traffic from useless places that don't convert. They aren't useless, just useless in terms of conversions for me!

[londrum]

I've just been looking at all the SEMrush charts for my competitors and every single one shows the same pattern... gradual decline over two years and bigger drops around Sep 2023 and Mar 2023. It's literally the same for all of us. We're all travel affiliates, but we all have original content, original photography, our own videos.
There's nothing you can do when every major player in the sector is hit, there's no recovering from it. google has taken over the traffic and sent all the users with buying intent through their ads or other properties

[saladtosser]

My friends, my fellow webmasters! I have never seen hate of Google across all social networks like this before: Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and forums! I'm old enough to remember the community made Google by promoting them to friends/family and users of our sites back in the day, (i had a banner on my site freely promoting them way back when); they have used and abused us and plan to abuse us further, this is just the very beginning!

The community, (you, fellow webmasters) have a chance to break them (maybe the only chance) by working together, spread the words to all, vote with your feet, remove Google Chrome, Gmail and search now, tell everyone what they are doing to the internet and get them to switch! Bring back the old Google or just sod off, and please take the PR team with you, they have outstayed their welcome and are more redundant than our websites! #dontUseGoogle

I've transferred my email from gmail to another service ($290 a year) and moved my website from google hosting ($250 a month), deleted chrome and the only time I use google is to check rankings (and have a little click of other peoples ads haha), Cloudflare or azure for analytics and went to mediavine because AdWords gets me about a $1.50 per K and mediavine gets me $15-20 for every k visitor nowadays, sorry Google, you used to be cool but you got fat, old and don't put out anymore, like my ex wife, and like with her I stayed faithful..she, like you left me! I just didn't take her back when the new guy didn't work out and BEGGED me back, Ill try to take you back Google, if you change your ways, but trust needs to be earned! Therapy over!

[Micha]

@saladtosser The good old days of Google are long gone and it's no wonder many webmasters are upset.

I think you're right, but let's face it, so many website owners are stuck in Google's ecosystem and rely on what the company says. Plus, they don't inform themselves. A handful of sites kicking Google out won't be enough, and there won't be any more.

But it's not so easy to escape the Google universe beyond the websites; with Android alone, Google gets enough data to keep playing its game. So the company will continue to rage and we will continue to suffer.

[NeapTide]

Currently I am paying for 2 hosting servers one shared and another dedicated server. Since I am now making pennies, I will have to shutdown dedicated server that was hosting all large downloadable files. I am thinking about moving them to parasite's paid Drive (Google drive) . It will be a lot of work to upload all data and relink it with but Google drive is very very cheap.

[superclown2]

It will be a lot of work to upload all data and relink it with but Google drive is very very cheap.

So you give them access to everything; your name, address , login codes, credit card details, name of your favourite pet, town you was born in, and full access to your website data. Personally I'd rather pay double somewhere else than pay them a penny.

[Dooku]

@Neaptide, also check out pcloud.com, even cheaper, works very well (I am using this also).
You can select to have your files located on a server in USA or in Europe.

[jchiff]

A little early morning gallows humor with a supercut of Google AI's greatest hits. So far.

[boredpanda.com...]

[Dooku]

By far the best rant about google I have seen until today LOL:
[youtube.com...]

[Markedd]

@Dooku Yeah, I noticed a lot of buzzing in the media, but it doesn't seem that Google cares or is impacted at all. They move forward with their plan and use their monopoly status to get away with anything. Probably betting on subject fatigue. Give it a couple of weeks and it should completely go away.

[ichthyous]

Yeah, I noticed a lot of buzzing in the media, but it doesn't seem that Google cares or is impacted at all. They move forward with their plan and use their monopoly status to get away with anything. Probably betting on subject fatigue. Give it a couple of weeks and it should completely go away.

This has always been a matter of numbers...a relatively small (and not very influential) number of people/businesses has been affected by Google's decimation of small and medium-sized websites. Now the carnage is spreading...large media sites, e-commerce, and publishers are all feeling the pain.

Google is a true monopoly but it has taken time for enough stakeholders to be adversely affected to such an extent that attention is finally being paid to the problem. It's not going away...Google's share price and quarterly revenue increases are dependent on this cannibalization of its old search business. The company has made its bed, now comes the backlash and it might result in a lot more people waking up and realizing that the a very substantial portion of the modern economy is captured by just a few monopolies. Only governments can break that, and a consensus is forming on both the left and the right (in USA) to do so from what I am reading. Once it becomes politically advantageous for both the left and the right to bash tech monopolies their days are numbered in terms of maintaining the current level of domination over the economy. We have basically become serfs to these monopolies and to their owners, who all need to be taken down a few pegs.

[Micha]

And now Google News is also down and I was wondering why the traffic from there has gone to its knees.

[Cyril TechWebsites]

@Ichtyous

Only governments can break that, and a consensus is forming on both the left and the right (in USA) to do so from what I am reading.

Can you share some details? Why do you think that some politicans are already familiar with the situation? Why do you think they are forming consensus?

[sofie77]

Today, there was a very significant update, at least in my niche (medicine), which catapulted the big players to the forefront. This is the steepest decline in years. I haven't seen such changes with any core update. Moz Weather is also at the highest point since March.

[l1fejosh]

Is there anyone else having indexing issues lately? It's been working seamlessly up until today...just seeing if others are experiencing indexing issues.

[NeapTide]

So you give them access to everything; your name, address , login codes, credit card details, name of your favourite pet, town you was born in, and full access to your website data. Personally I'd rather pay double somewhere else than pay them a penny.

@Superclown2

No I am not giving them any full access. I will only upload large files that are 200 MB+ and downloadable.

Besides they got my all data including address and phone number. It is mandatory now for all Android developers. They even took my national ID copy and credit card scanned copy to setup my developer account.

Using Android phone and Google / Facebook / Twitter they are listening to all your conversations and share data with each other to display ads.

That's why if you are talking about something they listen to your conversation and start displaying relevant ads.

If you have given microphone permission to whatsapp, that's enough to turn on your microphone, listen to conversations and share data across all facebook products. That same data is also shared with google privately so that Google could also use and show relevant ads.

There is no privacy left in today's world.

[System]

June's new thread is here: [webmasterworld.com...]

[edited by: not2easy at 5:00 pm (utc) on Jun 1, 2024]
[edit reason] new month, new thread [/edit]