June 2024 Google Search Observations

[NeapTide]

That's how google is disguising ads in Generative AI results. They are not even labelling them ads anymore. Pure day light robbery of user generated content and plagiarizing that with ads for their own gain.

[drive.google.com ]

[edited by: not2easy at 4:57 pm (utc) on Jun 1, 2024]
[edit reason] new month, new thread [/edit]

[Micha]

@ichthyous Do you use WordPress? With the last update, the “lastmod date element” was added, which should be quite helpful according to Google. If you are using WP, this may be the reason

[tom_010101]

Hi @Micha,

How can I test this lastmod date for sitemaps to see if it is active and working for me?

[Conro]

@tom_010101 go to domainame/wp-sitemap.xml and open the sitemap

[Micha]

@tom_010101 If the URL from Conro does not work, then it is sitemap_index.xml and then open a post sitemap there.

[not2easy]

The URL to look for is the one you put in your robots.txt file.

[sk7411]

After a superb record breaking traffic , we have been dropping since yesterday!

[Conro]

If you are using the wordpress sitemap you must use /wp-sitemap.xml. Of course it's useful to Google, so if a site didn't have publication and modification dates, now Google will be able to more easily find older pages and deindex or demote them. Google just wants fresh stuff for its AI, the rest has already been crawled and assimilated

[christianz]

Weak traffic today and in general since June 4th / late June 3rd.

[Shepherd]

Have a travel related website affected negatively by google updates? Not to worry, the public is being served.

google Travel now ranking in the number 1 spot for "travel" AND "flights". Someone at google Travel must have access to the current "ranking factors" not that stinky old list that was leaked not too long ago.

They are even trying to rebrand the word "flights" to "google flights".

There are still good people at google. Unfortunately I don't think there are enough to mount a successful rebellion or alternative.

[superclown2]

google Travel now ranking in the number 1 spot for "travel" AND "flights"

What are they thinking of? They have already been fined heavily on this side of the pond for favouring their own services like this. Are they so contemptuous of legislation?

[Fluff_Nutz]

This is why I often get the feeling that Google are above the law. They are continuously toying with the authorities. They know they do wrong but don't care. Greed has blinded them MASSIVELY. But who can blame them when all it ever comes to is a fine and a slapped wrist? They make more money than some third-world countries. They (and we) need proper action before anything comes to an end, alas it never comes. If it does it will be really slow, too damn slow for most sites. Sad really.

Traffic over here is so inconsistent yet again. Was up by 10% the previous day and now I'm down by -25%. Waaay too much fluctuation. This is the problem and what makes this no longer fun. You cannot say its all down to competition neither. Although I am in a highly competitive niche I was doing just fine when I first started out, the competition won't have changed that much in those short few years to warrant a -90% drop since then. The ranking system is so rigged and its toxic.

The American government and law authorities are an embarrassment. To let so much criminal activity escape undeterred. It's not just Google neither. Amazon too. All of which are American monopolies.

[Conro]

Yes, every day the fluctuations are crazy. Forums are getting higher and higher, even the pages of companies, it doesn't matter if they are sites that do not respond to the query or if they are 10-year-old threads that are out of date, the important thing is that they take traffic away from small sites. However, I also see big sites that are losing traffic, honestly I don't know who will remain, except for random sites that will be randomly put to answer queries.

[Shepherd]

google is unlikely to change for the better willingly due to their duty to shareholders.

Governments are also likely to be unable or unwilling to affect change.

An uprising from within by the few employees left with a conscience is feasible but unlikely. Even if it occurred, google would likely quash it quickly.

An even more unlikely scenario is an organization of content creators banding together to undermine google. This approach, however, would have the highest likelihood of success. google is aware of this, which is why they are setting up deals with platforms like Reddit.

[superclown2]

google is aware of this, which is why they are setting up deals with platforms like Reddit.

They may have set up a deal with reddit but they have no deal with the people who create the contents of reddit. A lot of them are pretty hacked off that Google now assumes it belongs to them.

[jchiff]

I think it's pretty clear by now who rules, and with little accountability:

Tesla self-driving cars, Boeing aircraft, and ... Google AI. Deep breaths everybody.

[Conro]

Today - 26% of traffic. I'm down below 1000 visitors a day. I was reviewing the articles, I reviewed a hundred, but the traffic is still going down. What's the point? Between AI applications that come out one a week and Google rewarding the brand and no longer the content, it all seems like a waste of time to me now

[ichthyous]

"One of the pages where the text vanished jumped up 40+ spots"

I would guess it is simply google seeing the page change, random shuffling and gathering data.

@Shepherd I don't think so it has remained high ever since. I am testing with the text off the page to see if it remains in the higher position. If so, I will try it with some other pages. Perhaps some sort of over-optimization penalty is triggered here?

[Micha]

I feel today the same way about google traffic as everyone else here: it's shrinking and shrinking and now it's shrinking a lot again. But measures continue to work very well, which can be seen again today, meanwhile the number of visitors is rising again, even today, when Google is almost dead again.

@jchiff I'm a sci-fi fan, but what you're describing makes me fear that Terminator wasn't fiction after all ...

[Samsam1978]

<snip>
Also I am down 13% in May! Hoping AI overviews has been reduced a little what do you guys think?

[edited by: not2easy at 11:52 am (utc) on Jun 7, 2024]
[edit reason] Please see TOS [webmasterworld.com] [/edit]

[Samsam1978]

@NeapTide - Maybe that is why they went to CPM so the click through does not matter --- just so the ad is seen. Cut out the middle man which is us.

[jchiff]

@Micha, I didn't mean to sound too dark. I think Tesla, Boeing, Google and others will be held accountable in their turn. By the government? Not so much.

[Dooku]

Some of you might know the state of affairs at the seroundtable forums towards google.
But now I noticed people also informing everyone that they will let their (entire) domain(s) portfolio expire and also probably not renew some of their hosting accounts. That's a pretty clear picture of what is happening because of google's greed.

It also explains probably the large increase I see in "seo" related spam emails I and others are receiving.
Nothing will change unless the European Union informs google to either pay up on their total of almost 9 Billion Euro in fines or have google blocked or kicked out just like the Chinese government did. I am willing to bet a large sum of money in that case google will transfer the entire sum next day!

Google lost 2.3% market share in one year, which is actually a BIG amount....and they know it. But things are now moving faster than ever in the SERPS with google adding AI overviews on top of their other "widgets". It's quite possible at some time we will reach a point that people just do not want to wander through the google swamp any more and will leave in droves in search of an easier to use and navigate search engine...whatever that may be.

[Markedd]

@Dooku I let three domains expire already and will let the main website that brought up to 10K USD a month last year to expire as well at the end of this year since I already paid for the hosting.

[RedBar]

I was just checking my traffic stats and initially thought that they were running low until I compared them to 2022 and 2023 and I am, in fact, ahead by some 12+%. Plus, to my surprise, so far this year my USA average traffic levels have been remarkably consistent and I certainly wouldn't have bet on that!

[ichthyous]

Since Monday I have had a reversion to more normal traffic, and a bounce back to parts of the site that had been hammered since before Memorial Day. That coincided with the links disappearing, and now those are mostly back as well, although the count is still lower.

I am getting calls and inquiries via the site, but they are still fairly low value and non-converting customers. One even scolded me for daring to send a price quote that was 20x his delusionally low budget. I had deleted his first inquiry without responding, then he came back two weeks later and inquired again and was vague so I responded. At this point I just look for any sign that they are delusional in their price expectations and get rid of them...and that is not normal for me, nor do I consider it good business practice, but I can't spend my days handholding losers. Until about 4th quarter of 2023 I was having much more viable clientele with money...then it all just turned to sh^t overnight.

[ichthyous]

Google lost 2.3% market share in one year, which is actually a BIG amount....and they know it. But things are now moving faster than ever in the SERPS with google adding AI overviews on top of their other "widgets". It's quite possible at some time we will reach a point that people just do not want to wander through the google swamp any more and will leave in droves in search of an easier to use and navigate search engine...whatever that may be.

Let us not fool ourselves here...Google is still a monopoly and people are not rushing to leave Google search. Bing is equally as messy, and has minimal market share. I do not believe the entire world will run to convert to AI search, but Google will continue to ram it down their throats by putting it at the top of search. This is still the testing phase...perhaps people will prefer that and perhaps they won't. I do think that sites like Perplexity will gain share, and thankfully they include links to the source.

The truth is a lot of those people just accepting whatever is given to them in the AI overview blurb at the top of the page were never going to dig too deeply for answers anyway. It's the ones who continue past the AI overview who are serious. If your business model was dependent on getting a huge stream of shallow visitors hitting your 1,000,000 cloned articles then you are finished. Those days are over forever. Move on, change strategy as AI is probably going to wipe you out. I think the web is going to be smaller, but perhaps higher quality as the content farms get taken out.

[EditorialGuy]

But now I noticed people also informing everyone that they will let their (entire) domain(s) portfolio expire and also probably not renew some of their hosting accounts. That's a pretty clear picture of what is happening because of google's greed.

In some cases, it may simply be that the business model of "create a lot of Web sites ad populate them with keyword-driven content" may not be effective anymore. That isn't necessarily a bad thing for the Web and for users. (Addendum: I just saw a post on SEO Roundtable where a commenter claimed to have--get this--1,200 Web sites. It's hard to see how that could be effective as a long-term publishing and revenue strategy.)

As for Google's greed, that may be part of it, but it's also worth remembering that Google has a long history of beta testing in public. The sheer volume of AI-driven spam that's flooding the Web isn't helping matters, either. I'd be all in favor of Google waiting 30, 60, or even 90 days to index new sites, just to discourage the instant-gratification crowd, but maybe there are good reasons why Google hasn't taken that approach.

[edited by: EditorialGuy at 4:48 pm (utc) on Jun 7, 2024]

[christianz]

Worst traffic I have seen in a while. Both for my HCU boosted and HCU demoted sites.

[Conro]

Yes, there is quite a drop not only because of the algorithms, but also because of the launch of the Gemini app in my case. We've pretty much got everything against us

[ichthyous]

In some cases, it may simply be that the business model of "create a lot of Web sites ad populate them with keyword-driven content" may not be effective anymore. That isn't necessarily a bad thing for the Web and for users.

Exactly, as I also commented in the post directly above yours. Those types of sites capitalized on SEO, but added no real value to the internet. Now perhaps sites which originate more unique content will be rewarded, but I wouldn't bet on it. In a world dominated by nothing but monopolies they will always manage to accrue all the benefit to themselves. But perhaps Google is realizing just a small bit that they cannot kill off all the geese laying the golden eggs and still have a product themselves.

[EditorialGuy]

But perhaps Google is realizing just a small bit that they cannot kill off all the geese laying the golden eggs and still have a product themselves

I don't know what to think. On the one hand, Google seems to be in full machete mode with is approach to private (as opposed to corporate) information sites. On the other, Google is demonstrably investing time and money in trying to make search better. (Author entities come to mind.)

Is the current "Populate the SERPs with Reddit threads and Forbes content" a placeholder approach to keep spammers at bay until better solutions are found? (I can't help thinking back to the days when Wikipedia and TripAdvisor seemed to rank high for everything.) The folks who run Google may or may not be greedy, but they can't be naive enough to think the current SERPs are up to snuff.

[christianz]

I just saw a post on SEO Roundtable where a commenter claimed to have--get this--1,200 Web sites.

I looked at my crystal ball and did some psychic analysis about his Web sites:

When you subtract fully automatically re-spun sites that are duplicates of some other sites of his you get 600.
When you subtract sites that almost exactly cover the same topics that some of his other sites you get 300.
When you subtract sites that are scraping and rewriting other authors website content you get 150.
When you subtract sites that have little to no added value and merely rehash facts available in other places you get just 9.
When you only take sites that he has real topical expertise and real enthusiasm about you get 1 or 2.

This is your average 1200 website owner.

[Fluff_Nutz]

Oh joy. I have just been notified by Mediavine that I am apparently using AI. So is millions of others if I am not mistaken. Problem is I am not using AI for my articles and neither are my writers. I did create an AI account months back but never actually bothered with it. I write everything from experience as I am passionate about my chosen subject. I do not need to cheat and use AI. Essentially becoming part of the problem we now face. So my time at Mediavine looks to be ending rather soon.

I'd assume that people are lashing out and accusing others to decrease competition. That on top of Google's current shenanigans is enough to make me quit the website altogether. My hosting plan is due for renewal next month, I'm likely to cancel that like so many others. Wish I never started the website to be honest. Fun at first but after that the stress and hassle is not worth it.

[Conro]

Even if they were written with artificial intelligence, what's the problem? All big tech companies are aiming for LLM spinners. By now we are ridiculous, they basically want to shut down all the sites and let only a few big tech control the information

[Micha]

@EditorialGuy

The folks who run Google may or may not be greedy, but they can't be naive enough to think the current SERPs are up to snuff.

They are not naive, but the management wants to maximize sales. When something like this gets rolling, you often lose sight of the essentials of the product. Of course, the specialists who work directly on the algorithm know better, but they have to follow management's lead.

I personally believe that many at Google believe that they are helping users in this way and those who have realized that the path is not so good at the moment because criticism is increasing probably can't change anything.


And some more reading material, who would have thought it, an AI copies content.

[forbes.com ]

[EditorialGuy]

SEO spam of the day:

I just got offered a chef's knife in exchange for a backlink to the knife company's site. I guess that's the cutting edge of spammy link-building..

[Conro]

So for keywords where I answer queries I've lost positions, while I've gained where my site has nothing to do with the query. Years and years of hard work by Google's engineers to get sites that responded perfectly to queries and then became like the worst search engines completely messed up

[Micha]

@EditorialGuy I counter with pots, a universal translator and my highlight so far: fishnet stockings. (and that was just this week)

So general question, according to Search Console the number of indexed pages for me has risen again after falling sharply in recent weeks. Has anyone else noticed this?

[RubicCubed]

I haven't been around much since I lost a lot of interest in Google. They seem to be on their death bed despite what speculative stock markets think. There's been more volatility the past couple days and further destruction in Google's SERPS, making it near impossible to find anything. Is there anyone competent who still works there? Thankfully the other search engines are making more sales for us because Google is just plain rubbish.

[universenet]

Google want maximum remove publishers in the name of biggest possible price of ads in Google search, google does not want share profit with anybody, even does not want give their applications cheap, this is why using google maps price gone in sky, , Google want eliminate small but big companies too , all in the name for biggest possible profit over Google search only, soon we can expect that all free applications like emails , storage and similar will be available just for pay and AI will be full possible using only for someone who want pay monthly similar like for Netflix

[Dooku]

Most of the members will have heard about the blog post on HouseFres(dot)com how google is killing their website and other small companies.
The owner has posted a very interesting UPDATE on the downright abhorrant methods of large publishing companies, and it's VERY DISTURBING:
[housefresh.com...]

[sk7411]

They are onto something , dropping since a few days!

[ichthyous]

The HouseFresh article is very informative, but it's not anything we all didn't suspect already. Google can easily destroy these tactics but doesn't want to...these companies are a huge revenue stream for them. They are working hand in hand in a tacit, unspoken agreement. It will take government intervention to clean it up. Either that, or people will get so sick of the poor quality of the articles returned and they'll lose market share...that doesn't seem to be happening fast enough.

[EditorialGuy]

The HouseFresh article is very informative, but it's not anything we all didn't suspect already.

I confess to having been unaware that "content swarming" was an actual strategy, and many of the specifics in the article were illuminating to me. So thanks, Dooku, for sharing the link!

[Micha]

TheHouseofFresh is unfortunately a good example of how Google and large publishers are cracking down on small websites. Publishers always come up with “content swarming” when they realize that a website with a certain topic is successful. This can be observed time and time again.

Now to my website: After a pretty bad Friday and Saturday, Sunday was very strong and my stats are already showing good numbers this morning. (I'm only talking about Google traffic). What I find interesting is that, according to Search Console, I had more impressions on Saturday than I've had for a long time, but very few clicks.

And as for the store, exactly the same: hardly any sales on Friday, dead on Saturday, record sales on Sunday.

[tom_010101]

Micha, then we can only congratulate you. For me, every day is worse than the day before, and that has been the case since August 2023. I will probably end my self-employment at the end of the summer after 22 years.

[superclown2]

I confess to having been unaware that "content swarming" was an actual strategy,

I would be careful with this. Google are supposed to prefer sites that stick to their main subject so if yours is about green gerbils and you start a section on unicorn insurance maybe it could cause you damage (unless you pay a fortune for Google ads of course).

[Micha]

@tom It's also a hell of a lot of work. However, what my team and I do is not witchcraft, but can also be easily implemented on other websites. I've already listed a few things for you, but I'd be happy to send you everything in detail again. You are also welcome to come to my team chat and see how we work. Maybe that will help you find a way for yourself. And as far as implementation is concerned, I offer you my help.

One thing is important though: if you've been running a website for years, you become rigid because it works. We are now in a phase where everything is changing and it no longer works, so you have to be prepared to break new ground. And very importantly, you can't get stuck on Google. Yes, G is important, but market leader or not, there are other sources and you have to use them.

We didn't do anything differently with my magazine. The bottom line is: we are becoming more independent of Google, because our figures are now stable, even when Google traffic is bad, like on Friday or Saturday. And I only look at Google on the side (and to be honest: that's a relief after the stress of the last few months)

[RedBar]

Ok, many may not like this however I tried reading that housefresh article and got bored, apart from Forbes I had not heard of any of the other business / sites mentioned. Is this because I don't take any personal interest in the US market these days, possibly.

For me all these aggressive take-overs and out-doing each other has been going on all my business life, since the 60s, and are typical of societies with so-called highly-educated people trying to get rich quick and prove their worth and value to someone without actually doing any productive work ... It's all speculation and in many cases running a supposed business on as much debt it can acquire meanwhile paying themselves phenomenal amounts of money.

If these shenanigans are having any effect on your business that's unfortunate but is this affect solely as an affiliate marketing site trying to earn a sales commission or as a real-world producer with real-world products?

Breaking news for those who have not yet realised. These sites are, for many, the new High Street, the new classified ads, the attempted eyeball and listening collectors, the attempted new marketeers trying to use www search manipulations as their tools.

Some will survive, many will die.

[ichthyous]

And as for the store, exactly the same: hardly any sales on Friday, dead on Saturday, record sales on Sunday.

Traffic was well under trend from around April 21st through June 5th for me. From the 5th to today traffic snapped back to normal, and even fairly strong. I am getting inquiries and calls, but the customers still aren't purchasing...they have low budgets. Still, at least its better than no traffic and no inquiries like the prior 6 weeks. I won't take it for granted, I am still looking at ways to diversify away from Google asap.