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]

[BigKat]

It would be interesting to read a postmortem. What did it target? What did it filter out? So far, the reaction here and on Search Engine Roundtable has been muted--just the usual complaints about Google, as opposed to reports on what the spam update did or didn't do.

2024 Q2 earnings will close in two days. It's expected that Alphabet/Google will report earnings on July 23, 2024. On that day you should get the postmortem analysis you seek and what it targeted (money for Google) along with what it filtered out (our traffic/revenue). In the meantime, our sales continue to rise from other search engines which gives me confidence a growing number of consumers distrust Google for product discovery and reviews.

[ichthyous]

In the meantime, our sales continue to rise from other search engines which gives me confidence a growing number of consumers distrust Google for product discovery and reviews.

Wish I could say the same...Bing + DDG combined are 3% of my search traffic, an afterthought really. I have not found any real insight on how to approve my ranking in Bing searches, which is well below that of Google. I also hardly think it's worth the effort since they all copy each other. Meanwhile Google is seesawing...very wide swings from day to day and even hour to hour.

[ichthyous]

After examining my traffic for some terms I see that I was ranking #2 for a high volume term for years, but then in early 2023 my site started dropping down to #13, #21, and eventually #52 by May 2024. Now at spot #32.

Other major sites also dropped equally as much, and now the results are mostly info articles about the topic and a couple of small independent local websites that should not have such high national ranking...not ecommerce.

Looking at the sites there doesn't seem to be anything on page that would cause such high ranking. I am wondering if an overoptimization penalty is at play?

Has anyone else seen such an extended and steep drop in ranking for high-volume terms in 2023/2024? It doesn't make sense since my site has a much higher domain authority and many more inbound links. Perhaps the link anchor text is also a factor?

[christianz]

Traffic is not great today. The "not-update" update is causing some damage.

[Treud]

Last update for me was better in a way that I receive more inquiries and the traffic is a little bit better (5%) and seems many of the bot traffic of the last months starts to stop.

I didn’t changed anything but after last major Google update, but added more products (that don’t lead yet to orders) but looks like the overall is improving.

[Conro]

Seo who keep talking about improving rankings, top positions, increasing traffic from google, what problems do they have? Didn't they understand that on top of the organic results there is too much garbage purposely put there by google because it wants to shut down the sites from which it took all the information it needed?

[superclown2]

Didn't they understand that on top of the organic results there is too much garbage purposely put there by google

I'm actually seeing a reduction in this over the last few days. Certainly PAA and PASF are still there but much lower on the page, and I have no doubt that the increase in business We have had over the last few days is a result of that.

Now I don't think for a minute that Google are doing this out of the goodness of their hearts; I wonder if it is being realised at the Plex that they are alienating searchers?

[Conro]

In my case, the keep seeing a serp made on purpose to cancel traffic. From my research done right now I see in the first position paa, youtube, google, people have also searched, google, 2 posts of the Samsung forum that do not solve the problem, Related searches again. Without websites, google and other pseudo-ai's are destined to die, is it a cat that bites its own tail, but they don't realize it or are they just living in the moment? Microsoft's CEO AI statement gave me further confirmation that they have not these companies have no limits, morals and ethics

[Conro]

Another thing that's becoming common: 1 people also ask 2 YouTube 3 people also search 4 5 6 organic 7 people also search for

[christianz]

Yesterday was drop in traffic in all of my sites. Coinciding with semrush spike.

[superclown2]

@Conro I think this could be a country thing. Presumably you are in the USA? I am in the UK and we have a completely different regulatory framework over here. For example, we haven't had any Bard2 (or whatever it's latest name is) and I wonder if we ever will since Europe as a whole is very suspicious of the whole 'artificial intelligence' hysteria; and we have the Digital Marketing Act that is designed to reign in monopolies like Google.

We also don't allow 'lobbying' to influence our lawmakers too much. Not that USA lawmakers are swayed by it of course, perish the thought, but many of the payments and job offers that are made (quite legally and legitimately) in America would cause a scandal over here.

[Conro]

@superclown2 I'm in Italy. However, in the end it is since last year that google has put these zero clicks in the serp, in fact I have always talked about it, the problem is that google continues to de-index, the keywords are less and less every day and the articles that I used to receive each hundreds of visitors, now if it goes well they receive about ten clicks. It's all disheartening, on Semrush I look at competitors' sites and it's the same thing. Only one site I see is increasing traffic, but the keywords are decreasing the same for him every day as well And it's a far cry from the traffic of a year ago

[Conro]

@christianz The same. By now, traffic is more or less stable during updates but collapses after the end of an update

[Micha]

By the way, Google seems to be playing again ... That could explain the back and forth at the moment

[x.com ]

In my case, that would explain why my site has been on the upswing since Friday. Traffic is coming back from Discover and even Saturday (the worst day of the week) was surprisingly good yesterday.
Only the store I'm currently maintaining has come to a complete standstill.

[Conro]

Last year at this time the same happened, now there is never peace

[RubicCubed]

Seo who keep talking about improving rankings, top positions, increasing traffic from google, what problems do they have? Didn't they understand that on top of the organic results there is too much garbage purposely put there by google because it wants to shut down the sites from which it took all the information it needed?

This ^

Google SERPS have become a garbage can overflowing with their own Googlespam. No SEO will rank us above Googlespam, so it's best not to waste time and money on that nonsense. Take it from someone who does rank #1 and right beneath all the Googlespam - the traffic isn't there to generate the revenue needed to justify any future labor/expense. Where we go from here, I do not know. Pass the cost onto consumers is pretty much a given, but even then we can't raise the prices so high to fully recover the traffic Google has stolen.

[Conro]

It's a really bad time, among thieves and scammers it has now become difficult to continue to have trust in the internet. By now the internet had lost this fame but now it is back to a place full of scams and cunning. I read seos that say to diversify traffic so as not to depend on google. Of course, you should turn to them to get great results. Well, a big news site that I was looking at: 69% direct traffic, 24% search engines, 2.6% social media 2% email, 1.3% referrals, The rest is something else. Now I'm not good at math But diversifying traffic doesn't bring search engine traffic even far and this newspaper can afford all the seos it wants. Now I write them to turn to Twitter seo gurus

[ichthyous]

Take it from someone who does rank #1 and right beneath all the Googlespam - the traffic isn't there to generate the revenue needed to justify any future labor/expense. Where we go from here, I do not know. Pass the cost onto consumers is pretty much a given, but even then we can't raise the prices so high to fully recover the traffic Google has stolen.

I have to agree with this unfortunately...my top three ranking terms have surged back. I can't complain about how I rank, but the traffic isn't great...too many days of inexplicably vanishing traffic all the time now. And the quality of the traffic is the real problem. I get practically no good or serious inquiries anymore, they're just junk that doesn't convert. I can't "raise prices to recover the traffic"...my customers want to pay less, not more. There are so few new inquiries that I am slowly dropping prices. My line of business depends on discretionary spending so if there is an economic slowdown it's a double whammy.

[Conro]

@ichthyous Instead of lowering prices, wouldn't it be better to put limited-time offers?

[christianz]

Traffic continues to be really weak today as well. However, so far, since the HCU every drop in traffic has quickly reverted and traffic has been on a "high shelf" at historically high levels.

Will this latest BS finally break this stability or is it just another technical fluctuation that will work itself out?

[ichthyous]

@Conro I sell unique high-priced items so sales don't really move the needle when the economy softens. I did it more often 10 years ago and it didn't really work to increase sales much...it also cheapens the brand if you do it too often. Since my prices are not public I can experiment with different pricing to see if it motivates people, but we aren't talking about huge drops because it costs so much to produce each item...it's all custom work. My vendors are still trying to raise prices on me, and I have had to part ways with vendors to get new lower pricing from new ones. The real problem is a total lack of quality customers.

On another note:

UK traffic is in freefall today...anyone else seeing this?

[RubicCubed]

It's a really bad time, among thieves and scammers it has now become difficult to continue to have trust in the internet.

The biggest thieves and scammers are the search engines themselves - stealing our content and hoarding traffic for themselves. Even the Microsoft AI CEO thinks because our pages are on the open web, our content then becomes freeware which entitles them to take it for their own use. He actually had the brass marbles to say this and you can see the video at: [x.com...]

[edited by: RubicCubed at 6:01 pm (utc) on Jun 30, 2024]

[Conro]

Yes, I've seen, they're shameless. Windows copies + crack now I know are freeware

[RedBar]

UK traffic is in freefall today...anyone else seeing this?

All sorts of stuff happening here today especially sports.

[Dooku]

Yes, I've seen, they're shameless. Windows copies + crack now I know are freeware

Freeware? Social contract? Did this microsoft guy escape from the Rura Penthe Penal Colony?

I paid $40 for NTLite yesterday and have created a cleaned Win11 ISO file by removing ALL the bloatware and tracking sh|t from it.
Then bought original win11 keys online at only a few $ per key (and I do not care where those sellers got them from, but they work).
So now I am installing all my pc's with that version of win11......MS is not getting any $ from me EVER again.

[RubicCubed]

@Dooku

Funny how they want us to pay for what they create yet feel they have a right to take our creations for free. Their loyalty is only to money and not users or for the fair treatment of publishers.

[engine]

RubicCubed, FYI [webmasterworld.com...]

[System]

New thread for July is here: [webmasterworld.com...]

[edited by: not2easy at 1:37 pm (utc) on Jul 1, 2024]
[edit reason] new month, new thread [/edit]