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]

[ichthyous]

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 concensus?

@Cyril This has been widely commented on and published recently in the press here...they are calling it the 'new economic centrism' or new 'economic populism':

[nytimes.com ]
[nytimes.com ]
[cnbc.com ]
[cnbc.com ]

The left and the right are starting to converge on issues of the tech industry's dominance and its effect on the economy, and on the influence of tech billionaires. The right is now adopting traditional left economic positions such as taxing the wealthy, putting up trade barriers to China, raising tariffs, and supporting labor unions. These are all classic ideas from the political left that the right is adopting because MAGA/GOP is mostly becoming a party of working class voters, who favor those policies. It's simply a matter of what their base wants.

Now it could be that they simply are pandering now before the election and then back to the usual MAGA/GOP policies of lower taxes for the wealthy, destruction of the labor unions, etc...but free trade is DOA and there is unanimous support for going after the tech monopolies now.

How quickly that happens (i.e. foot-dragging) and how strong that action is is another matter. The tech industry in USA floods the system with campaign cash, and now the conservative/right-wing/MAGA justices on the Supreme Court have given the green light to even more bribery of elected officials via floods of campaign donations.

The system in the USA has become completely corrupted top to bottom by this notion that secretive PACS set up by billionaires to influence policy are just as entitled to 'free speech' as the average Joe. They aren't, it's just more mumbo-jumbo from the right, like 'Trickle Down Economics', Reganomics, Thatcherism etc...remember those? They have all been catastrophic economic failures.

www.nytimes.com A New Centrism Is Rising in Washington Call it neopopulism: a bipartisan attitude that mistrusts the free-market ethos instead of embracing it.

[RedBar]

My global site's traffic sources all seem to be normal however Friday had 129.8% and so far today after 18 hours 158.8%, a flying start to June!

[jchiff]

Another NYTimes article that may get somebody's attention in DC

[nytimes.com...]

www.nytimes.com Google's A.I. Search Leaves Publishers Scrambling Since Google overhauled its search engine, publishers have tried to assess the danger to their brittle business models while calling for government intervention.

[christianz]

Weak traffic today.

[Micha]

And another day with almost unmeasurable Google traffic. So it seems to be like this every Saturday now.

[Treud]

My Friday tracking is 20% high, what is not a normal trend, but still no orders, very little inquiries….

[Conro]

Hi guys, what have you decided to do with your sites? It's clear that things are going to get worse and worse. What are your plans?

[Micha]

Hi guys, what have you decided to do with your sites? It's clear that things are going to get worse and worse. What are your plans?

I'm in the “lucky” position that AI doesn't play such a big role in my country yet, but I'm preparing for it, that's all I can do. Users need to be connected to the website in a different way. On the one hand, I have my podcasts that help with this, on the other hand, there will soon be a newsletter and an app is in development. The video content on the website is also being expanded, as it is very well received, and I am continuing to expand the social networks. This is already bearing fruit, my numbers have stabilized, but I can't say whether this will lead to growth.

Fortunately, as I have been marketing my advertising space myself for a very long time, I have regular customers, so I don't have to deal with this problem for the time being
The only thing that gives me a headache: I still have no idea what I can do about content theft.

Long story short: prepare for the worst possible future and hope it works out, giving up is not an option for me.

[Dooku]

Hi guys, what have you decided to do with your sites? It's clear that things are going to get worse and worse. What are your plans?

If you sell a product or services for which email marketing is a good match, than I suggest everyone going that route. Even emailing to contact forms is not really that bad. Yes, I know many of you complain about that being spam, but it's NO different than cold calling or cold emailing a business contact PROVIDED you have a really useful product or service then businesses ARE interested. At least that is my experience.

All of the "seo" and "marketing tools" emails get dumped in the trash folder.....but not my emails. Response is good if you know HOW to write a good email to sell your service/product. Think of "solving a problem" for a business....you know what I mean.

So start building your mailing lists if you can, using any method available, like offer discounts with next order, a free sample, free options/plugins etc..etc... in exchange for that email address. Just be creative.

[EditorialGuy]

Hi guys, what have you decided to do with your sites? It's clear that things are going to get worse and worse. What are your plans?

Steady as she goes, at least for the foreseeable future. What's happening now reminds me of Yogi Berra's line about "déjà vu all over again." (Substitute "2011 panda update" for "déjà vu.)

The Web is huge (and full of valuable information), and if Google chooses to retreat into a walled garden, some other company will arrive to fill the void. In the meantime, we'll watch our competitors quit or become stagnant.

[ichthyous]

Hi guys, what have you decided to do with your sites? It's clear that things are going to get worse and worse. What are your plans?

All of this talk of turning to email lists is all well and good, but there's no chance in hell that it will replace even a fraction of the sales that coming at the top of search provided. I am preparing for a much smaller business, less revenue from this business, and using the money I have saved over the years to invest in new things. I am very fortunate in that I have been riding this for 20 years and have a lot of money saved. I am not going to worry about google...it's a grieving process, I will have to let go of the old incarnation and move to the new one.

I have noticed that I am no longer ranking on many old terms that I used to rank on where currently only the same high-powered ecomm platforms are showing up. The results have been taken over completely by ecomm sites with product results under their listings. This is what I hate about what Google does in the last 3 years or so. They decide for us that certain searches must all be looking for the same thing, and the diversity of sites vanishes.

A couple of years ago Google switched everything to how-to articles, listicles, etc and any other kind of site just vanished. Now the pendulum has swung in the other direction...I am seeing only the same ecomm platforms with products underneath the link over and over.

I personally do not have a store in place where people can check out on my site. I got rid of that years ago and moved to a site where people must inquire about pricing. I see now that in order to recapture those terms, and also to run ads on socials etc I will need a new store where people can actually check out.

The question is, 1) will Google just move the cheese again by the time I have finished that massive project? and 2) at my age and after 20 years of being online do I want that massive new job? 3) Will it actually pay off and result in sales, or just capture the cheap leads?

I was selling online with an online store back in 2004-2005 and people used to pay online for high dollar values no problem...I would wake up and the money was sitting there. These days they drive me crazy with questions and still end up walking away. Perhaps there is just more of everything, so the decision paralysis is killing sales. Or perhaps Google just is skimming all the best conversions so we get left with the undecideds...or perhaps both.

[RedBar]

Hi guys, what have you decided to do with your sites? It's clear that things are going to get worse and worse. What are your plans?

A great question that is very important for many creators and almost of no relevance to others, therefore this decision will mostly depend, I would have thought, on one's website interaction with Joe Public.

Insofar as my global business is concerned most of the first 10-12 years of the www were very influential as specifers / buyers discovered potential new bulk supply sources and, indeed, many did try alternatives and many were bitten hard. Much of the new world sourcing experimentation was over and done with by about 2010.

For those in the FMCG market, travel, news and a whole plethora of other Joe Public facing business I assume it will be the opposite necessity and I would be in a complete guess-mode other than what I am purchasing / viewing / etc ... Personally what would influence my decisions outside of price, availability and reputation?

Fortunately at the moment I do not see me having to consider this.

[Micha]

[x.com ]

So from now on nobody has to do any research, just use Perplexity, 10 minutes and everything is ready ... It's a bit of a rip-off, but hey, what does it matter.

@ichthyous I'm just wondering why certain stores are currently being highlighted by Google. The company has nothing to gain from this, unless there are some backroom deals that Google is making money from.

[RedBar]

@Micha

I went to their actual search page and typed-in my most popular widget product and, lo and behold, an almost complete re-write of my widget page PLUS several additional errors however what I did notice at the bottom of the page was a "Rewite" link that has to be logged-into ... Hmmm!

[Cyril TechWebsites]

@Micha

Thanks for the link on Perplexity.ai. I used it for the first time today and pretty impressed. Google's AI overview is a junk comparing to Perplexity.ai.

Most of my keywords when searching through Perplexity.ai is showing my website as a source. But I really doubt users will click on it and I won't get any visitors. They just takening my content and give me zero. I believe in a few years most of the websites will be abandoned because of ai scrapping our content. There wouldn't be any interest in producing content to feed AIs. I believe it's the end for most of us. And another thing is that these companies with ai searches will degrade the internet. There wouldn't be any sense in providing content without profit for the publisher.

[Micha]

@Cyril TechWebsites

The scenario you describe will have dire consequences.

Let's assume that only the big news sites and online stores remain. This would lead to information control because the independent sites, which can often act more independently of funders, would disappear. The stores will start to dictate prices even more than the big providers already do. So it will become more expensive and less profitable for the manufacturers.

I also believe that the following will happen in this scenario: A lot of the information that AIs spit out will then be outdated. There won't be enough survivors to keep the wealth of information that makes up the internet up to date. So the AIs will eventually spit out a lot of outdated information because they can no longer be updated.

But I don't think it will come to that. AI is hyped by many companies (and some media who haven't yet understood what's going to happen), but the normal consumer is skeptical. Of course it will be used, but not to the extent that companies would have us believe (as several studies have now shown). There may be useful applications in companies, but it is still a long way from the brave new world that so many want to sell us.And personally, I don't believe that we will really achieve this promised new world.

At the moment there is still a gold-rush atmosphere and many AI companies don't really know what to do with the technology because there is not much innovation in this area. There are countless AI image generators, countless information searches and so on. Google is the best example of this: something is being sold as an innovation that doesn't really work and is only being thrown onto the market to be seen as innovative and to satisfy shareholders. But this also shows that this technology has a limited market outside of business use, because the private consumer is not so easy to convince.

Of course, we small website owners can't breathe a sigh of relief because this strange market situation is costing us our heads and necks, but we still have a good chance of surviving. We just need to finally realize that search engines are just one source of many and we need to start using the other sources wisely. In my opinion, this also includes making ourselves as independent as possible from Google (i.e. no Ga, no Adsense, etc.).

Urgs, this has become a damn long text again, sorry.

[EditorialGuy]

Of course, we small website owners can't breathe a sigh of relief because this strange market situation is costing us our heads and necks, but we still have a good chance of surviving. We just need to finally realize that search engines are just one source of many and we need to start using the other sources wisely.

Trouble is, most of those other sources aren't relevant to many sites and topics. Let's say that John Doe is planning a vacation to Hamburg. If he's looking for public waterbus fares on the Elbe, an AI result from a search engine may suffice. If he wants a complete illustrated guide to Hamburg, he may be better served by a specialist Web site, but he'll still use search to find that site. (In the olden days, he might have used a directory, but we aren't living in 1995 anymore, and the Web is simply too huge to make directories practical anymore.)

[superclown2]

If he's looking for public waterbus fares on the Elbe, an AI result from a search engine may suffice

I'm finding more and more 'new' web pages (written by AI) that contain completely out of date information. Perhaps John Doe would be better off phoning the waterbus company after all.

Another issue; these pages have been high in the SERPs so no doubt they will get scraped by AI engines and the circle of misinformation will continue.

The Internet will then eat itself. We live in a raving madhouse.

[superclown2]

If anyone is thinking of searching elsewhere than with Google I'm finding Reddit Quora ,and Forbes with high listings in Duck and Bing too. I've even found the New York Times with a top ten listing for a popular piece of home equipment. What is going on?

[Mark_A]

If anyone is thinking of searching elsewhere than with Google ..

I am liking Bing at the moment, probably do 70% of my searching there right now.
It reminds me a little of how Google used to be.

[Micha]

@EditorialGuy Of course, some types of websites are more dependent on Google and Co. than others. Nevertheless, the magic word is “diversify traffic”, otherwise you will not survive. And even these websites should no longer send Google any more in-depth data.

@superclown Yes, Bing has changed something, this is then automatically also with DuckDuckGo, since they use Bing.

[Cyril TechWebsites]

Yeap, traffic from Bing started dropping too. It seems they will make the same things as Google did.

[Micha]

And the next prank: Google has announced that as of July 5, it will no longer index pages that cannot be displayed on mobile devices. To be honest, I don't think that's such a bad idea.

[developers.google.com ]

developers.google.com Mobile-indexing-vLast-final-final.doc     Google Search Central Blog     Google for Developers

[EditorialGuy]

And the next prank: Google has announced that as of July 5, it will no longer index pages that cannot be displayed on mobile devices.

The actual wording is:

"If your site's content is not accessible at all with a mobile device, it will no longer be indexable."

I'm not sure exactly what "not accessible at all" means. It would be nice if the developer page clarified that.

[NeapTide]

A conspiracy or may be truth!

The people running the world were disliking how internet was exposing many of their scams. So they first launched Sam Altman, the biggest pirate of internet with his AI tools. It promised to give quick information. But the information will be what suits the narrative of people currently running the world.

Google was forced to comply or get ready to face the consequences. That's why they started censoring internet during past few years. And just now out of panic caused by "Sam GPT", they made and launched their own AI tools, behind the closed doors they made contracts with big news websites and some large forums (reddit, quora) to again control the flow of information, censoring unwanted threads, answers and information.

Soon very soon only few big news sites run by mafia will reign on internet with the help of Google. That's why kinds like forbes have started writing about every topic they get their hands own. They want to control info and feed only that things that won't be a threat to people actually ruling the world.

Facebook, twitter etc were forced to senor the social media and remove much info that is direct threat to very powerful people. Twitter being bought by Elon has temporarily given freedom of speech to people but mark my word Elon did all of it to increase his own fan following. Once fully done with that he will pull the strings. Why? Because he is also a pawn of same people controlling the world.

Soon internet will be completely censored, even youtube videos that will expose anything going on in the world will be shadow-banned. Shoving Meta AI in whatsapp facebook was also necessary to control the information going to people.

This was all pre-planned mega plot. We publishers are suffering but elite and the people governing the world don't care. They will sacrifice us for their own power over world.

[Fluff_Nutz]

Have to agree. I have only been in the website scene for a short few years but in that short space of time I have noticed the manipulation going on. How comes so many sites start off well but get killed in a few months or a year? Loosing 90% traffic, this is when it hit me that something was wrong. I have since read up a lot of what is and most likely is going on in the background and its disgusting. As mentioned before, its essentially slave labour.

But alas the courts and law authorities do nothing about it. A simple fine is not going to work. Action is needed and, alas, it never comes. So what exactly is stopping these companies? They all think they are above the law and, to some degree, they are.

I regularly watch a competitor, well sort of. I just enjoy what they do and they work their butts off to provide content each and every single day. Their commitment is really top notch. Whilst they are on a platform not owned by Google, all companies are essentially the same. They are all American and corrupt monopolies. So whilst I watch this particular individual working their butts off I can't help but feel that they are putting too much effort in because, when you least expect it, your growth can easily be destroyed for no real reason. So what exactly are we fighting for?

As for my current traffic, not much is coming from Google. No surprises there. However, I have dropped 60% from when my articles recently went viral. Almost back to where I was before the traffic boost. Barely any growth from it remains. Why? Because of the ranking manipulation. Why does my article, which I happened to release nice and early enough to get a nice traffic boost suddenly get shafted by bigger sites, who now rank higher? That was my content. Alas copyright has gone out the window. Again what are we fighting for exactly?

[ronron]

Back links are back for me.

[superclown2]

And the next prank: Google has announced that as of July 5, it will no longer index pages that cannot be displayed on mobile devices.

Website owners have had long enough to make their sites responsive so most of those that are not have probably been abandoned. As such many of them are easy targets for malicious actors who can easily hack them.

At least it will eliminate a lot of sites owned by those who don't know the difference between CSS and DVT.

Perhaps they will also get rid of those containing video ad popups that take forever to load and which can't be deleted when they finally do load. Ads which are almost invariably provided by Google of course.

[Dooku]

Ed Zitrons "The Rot-Com Bubble" post from yesterday explains the route that Google has taken quite well.
As usual, the reasons are quite mundane, banal and human centric.
If you can not grow your market than you need to abuse and squeeze it to show a growth in your next quarterly reports to your shareholders.

This all started in 2019 and correlates perfectly with the stats. It appears that the internet has been stagnating and actually declining from that year on as many of the big tech corps have been shrinking in active users......I did not know that!