July 2024 Google Search Observations

[renatovieira]

Search Console frozen since friday. Has anyone else noticed?




[edited by: not2easy at 1:39 pm (utc) on Jul 1, 2024]

[Martin Ice Web]

Absolute worse weekend even for the begining of holidays here in germany.
Sales from google traffic at 2%, sales from amazon again uprise by 53%.
I guess there has been a big shift in users with shopping intent towards amazon.

[ichthyous]

I took a look at my GSC analytics yesterday trying to analyze why such a huge drop in traffic to my home page. The reason is that Google is no longer selecting my home page as the URL for some high-volume searches, but instead has selected an interior page on my site with a lot less page rank. In other words, my interior page is competing against other websites' home pages and because of that I have dropped from top five rank to 30+.

I see Google doing this all the time now, and when it happens you often lose that traffic for months or years until Google somehow decides to switch the url back again. Is anyone else having this issue and is there any way to prompt Google to use the correct page for a search and not the one it has automatically selected? Is it a matter of two pages being too semantically similar? I have tried to update the home page by removing content that may water down the main terms semantically, but it hasn't worked.

[RedBar]

Fingers crossed however my global traffic appears to be back to normal today.

What I have seen as unusual is my UK hotel site. It's long-term average shows 94.8% UK traffic sources but 4th July showed uniques at -46% and page views -20% ... I'm still trying to rationalise that one since normal traffic did not reappear until the Saturday.

[ichthyous]

My USA traffic is off a cliff today...-43% at 2pm. My home page is -60%. Major content pages -50%-66%. Only USA traffic seems to be this low, every other region is higher. I do not understand how google is managing to suck the life out of some terms even if I am ranked #1. My ranking increased and the traffic is halved or more.

[Micha]

So my news site has been growing happily since Sunday, the traffic from Google is increasing. However, the store is still as good as dead.

[RedBar]

I do not understand how google is managing to suck the life out of some terms even if I am ranked #1.

The localisation for popular search terms?

Probably 99+% of my widgets I rank for in the top 3 in the USA but I haven't ranked that high for my top dozen or so widgets for 2-3 years now. I mostly see local sites or the major wholesalers / importers.

Is there a correlation between the AdSense highest paid-for widget keywords and G promoting local / USA sites as a consequence?

Why is it that I seem to rank so well for many terms yet not for others which I used to? It's not just me who see this, every non-USA supply company sees the same.

Do you rank fairly easily for many terms yet not for others?

HTH!

[ichthyous]

The localisation for popular search terms?

One would think, but when I check using different locations I'm still ranking at the top for the search...at least in various locations in the US

[Samsam1978]

@Conro - Sorry I can't understand what you mean. For the last six months pages advertising an APP have been outranking me on my article pages, this is a person who has employed an SEO agency and brags on LinkedIn lol, so it is just spammy tactics, she even had to cheek to email me to ask to purchase a link on my homepage! LOL! Thinking that she is all that, and massive unknown she will be gone soon. I just hope that this page gets dropped as they normally do these newish sites, but google keep them in for about 6-8 months and it is just so long then I return to number 1 for a bit and another new site outranks me for same period then drops into nothings. I don't know what this is all about. My website is 20 years old.

To confirm:

This APP has no Google advertising on it. I can't see how you think that Google is not losing money by placing this person's content advertising an APP in front of my content. My content has adsense. Surely, Google is losing money, by placing an app with no ads on top of the page people are not seeing Google ads. Just to give you an idea my income from adsense like halved. So how can that not hurt Google?

[mosxu]

For e-commerce sites the free shopping listings cause a lot of pain! 1. PLAs for us do not show at all. 2. The free listings are full of high street stores products!

[Martin Ice Web]

For e-commerce sites the free shopping listings cause a lot of pain! 1. PLAs for us do not show at all. 2. The free listings are full of high street stores products!

not only this but google decided to kill all traffic to brand items on e-comm sites.

[mosxu]

@martin

You are correct the brand of an ecom site is the main revenue driver and they manipulate it to remove any comfort and expect a ppc bloodbath!

The consumer obviously is affected as well.

[universenet]

Semrush sensor is 7.1 today
Maybe some new "surprise" coming sooon...

[BigKat]

Maybe some new "surprise" coming sooon..

Probably more ads, refinement boxes, reddit, etc. Google is completely dead for us in USA ecom. People who want to buy items not sold on Amazon, Walmart, etc. have to use a different search engine and thankfully some are. Not as much as I'd like, but Google is definitely driving some shoppers away with their spammy layout and poor SERPS.

[christianz]

Seems like second wave of the unannounced July core update. And, yes - it doesn't work. At least from search quality standpoint.

[RedBar]

My traffic is back to pre 4th July levels however, very notably, the USA is -40%. Removing Western Europe from the analysis the majority traffic is from Eurasia.

[ichthyous]

Seems like second wave of the unannounced July core update. And, yes - it doesn't work. At least from search quality standpoint.

My traffic is back to pre 4th July levels however, very notably, the USA is -40%. Removing Western Europe from the analysis the majority traffic is from Eurasia.

Something is definitely going on...my traffic has been blitzed this entire week. USA traffic is down -21% yesterday and -10% the day before. Traffic to my home page is down by half or worse some days, but seems to be recovering somewhat.

[universenet]

Imagine that you watching tv and all time in tv advertising and nothing more exist.
Google is now like that kind TV

[renatovieira]

Huge drop today.

[ichthyous]

Huge drop again at 10am...it's after 4pm and I am still -30% on USA traffic. Every other region is stable or higher. This is becoming the norm now, not simply the effect of random updates.

[waynne]

This thread is called Google search, but actually no one gets to see Google search unless they click the web only button, so perhaps this thread should be renamed to "Moans and Whinges about Google's Plagiarised And Reworded Internet".

I have really given up on expecting traffic from Google, the result pages they offer are literally replacing the internet.

I wonder what will happen when there is no fresh and up to date content for them to scrape? The law of economics stats that I can't pay to host content and write and research and photograph the content myself if I get no income from that content anymore. 4 sites deleted already, primarily small hobby sites offering value and unique content, I'm just reviewing my other content sites and to be frank in terms of the effort they take and income it is not looking good even though many of these are still getting traffic and holding top 3 positions for a few select keywords.

There are other ways for me to make money, and Google will ultimately suffer for their greed and dominance. The income I derived was reinvested in creating YouTube video content and buying equipment and tools from Googles advertisers to demonstrate techniques and create content. My Google "cloud" services will not be needed and I've already cut these back and deleted a workplace account with more to follow shortly. My AdSense earnings are down 70% on last year and still dropping as traffic tails off so I'll also be dropping adsense as sites are retired away.

I have seen mom and pop stores closing due to the lack of Google traffic and already seen substantial job losses from my clients businesses as they cut back.

A few friends have already commented to me without prompting, that they just didn't find what they need on Google and had given up looking, they go direct to the big retailers and large sites they know about.

I have never in my 26 years seen things so bad for content creators, writers, artists, photographers and journalists.

[oldog]

@Waynne, "This thread is called Google search, but actually no one gets to see Google search unless they click the web only button, so perhaps this thread should be renamed to "Moans and Whinges about Google's Plagiarised And Reworded Internet". "
True....
The thread has become BORING.....
I am not interested to read daily traffic reports of every Tom Dick and Harry here, if you have something to write about Google search write it , otherwise better write nothing.

[superclown2]

it seems that the number of 'AI Overviews' is falling. Does this mean some of us were right all along, and the whole AI hysteria was a huge mistake for Google?

[Micha]

@oldog The forum is simply an outlet and I for one find the figures interesting. Just ignore what doesn't interest you.

@superclown Incidentally, what Goldman Sachs wrote on the subject of AI fits in with this (spoiler, it's very negative). Here is a good summary: [x.com ]

Fortunately, I don't see these AI overviews in Germany, but I bet that Google is just working on them at the moment and spending will soon increase again.

But even without AI, the search results are getting worse and worse, the advertising is getting more and more annoying (and more stupid) and what Google communicates publicly is becoming less and less credible. However, I find that Bing is also getting worse and worse.

[superclown2]

But even without AI, the search results are getting worse and worse, the advertising is getting more and more annoying (and more stupid)

Exactly what I'm seeing. The huge PASF 'enhancements' in particular that I'm seeing lately are full of links that are totally irrelevant to the search term entered, and Forbes (isn't that an American magazine publisher?) is everywhere in the organics. They are also spending a fortune on Google ads; the fact that such high spenders are so high in the SERPs for subjects they have zero track record for is, of course, purely a coincidence.

To me, as a searcher, the fact that Forbes appears high in the ads so much completely devalues them; why should I trust the rest of the ads for important searches when an obvious non-expert appears near the top of them? What happened to Google's relevance score?

On a different note: they are, it seems, trying (unsuccessfully so far) to get iPhone users to switch their default browser to Chrome, ready for a possible court order to stop being their default 'search' (ie advertising) engine. How long will Apple put up with this I wonder? I smell panic.

[KaseyM]

Massive drop over the past few days after a few weeks and months of stability/small rises.

Very disheartening.

[Micha]

@superclown2 I only see Amazon or Temu in the ads (and I don't use either store). What's particularly funny is that they advertise products that neither store has (this was particularly noticeable when I was looking for fresh wasabi earlier, they sell paste but not the tubers, but only advertise tubers. The first store selling the tubers was at number 12, absolute nonsense).
And then when I look at the store I manage, it has lots of clicks, but 0 sales for days, despite Adwords and is generally losing reach, at least according to Sistrix. That is absolutely illogical.

But hey, Google has commented positively on the feedback from the website operators. Many people are probably hoping that something will change soon, but let's be honest, that's not realistic.

[ichthyous]

@superclown Incidentally, what Goldman Sachs wrote on the subject of AI fits in with this (spoiler, it's very negative). Here is a good summary: [x.com ]

The direct link to the Goldman report is here: [goldmansachs.com ]. Very interesting, and I think there is more skepticism about AI in general. It's the shiny new toy, but how useful is it exactly when it's so unreliable?

Fortunately, I don't see these AI overviews in Germany, but I bet that Google is just working on them at the moment and spending will soon increase again.

I am seeing them coming and going, almost as if they are loaded dynamically based on some sort of algo which determines if there is an acceptable AI overview per search. But the same search will sometimes have the AI overview and then the next time it won't. I am also seeing even AI snippits from my own site's internal pages instead of just regular search results. It depends on the search term and whether you ask a question or not. Maybe this is already obvious to everyone and that is what they have stated they are doing and I just don't know it yet...

The huge PASF 'enhancements' in particular that I'm seeing lately are full of links that are totally irrelevant to the search term entered, and Forbes (isn't that an American magazine publisher?) is everywhere in the organics. They are also spending a fortune on Google ads; the fact that such high spenders are so high in the SERPs for subjects they have zero track record for is, of course, purely a coincidence.

Forbes was an important finance magazine back in the day. Now, just like Newsweek and so many other media brands with name recognition, it serves just to pump out useless cookie cutter articles across every topic under the sun that it has literally zero expertise on. They are capitalizing on their brand and domain authority. Wasn't Google supposed to be cracking down on this?

I asked this earlier but nobody responded...

Are you all only seeing drops from AI overviews (snippits) being implemented for your content, or is it sometimes resulting in a higher CTR?

The number of impressions for my site overall dropped off a cliff ~ December 10, 2023 and never increased again. The CTR is higher though since around the same time and the number of clicks has been relatively stable going back 16 months.

It's the composition of the clicks that has killed me. In other words, I have seen a huge drop off in clicks to the most viable, converting sections of my site and that seems to have been replaced with more specific searches that result in zero sales. To be fair, I did implement new written informational articles this spring which replaced a lot of lost traffic, but it's a different kind of traffic that really isn't working for me in terms of sales.

[renatovieira]

Since the 9th huge drop here on my main site.

[superclown2]

The direct link to the Goldman report is here: [goldmansachs.com ].

I love the bit about bubbles taking a long time to burst. When this one pops it will take a lot of investors with it.

Shame: it is very useful technology but completely overhyped. That may well hold back the benefits it could provide, because of the government action and litigation that will result from the reckless way in which copyright has been abused so widely.

[ichthyous]

Since the 9th huge drop here on my main site.

There was a definite downturn for days, but since yesterday it is recovering. I would check to see that some of your pages haven't lost tons of traffic from specific terms that are now the top AI overview. My article that is at the top as AI overview has seen a significant loss in traffic, about a third.

[Micha]

Shame: it is very useful technology but completely overhyped.

Well, it seems as if investors and companies have been waiting for the next big thing in the IT sector. But obviously they haven't learned anything from the first .com bubble, because that's how the whole AI thing looks to me. A lot of hype, a lot of investment, but nobody really knows what to do with it.

And because it's so nice, I've just had a look at the statistics for my site. The number of visitors is increasing, but if I just look at the traffic from Google, I can almost see a straight line. For days, the visitors that the juice store sends to me have only fluctuated by about +/-100.

[Shepherd]

A decent read: [brandonsaltalamacchia.com...]

You can believe that google:

Wants to and is actively working to provide good organic search results.

OR

Is optimizing the SERPs to maximize revenue, treating organic results as mere content to be manipulated for profit.

If you believe #1, keep creating great content and hope google gets it right.
If you believe #2, you already know it's long past time to move on. Bonus: If possible, find ways to impact google's revenue on the way out (legally and ethically, of course).

[superclown2]

Now I've seen everything.

A very popular finance search term, the usual PAA and two PASFs but with a difference; the top PASF carries a row of large image links to sites about animals, from elephants to zebras.

It's the same on chrome and android, the only difference being that there are more animals on the mobile page.

They are there on Firefox too.

Words fail me.

[Samsam1978]

I've seen fewer and fewer publishers on here, I have never seen anything like it. Reddit and Quora using my words of unsolicited spammy comments ranking above anything. Crappy websites are on top. Worse SERPS I have ever seen, even for personal use.

[superclown2]

I've seen fewer and fewer publishers on here,

That's because there are fewer and fewer publishers, full stop. Most (all?) of those I was in touch with 20 years ago were put out of business ages ago.

It all started when Eric Schmidt decided that the answer to spam was to push big sites (in other words big spenders on ads) to the top in the SERPs, to the detriment of small but specialised sites. The Internet's usefulness has been in accelerating decline since then, helped along by Google prioritising income over search quality.

It probably won't get better until their monopoly is broken and competitors are given room to grow. With the huge sums Google can spend on "lobbying" and the interchange of top lawyers between the legislators and Google itself that is by no means inevitable.

[ichthyous]

Suddenly a huge jump in traffic this weekend, especially from Europe and UK. The months-long drag on my home page traffic seems to have vanished, and I have multiple sales inquiries each day...just like the old days. This should last about five minutes, I'll enjoy it while it lasts...

[EditorialGuy]

I've seen fewer and fewer publishers on here,

That's probably true of most traditional freestanding forums (the ones that still exist).

I will say that the level of discourse here has improved over the years, probably because the trolls and insult artists have largely moved on to newer venues.

[oldog]

@Superclown "It all started when Eric Schmidt decided that the answer to spam was to push big sites"
This is not absolutely true, I run individual websites in the travel sector specializing on certain locations and they rank on top #1 or #2 and of course above the usual suspects

[superclown2]

run individual websites in the travel sector specializing on certain locations and they rank on top #1 or #2 and of course above the usual suspects

Sure. We can all rank for highly specialised subjects - provided of course that they are not valuable enough for the big boys to take an interest. The bread and butter though is in the plain vanilla search terms which have pretty much been swept up by large companies, many (most?) of which are not specialists in those subjects.

[RedBar]

I've seen fewer and fewer publishers on here,

Therefore why?

I've been here 20 years under different monikers if anyone is wondering and have seen a noticeable difference between then and now. Even in the early noughties I had been optimising for 10 years but there were many, many newbies who came here to learn. We discussed many different aspects including things we had tried-out both successfully and unsuccessfully.

Many sites, including large corporate ones, were in those days actually managed by webmasters who understood coding and most other stuff involved in website maintenance, many corporates, realistically, had still not yet realised the full potential of websites and ecommerce, much of it was tokenism plus a lot of it was still "too difficult" for many to comprehend.

What happened to make things easier? IMHO May 2003 and the launch of WordPress changed everything, the rest is history. Sure there had been some fantastic WYSIWYG programmes before then but nothing, comparitively, as so darned simple as WP ... Easy "coding" for the masses!

It's quite simple, do a survey here of how many use WP v hard coding and I would venture to guess 90+% are WP'ers and why are they WP'ers, because their employer(s) tell them they have to be, and why do they tell them this, because they are replaceable very, very easily by another just out-of-school robot.

Am I againt WP? Nope, it's fantastic for what it does but, quite simply, it can't do what I do :-)

[Micha]

@RedBar
I like WP and use it for all my websites. Why should I reinvent the egg when I have one that I can optimize?
Editorial systems in particular are anything but easy to build and that takes a lot of time. With WP it's much quicker. Admittedly, it's more boring than building everything yourself, but it saves time.There is generally nothing wrong with such systems, the web has not changed as a result, except that the really ugly HTML websites have largely disappeared. And I'll bet you anything that you can do what you do with WP (of course I don't know what you actually do, but I'll take the liberty of saying so).

And as far as the issue of fewer publishers is concerned, the market is competitive and small companies can hardly survive, also or especially thanks to Google. It has already been said above: Because Google seems to favor certain providers and that is also what I have heard all these years from publishers as the reason why they are giving up. This has only accelerated in recent months.The favoritism can be seen by everyone and is only denied by Google and a handful of SEOs.

[ichthyous]

It's Monday, and a 33% drop in my USA traffic so far today. I do think that the election year cycle and political turmoil in the US is having a dampening effect on traffic and especially on conversions. People are not even looking.

[RedBar]

@Micha - Please re-read my post, I actually state:

Am I againt WP? Nope, it's fantastic

This is the point I am making:

because their employer(s) tell them they have to be, and why do they tell them this, because they are replaceable very, very easily by another just out-of-school robot.

WP has made things so much easier for those who choose to use it therefore they do not NEED to come here except to whinge or whine about whatever.

[Micha]

@RedBar I already understood what you wrote and am not saying you don't like WP or anything like that. I just think what you wrote applies more to those who use website builders (e.g. Wix and the like), which is what more and more small businesses are doing. WP has evolved to the point where you can still create simple websites, but anyone who has to build a website with it knows after a short time that it takes more than just a few plugins and a theme.

However, it's always more fun to develop everything yourself, because then you have to get to grips with your website even more. (and I have to be honest, if I had the time, I would have replaced WP on my website with something of my own a long time ago)

[seomotionz]

Traffic is down by 40% in the tech niche.

[superclown2]

WP has evolved to the point where you can still create simple websites, but anyone who has to build a website with it knows after a short time that it takes more than just a few plugins and a theme.

1) The average WP site is full of vulnerabilities. Plugins and themes are a hacker's dream. If you get hold of Kali Linux there are stacks of constantly updated tools for exploiting them.

2) It creates top heavy sites which are much slower loading than they could be.

Google loves fast loading sites. HTML CSS and Javascript are not that difficult to learn. All our sites have been hand coded for the last two decades which is one of the reasons why we are still in business whilst so many of our earlier competitors disappeared.

[Micha]

@superclown2

Everything you say is true, but when I look at my main website: not only is it faster than many other self-made websites, but it's also not as "top-heavy". It depends on how you use WP and companies now know that too. Which is no wonder, because Google's roar of "fast websites blah blah blah" cannot be ignored.

But let's leave that aside. Just a quick word about "giving up": I don't think it's because of the system, I think it's because of the general circumstances, which were mainly created by Google and they are system-independent.

[superclown2]

I have lost track of the number of WP sites I have found with hidden links in them, put there via SQL injection or other dark arts. There are certain websites that owe their success to techniques like this.

Just a quick word about "giving up": I don't think it's because of the system, I think it's because of the general circumstances,

Yes 20+ years ago it really was the Wild West, website creators could put up any old junk and it would still rank on at least some of the many search engines that existed. Give Google their due, their dominance was well earned and they certainly cleaned out a lot of the poor quality sites. That is still the case and if it wasn't we would all face far more competition.

Unfortunately Wall Street took over Google and their priority is making money, not helping searchers find the best websites. Those of us that survive will have to adapt to the new circumstances, or go under. Any realistic suggestions on how we do this will always be welcome.

Darwin was right. It isn't necessarily the strongest that win out in the end, it is those best able to adapt to change.

[ichthyous]

@superclown It's fairly easy to harden any WP site against vulnerabilities. I can see from cloudlfsre the attempts being made on my back end and scans for files 24/7. You have to be diligent about setting up rules to deny access before it even hits the server, that's with any site. But I totally agree about the plugins...WP authors have a high rate of abandoning plug-ins and a good number can have vulnerabilities. You have to be careful about what you install.

USA traffic has crashed this morning...-60% at 10am. I am noticing this pattern of extremely low morning traffic and then it builds towards the end of the day. But traffic in general is tepid this summer...both search and direct traffic.

[Micha]

By the way, it won't be long before we experience a few more loops on our Google rollercoaster

[seroundtable.com ]