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]

Traffic quality is bottomless. And it is clear that google is aiming brands traffic. Even our own brands got hit. Nonm branded items are the main sellers right now. And these are most very "old" out of tech date items.

[renatovieira]

Huge drop today... Here we go again...

[ichthyous]

I can second that...my USA traffic is -67% at 10am, and home page traffic is -77%. For whatever reason google refuses to use my home page for the serps now, and has switched to ranking interior pages on my site for high volume competitive searches. The result is I am nowhere to be found for these searches with my interior page going up against other sites' more powerful home pages. It's very annoying and makes no sense...my home page was fine for twenty years. My traffic now is dropping below 2023 traffic for June and July and still dropping...

[RedBar]

The reason I posted about WP was in response to this comment:

I've seen fewer and fewer publishers on here,

Do WP employed site builders need sites like WebmasterWorld or do they try and find their problems' solutions within the WP world?

You are probably an exception Micha. I did use WP once for a blog on one of my sites, I got it to run very fast, I got it to rank very well indeed knowing what was needed however I gave up on it for one very simple reason and that was performing back-ups.

Now I don't know whether I was doing something wrong however it was a nightmare and then I had to move servers ... Oh boy, that was it, I fell out with WP immediately. I had to move 100+ sites all hand-built, all but one went as smooth as silk except for the blog ... I gave up on it in the end, it was probably me however I like to be in control of what I do and know precisely where everything is and how it works, realistically I didn't know a darned thing about WP!

[not2easy]

OT - Our WP forum here - [webmasterworld.com...] shows that a lot of WP users don't understand how WP works and try to do things you might do with a plain html site, but because WP manages everything from its own settings that are configured by the user - and often without understanding the consequences of their decisions - it can lead to disappointments and surprises. The WordPress.org site offers everything you'd need to know, free tutorials and all, but too often people just start in and then look for fixes. Oh, and add in a dozen magic plugins...

WP reminds me of lucy24's old office complaint:

I really hate this dang machine!
I wish that they would sell it!
It never does just what I want,
but only what I tell it.

[RedBar]

You are probably an exception Micha.

Ok, this is when I probably embarass myself!

A few years ago one of the world''s leading web developers used to post here daily with in-excess of 13K posts and ostensibly last seen here in December 2023. She posted under the name of netmeg and I distinctly remember a few years ago that she converted all the sites she ran into a customised WP.

They were extremely successful but bear in mind she was originally a hand-coder..

[Dooku]

one of the world''s leading web developers

That person is not your average "publisher" :-)

Most people still think that botnets consist of infected desktop computers.
In actuality most consist of infected shared hosting or VPS accounts....running scripts 24/7 or on demand.
As long as the malware operates below the servers operations per second threshold for that account.....even the hosting company will not be aware a WP site is hacked.....because most do NOT scan diligently with quality tools.
WP sites are being hacked at the rate of thousands each day and the majority of webmasters and hosting companies don't even know they are hacked.
It's not a question of IF but WHEN your WP site will get hacked.
Any form of security goes out the door when your system is based on publicly developed plugins......you might as well post your credit card # and cvv# online.

[Micha]

WP has advantages and disadvantages due to its simplicity. Many installations are unfortunately crammed with plugins, not secured and then have an SEO plugin and think everything is fine. Oh yes, and if things get really bad, you do without a web space and host directly at Wp.com

But then all is not well and I know enough WP sites that have been cobbled together and cracked. I have repaired countless installations.

I also prefer self-built systems, mainly because I can customize them better to my needs. With my site, however, I have to be honest and say that I simply don't have the time to do this alongside my editorial work, because the system would have to be very extensive - after all, I have 45 editors who have to use it. That's why I left it at optimization. For example, I only use three plug-ins, have adapted the theme and so on. I also host my site on my own server, so I don't have any problems with security. Of course, there is never 100% security, but everything has been fine for 14 years.

Oh yes, one more little note: I find the WP world mostly horrible, just like the SEO world and I ended up here because I just had a look around and found the forum here quite nice.

So, enough about WordPress now,

[saladtosser]

As a professional custom full stack developer, specializing primarily in .NET 6-8 MVC, I find WordPress to be rather limiting. Its one-size-fits-all approach often feels cumbersome and bloated. In contrast, full stack development offers precise control and efficiency, particularly with technologies like CWV and robust hosting solutions such as Azure.

I understand that not everyone has 30 years of day in day out development experience (from notepad days), tracing back to the days of classic ASP, which, despite its limitations, still powers many business-critical sites today. For me, transitioning to WordPress would be a significant downgrade.

It's important to note that Core Web Vitals (CWV), fast page loading, HTTPS, and mobile-friendly designs, although pimped by G, do not guarantee top search engine rankings. From my observations, Google still places substantial weight on backlinks, even those from outdated, non-mobile-friendly, non-HTTPS sites. Despite meeting every technical criterion, superior content and social signals other site don't have does not surpass the influence of long-standing backlinks. G would rather serve an almost impossible to use desktop only site on mobile in my niche because it got backlinks back in 1999 than a modern user friendly mobile site from 2007...

This reality reminds me of the importance of foundational backlinks from when you were the first and the longevity of their impact trumps everything. sadly and wrongly IMO

[ichthyous]

Traffic to my home page has remained at -67% all day...impossible unless there is some kind of throttling or penalty. Has anyone else seen this happen with their site?

[freshpaul]

@ichthyous

I'm seeing what I normally see when it feels like there's some kind of update going on. Traffic remains about the same, but conversions drop off a cliff. No one fills out forms on our site. Luckily we had a bunch of leads come in on Monday, but it's been crickets ever since.

[Micha]

@freshpaul So it's not just the shop that I look after. It was exactly the same, orders came in on Monday, but hardly any since then, despite increasing visitor numbers.
This month is turning into a disaster for this shop ...

[mosxu]

No genuine traffic today freaking zombies

[freshpaul]

@Micha

Yup. For us, it has turned into a game of conversions and not traffic. It seems that after any kind of dial is adjusted, it's radio silence. It's hard to understand the type of traffic that Google is sending to our site.

And yes, Tuesday, for example, we had more traffic, but a quarter of the conversions vs Monday.

[ichthyous]

USA traffic is atrocious today...-49% at 1pm. And huge swings from hour to hour has become the norm. My graphs have gone from sawtooth to sharktooth.

[Micha]

@freshpaul

I also wonder what kind of traffic this is. I think it's extreme that nobody buys anything. It can't be because of customer restraint, the traffic is probably from countries where we don't sell. However, it is noticeable that many shopwners have this problem and always at the same time (I just spoke to a few people who told me exactly the same thing), so I can't call it a “coincidence”.

I'm at a loss, because there seems to be nothing you can do about it.

[universenet]

Ideal situation for google is next:
Remove eveyy website what is possible from internet
I was surprised when they changed price for using google maps like arround 100x higher (not 100 percent, it was 100 x)
Only criminals doing that
I am not surprised about google antyhing
Google is like a scammer

[saladtosser]

Ladies, can someone please explain to me why are LLMs chat bots/image generators are being referred to as "AI" everywhere? AI, hasn't been invented yet as far as I can tell but calling LLMS AI lowers the bar MASSIVLY and seems to be an excuse for "programs" to commit content theft!? What am I missing, I've looked at GROK its code. They excel at specific tasks related to language processing but do not possess general intelligence or consciousness and everything they spit forth is off the work of others, paid or unpaid! It's not AI guys!. Please please please pick everyone up on this because AI is an excuse for content theft, our content, LLMS aren't AI, don't let them tell you the content they produce is AI!

[christianz]

USA traffic is atrocious today...-49% at 1pm. And huge swings from hour to hour has become the norm. My graphs have gone from sawtooth to sharktooth.

Judging by GA real-time, traffic is really bad right now. US seems to be worst.

But GA real-time is not reliable. Yesterday it showed decent numbers but actual finalized number sessions was bad.

[londrum]

@saladtosser, i totally agree. Most of them are just glorified article spinners. The whole thing is a masterclass in PR.

[Conro]

Today I woke up conspiracy theorist, but do you think Google's henchmen send emails or leave comments to find out how much you understand about what you write by asking very technical questions incognito? If you answer well they leave the site stable, if you don't respond or don't give a sufficient response, the site starts to lose traffic after a few days. Have you ever noticed emails or comments from users who always use Gmail and ask very technical questions As if they want to investigate more than they know?

[superclown2]

don't let them tell you the content they produce is AI!

I am in the habit of calling it Artificial Stupidity.

It seems the (incredibly expensive to create, and unreliable) results from Bard 2 or 3, or whatever they call it now, have been a less than stellar success, and usage is falling rapidly. People seem to actually prefer looking at web sites! Rumour has it that Pinchai's job is very much on the line thanks to this, and the way that he has enraged publishers and legislators all over the world to such an extent that the company's future itself looks shaky. They face a potential break up from several fronts followed by years of expensive and disruptive court actions and legal appeals.

And that doesn't even take into consideration mounting copyright issues.

Some of us, of course, with the benefit of decades of real world business experience, have been predicting this for ages. What a pity no-one ever listens to Cassandra.

[saladtosser]

I agree @superclown2, I have tested different versions of chatGBT coding ability to solve a problem when im being lazy and I have to spend soooo much time getting it to write and rewrite over and over and over again to eventually solve the problem that it would have been faster write it myself, so became very un productive! Don't get me wrong I get it as a "useful tool" for people who don't know their stuff (in other ares outside their profession) but its not as replacement for humans experts in their own field, if that makes sense! If G is happy to replace us with a LLM god help us if they ever do crack real AI and not something wrapped in the pretence of being AI that's basically a "super content spinner" taking input from the whole of the WWW rather than a limited source set!

[Treud]

Traffic going low again and now I’m targetted by official bots, received thousands of bot from Urlumbrella.com , no idea why they are sending me, it’s useless, cost bandwidth and electricity for nothing….

[Billy85]

It seems to be the new normal for smaller sites.

One week up, next week down, but overall traffic is way down.

At least Search results give me a chuckle whenever I check my rankings, seeing the pages I'm being outranked by. I feel like Google is going above and beyond to outrank sites that are "unhelpful" by letting other pages rank with the most irrelevant sh*t.

[ichthyous]

Interesting article from the NY Times regarding the diminishing amounts of data available to the AI bots - [nytimes.com...]

This is behind a pay wall unfortunately, but it mentions that more and more sites have excluded the AI bots from indexing content or are putting up pay walls. The result is a rapidly shrinking pool of good quality data. This will impact non-profit and edu orgs from being able to harvest accurate data for their research. It is mentioned that a new model must come into play at some point, where content owners can allow data harvesting for non-profits but exclude businesses from using the data for commercial purposes.

As long as companies like Open-AI, Google, Perplexity etc continue to assert that they can harvest our data under the Fair Use clause of the copyright act without any kind of payment or attribution, then they will continue to be blocked. Fair Use is a convoluted and tricky bit of the copyright law which typically only flies for educational and journalistic uses... the notion that anything posted on the internet is available under Fair Use is nonsense.

No mention in the article that our dearest Google is acting like the mafia and forcing us all to either provide our data for their AI training or be excluded from the search index. That in itself is a monopolistic and coercive business practice which should be scrutinized by governments around the world.

[Micha]

I love Google sometimes. What was that, no favoritism? We published an exclusive article yesterday, umpteen websites are copying it (without citing the source, of course), and who is at the top of Google, of course: the big news sites. Who can't be found: us, the originators. I'm really tired of it...

[jchiff]

If you're keeping score at home:

"Google says I’m a dead physicist’: is the world’s biggest search engine broken?"

[theguardian.com...]

[universenet]

One of my website more of 90% visits are direct access.
And visits from all other search engines together are bigger of visits from google

[makintocheplus]

On my site 50% direct, 50% search engines (10% Google, 40% Bing).
French website online since 2011 was hit by HCU 2023 and Core update 2024.

@jchiff that article is a nice one, I read it all yesterday, it shows the searchers side struggle to find useful information on Google but talks in one paragraph about publishers losing traffic due to Google Core Updates. thanks for sharing!

[RedBar]

My global site's traffic is steady and about where I'd expect it to be at this time of year. Holday times often see yo-yoing quantities of visitors however real world enquiries are definitely down from the West. How much this has to do with current geo-political situations I'm not sure but I can foresee national wholesale supply shortages occurring in some countries as corporate buyers try to hold-out for lower supply prices which will not happen.

[ichthyous]

Traffic skyrocketed all day Sunday and search is 27% higher today as well...even USA ended the day 16% higher yesterday. No serious sales inquiries though, interesting...

[Juniya]

Not sure what impact if any this piece of news will have; [betanews.com...]

[Shepherd]

google reverses decision on eliminating third-party cookies

I always felt that Google was leveraging its browser dominance to stifle competition in the advertising space with the move to eliminate third-party cookies.

[Micha]

Something is strange. The traffic on my website has increased significantly since Saturday. More visitors are coming from Google and it also looks better in the search console.
But when I look at the data from Xovi and Sistrix, my website is losing ground. Especially mobile, the website is losing a lot of keywords. Even with the most important ones, the site is supposedly no longer found. Somehow it doesn't all fit together.

[superclown2]

Google reverses decision on eliminating third-party cookies

Google are just continuing their usual habit of throwing money at ideas only to see them fail, leaving them with huge losses. They look to have failed with their proposed Wiz takeover too, but this could be a blessing in disguise when you look at what they lost when they bought, and sold, Motorola Mobility. Was it really nearly ten billion dollars?

It's just as well they have a search monopoly otherwise they'd have gone broke ages ago.

When the dust has all settled I wonder how much their venture into AI will have lost them?

[Cyril TechWebsites]

Something is strange. The traffic on my website has increased significantly since Saturday. More visitors are coming from Google and it also looks better in the search console.

The same thing happens to me. But I see Semrush showing I'm keep falling down, Hrefs shows an uptick, and a little increase from Google through GA.

Update?

[mosxu]

The recent leaks were an absolute joke compared to what is is actually happening

[Micha]

@Cyril TechWebsites I don't think so. It seems to me that all the tools have problems accessing the mobile index. Because you should actually see a decline in the search console too, but for me it's been going up and up since Saturday.

google reverses decision on eliminating third-party cookies

What do you actually have? Be glad that all the meetings and strategy discussions of recent years were completely in vain. (Sarcasm)

[mhansen]

Odd observation on an HCU affected site that is seeing considerable traffic increases during this update. (+150% daily in SEMR tracking and GA)

- ALL of the pages gaining ground are old, currently 301 redirected urls.

3-4 months ago I made wholesale changes to the site structure and completely eliminated the old url structure. All are 301'd to their new pages correctly. 100% of the traffic increases I'm currently seeing are ranking the pages with the old url's.

Not sure what to make of it at this point.

[RedBar]

I'm currently seeing are ranking the pages with the old url's.

More than 12 months ago I moved an entire site from a .uk to a .com, many pages still rank under their .uk urls even though the .com urls have been indexed. G seems to be way behind with updating especially non-news sites.

[ichthyous]

Traffic is insane from day to day now. The weekend was very high and produced no conversions. Monday dropped considerably again and my home page and most important landing pages saw huge drops while more obscure pages saw more traffic than normal. Today USA and UK traffic are both way down, but the traffic has shifted back toward the landing pages and away from lower level content pages. Each day a different result depending on the implementation of AI overviews and snippits.

There has been much discussion since Google reported quarterly results of whether the AI overviews are actually helping to drive clicks and improve Google's bottom line...I see it on the business news. What is not discussed at all is the effect that this is all having on small and medium business dependent on traffic...that isn't even on the radar. As long a profits are inching supposedly higher due to Ai that's all that investors care about. Google owes nothing to the content providers it is devouring, they are fodder.

[Micha]

@ichthyous In Germany, it is reported that investors are disappointed with Alphabet. It is also interesting that everywhere it is reported that investors no longer know where the company actually wants to go and that the share has fallen. In addition, there is a lot of criticism that it is not foreseeable whether and how the billions invested in AI will pay off. It seems as if the people in charge at the company have miscalculated somewhat. It's not enough to jump on the AI bandwagon if you don't really have anything to offer, like a search engine that steals text to generate answers from it.

As for traffic, it remains stable on my site, even though I no longer know where it actually comes from. According to the data, I am losing more and more keywords on mobile. In addition, the search console now also thinks that many URLs throw a 5xx error (which is not true after checking), and the number of indexed pages is also going down again.

In the shop: from Saturday to yesterday, sales were actually okay, but today not a single sale. But I'm slowly losing track of the topic anyway.

[universenet]

Seems google overclocked reddit with too much visits
and right now reddit is down from my side
( I hope Quora will stop too)
Crazy world

[Conro]

Reddit has now blocked all search engines except Google. Of course, it's all a coincidence

[universenet]

Reddit has now blocked all search engines except Google. Of course, it's all a coincidence

It is deal with google?
They can not accept nothing more in servers or is just to block access from other AI?
Ok, but they got millions from google for that activity

[reddit.com ]

ah yes, money, money, soon google will ask from us money if we want use internet, if not pay we will see just advertised pages

[Micha]

@Conro that's probably a case for the competition authority

[Treud]

@Universenet Internet is totally Pay2Win now!

[Shepherd]

Seeing an old favicon in the google SERPs this morning, likely going to see that core update rolling out soon

[Fluff_Nutz]

Did we actually have an update this month? Certainly not seeing anything, but, to be fair, I haven't done much research. Unless I am mistaken July is meant as a low RPM month so I would not be surprised if we haven't. We will likely get one next month instead. Which is not far away.

So far my traffic has been really stable and on the consistent increase. In fact we have gone as far as being able to double our traffic since my last message on these boards a week or so ago. This is how its meant to be. You work and see it being paid off. I want to go as far as saying that whenever the SERPs aren't being messed with the traffic is usually great and stable. But alas boys and their toys...