October 2024 Google Search Observations

[Micha]

Could Google finally make up its mind? The back and forth is really getting on my nerves. One day it's really good, the next day it drops, etc. Many keywords jump back and forth in the ranking. A little consistency would be really good for the nerves.

[edited by: not2easy at 1:34 pm (utc) on Oct 1, 2024]
[edit reason] New month, new thread [/edit]

[NeapTide]

@ichthyous indeed. The traditional search is dying and we the webmasters are dying. We were generating nice content and now we are getting thrown under the bus. If you got ecommerce site you might survive but information and other websites will die eventually.

I had 1 info site that I have shutdown during the start of this year. All its traffic was gone. In the past it even got links from wikipedia and popular battery brands websites because I was providing diagrams that didn't exist before. First people stole all the images published them on their websites, google picked them up and started displaying in image search cutting off large sum of traffic to website, later AI came to quickly give all the answers. It was the last nail in the coffin.

I am already in transition phase now. I will shutdown remaining two websites in future and totally switch to apps and game development. At least I could sell those to users or generate revenue with ads. Also those get installed in users phone so google can't force people to uninstall those. They can only terminate your developer account. But then there is iPhone as well where you could continue developing and releasing new games and apps. F"""k Google. F""""k this POS greedy selfish self-centered company.

[RedBar]

My traffic inconsistency is still bizarre.

For my UK hotel site last weeks lower numbers seemed to have rectified itself Sunday and Monday yet today it's gone back to almost 1:1 page views per visitor.

My global .com was running fine until Friday night then on Saturday it jumped straight off the cliff edge and has remained there since however page views per visitor remained average.

There is some unusual manipulation going on without a doubt.

[ichthyous]

How about home page traffic dropping 40% from day to day without any explanation? Yesterday I found a competitor running ads for my brand name and the ad was huge and came at the top before my own website's organic placement. But traffic to my home page was normal yesterday. Today no ads showing, but home page traffic -40%. Overall traffic is normal, it's just not going to the home page. All of it very strange...

[Bewenched]

Here in the US our 25y old retail website has seen massive fluctuations. One day the phones are off the hook and the next day it's crickets.

One odd thing we've seen:
We sell widgets different brands and different styles (very specific stuff) and if we sell one item 99% chance we'll sell one or two of them back to back, never really seen that before. We have over 6000 of these brand specific widgets, but we'll get back to back sales of the same style, color and mfg part number. Bizarre, never seen this before.

[Samsam1978]

That's good to know that you are getting some sales.

[Samsam1978]

@RedBar - yes I am seeing this too and more local searches, I get influx of UK traffic then on a Friday traffic gone and Sunday is biggest day for bookings. I have not seen the ups and downs like this before.

[lesseo]

This topic was extremely useful for me, thank you. I am experiencing the same ups and downs. But this has been going on for 1 year. Although we made very strong improvements especially in the onpage area, unfortunately it was not reflected in the serp results.

[not2easy]

There have been new recent decisions in various Google US Court cases posted here: [webmasterworld.com...]
(U.S. Judge Rules Google's online search monopoly is illegal)

And here: [webmasterworld.com...]
(Jury Finds Google Illegally Monopolized App Store: FTC Outlines Remedy Concerns)

[RedBar]

unfortunately it was not reflected in the serp results.

And therein lies the conundrum!

If one does not have a favoured news or big brand site no one knows just how long a site improvement make take to have any effect if at all. One may be lucky and see a difference within a couple of months but then again it could be 6-12 months.

I can see indexing and ranking within 24 hours for new "stuff" on a home page yet a new page only one level down can take weeks / months and bear in mind that this is usually for exclusive new content ,not something for which I am trying to compete.

It's been a lottery for years now, about 12 or so.

[ichthyous]

USA and Canada traffic are becoming increasingly tamped down this October...today I'm -48% at 11:30am for both countries. The two have basically gone hand in hand for years, so I think it's one big North American market where Google is concerned.

I'm also seeing big swings in top ranking terms from day to day now...I can lose 10%+ of my top-10 ranking terms in a day, and maybe the next day all right back again.

[saladtosser]

Something big is just starting again my end! YouTube videos pushed to the very top above literally everything and mad different desktop to mobile results, huge swings, nalways a clear sign somethings starting, anyone else?

[Samsam1978]

Is anyone seeing a decrease in USA traffic due to the hurricane?

[ichthyous]

Is anyone seeing a decrease in USA traffic due to the hurricane?

My USA traffic was down 16% yesterday, and search was down 7%. But Canada, UK, France were all down yesterday and I am noticing a hard clamp on USA/Canada traffic this entire week. Having hurricane hysteria 24/7 doesn't help though.

[EditorialGuy]

Our European travel-planning site's Florida traffic is actually better today than our traffic for several other populous states in the U.S. Go figure.

[gatormark]

Traffic is down in the United States for me as well. I don’t know if it’s because of the hurricanes and the mass destruction in the southeast or because of recent Google update.

[Samsam1978]

Yes I am seeing 10% today from last Thursday so something is going on either the southeast issues or update. I noticed my rankings stayed the same.

[christianz]

Traffic down significantly and also down most in US. Yesterday was probably the lowest traffic in past 12 months.

Ironically, Ahrefs keyword count and "organic traffic" charts are going up over last 30 days, completely disconnected from reality.

It could be that Google is now getting really vicious and aggressive with traffic stealing widgets in the SERPs, especially US.

[ichthyous]

Here we go again...USA is -33% at 1:30 and Canada is -71%. None of this is due to the hurricane in Florida or Yom Kippur.

[renatovieira]

Huge volatility here. My main keyword, which has always been on the third page, is fluctuating positions on the first page. This has never happened to my main site in 5 years...

Has anyone else noticed this big fluctuation today?

[lesseo]

There is an extraordinary fluctuation. I also observe a decrease in traffic in America.

[Samsam1978]

The traffic and bookings are down and I am seeing a massive swing now but I am not sure where the traffic is going as all my competitors are wiped out.

[christianz]

If the changes we are seeing in October, especially last few days and especially in US SERPs, are actually what Google have intended, and not some transient glitch, Google have finally completely lost their minds.

[RedBar]

Friday saw my global .com with its lowest-ever weekday traffic at 50% on a level with my Xmas 2023 metrics.

Today is looking similar at the moment.

UK hotel site did recover but today is looking awful.

[Micha]

I also have fluctuations in the ranking, but the traffic on my news page has stabilized at an acceptable level, I don't have big swings in the daily numbers. To be precise, it has been significantly better for a month than it was before the HCU update. Surprisingly, Search Console shows stable traffic from News and Discover, which has never happened before on my site.

[jchiff]

Nothing new to learn here for most of us, but a nice wrap-up:

Why Google Search is Falling Apart

[youtu.be...]

[gatormark]

For those who don’t live in the United States, the multiple hurricanes that have impacted the United States did not just impact Florida. Significant damage was in North Carolina and Tennessee as well. Complete towns have been destroyed in those states.

[christianz]

And I would expect US traffic to be exactly the same or increase during these Hurricanes, because many people are displaced with their relatives/friends and sitting on their phones even more.

Google however thinks it is great opportunity to roll out very greedy updates, whenever there are large world events. Sometimes opportunistically as cover (I remember a very nasty update exactly when invasion of Ukraine started) and sometimes because of it - US election is very soon and surely Google needs to "curate" the SERPs.

[gatormark]

And I would expect US traffic to be exactly the same or increase during these Hurricanes, because many people are displaced with their relatives/friends and sitting on their phones even more.

@christianz, it doesn't work that way. Many people are still in their homes, if they weren't destroyed, but without power. They are working to rebuild their lives. They are not "sitting on their phones even more" (smh) playing games or watching YouTube. I live in the middle of this turmoil and my nephew lost his house. Fortunately, my state is only bracketed by the destruction.

I don't know if this is the reason for our downturn (could very well be the Google updates), but it is a variable.

[christianz]

I don't know if this is the reason for our downturn (could very well be the Google updates), but it is a variable.

It is Google. It is always Google. Traffic is down on West Coast as well, and every other state that has nothing to do with hurricanes. Such things would be a factor for local business site but not for a global site.

Saturday traffic was slightly better than Friday but today it looks terrible, and Sundays normally are my highest traffic days.

[RedBar]

Good ol' fluctuating traffic!

An average Sunday for my global site is 75% of my weekdays, a low one would be 60%, today with 5 hours to go I'm at 130% courtesy of considerable widget trade interest from Australia.

Likewise our UK hotel site is at 107% v 2024 average however, for some reason, Sundays for the past couple of months have been much higher than usual!

[christianz]

Offtopic but funny (just to brighten up the mood here):

Many of us are regularly receiving e-mails requesting to publish "guest posts", "link insertions" etc. Today I for the first time received one asking for PayPal payment AFTER already making an article complete with images (it was actually relevant to my narrow niche!) and putting links to my site in it.

Next level insanity! And speaks volumes about Google ranking "intelligence".... These things would not be happening if they didn't work at all.

[renatovieira]

Big drop today. Anyone else?

[christianz]

For me the opposite - looks slightly better than previous days, although too early to tell.

[ichthyous]

USA and Canada both fairly low, but it is a holiday in the US. I am noticing a couple of things:

1) More pages showing up as "crawled, not indexed" in Google Search Console and
2) Google is not following my robots.txt and is indexing urls with query strings that I have disallowed. They are showing up as 404 errors

[Samsam1978]

Okay earnings 50% less than this time last year, actually wondering if to look for work now or just remain plodding along, hard to give up something I have spent 15 years on but looks like I am not relevant anymore and my words don't matter just AI do, but I can't put AI on my website as it will lose rank so I keep doing human content I might just need to throw in the towel now..

[christianz]

Okay earnings 50% less than this time last year

October so far is looking very bad in terms of ad revenue. Mostly because Google seems to be siphoning off all the worthwhile traffic (US traffic), but also due to starting of new quarter when advertisers have not yet committed to their campaigns.

[ichthyous]

Okay earnings 50% less than this time last year

I don't have Adsense, but I can tell you that in my product niche people just stopped purchasing this year compared to 2023. They all want large, high quality items for a ludicrously low price now. You would think we are in a major recession, but we aren't. Here in the US the stock market is roaring for two years now, we have the lowest unemployment in a generation and steady wage increases, and people appear to be spending freely on things like restaurants and trips.

The difference between 2024 and 2023? Google. The customers who can afford these items are gone, and it's only the leftovers that you can't do anything with now. The major change is the type of person making it to my site, and that is determined by Google. I just delete the inquiries as they come in...and I have never done that in 20 years in business.

I'm complaining a lot to friends and they say "why not just lower your prices and make sales?". When you produce very high quality items you are not willing to sell them cheaply, a lot of effort and expense goes into making them so I can only drop prices so much...beyond that I will just pass on the sale. I'm fortunate to have other revenue streams not related to physical products, so this year is actually going to be my highest income year ever...but it still irks me that I have a big selection of unqiue items for customers to purchase and nobody can find them anymore.

[edited by: ichthyous at 1:48 pm (utc) on Oct 15, 2024]

[saladtosser]

Whoa just searched for something on Bing, SEVEN HUGE ads at the top with sitelinks and all sorts of widgets! 7? Had to double take! You can really see where the web is going, Bing had a chance to win market share by clearing up the SERPS, but nope, triple down on the ads!

[christianz]

After tiny ray of hope yesterday, today traffic seems to be back to maximum low.

[superclown2]

Bing had a chance to win market share by clearing up the SERPS, but nope, triple down on the ads!

You did well to see that they were ads, the tiny notices they use will be missed by the majority of visitors.

Bing has always been a confused mess but now it's even worse, something I never felt possible. It's hardly relevant to me though, my latest stats show that a measly 1.9% of my business has came from them so far this month. Their billions spent on so-called AI would have been better spent on hiring staff who know the fundamentals of marketing.

Google, in the meanwhile, seems to have abandoned 'long tail' queries. Ask for the benefits of red square widgets and you'll get sites selling widgets, period. The first page will be high spending advertises naturally.

The world needs a proper search engine or two with a priority of actually finding the best answers to queries, rather than advertising companies that are maximising income.

[Micha]

I think we can forget about Bing. The company is behaving exactly like Google. Yesterday it came out that they are completely “stealing” recipes from food bloggers, something that Google is currently testing. And Bing's results are getting worse and worse. It almost seems as if they are adopting Google's strategy. I no longer see any difference between the two.

[christianz]

Bing's results have always been worse than Google's. Especially since HCU. Only big advantage they had (and maybe still have) was much less widgets and more space for (poorly selected) organics.

But generally Bing is full of SEO sites, AI generated sites etc. Sites that look like sites but nobody would actually want to read or use.

[lesseo]

I have 2 competitors who got on the first page by getting spam links. It seems like Google can't stop this no matter what it does. The website has no content but it is on the first page with a very competitive ranking thanks to the backlinks. Disgrace.

[saladtosser]

I had a friends site I built that got hacked, the hacker built 1000's of Chinese spam links to it, wasn't ranking well before but ranked like crazy after that, go figure!

[KaseyM]

God when will the drops stop?

[superclown2]

God when will the drops stop?

When a search engine replaces a certain advertising agency.

[puckparches]

God when will the drops stop?

It feels like they never will. It took me years to build good traffic to my sites, and I was making a decent living. Now, in less than a year, the traffic and earnings have dropped to a fraction of what they used to be. It feels like a never-ending nightmare. Sometimes, I wish I could wake up and see my AdSense earnings back to what they once were. :(

[einserpirelli]

we can hope for better times again...

<snip>

[edited by: not2easy at 11:22 am (utc) on Oct 19, 2024]
[edit reason] Please see Charter [webmasterworld.com] [/edit]

[Micha]

Do you really think anything will change? The problem with the search is not just based on one man.

[superclown2]

Here in the UK Google seem to have abandoned all attempts to create good, or even acceptable, quality results. This has been worsening particularly over the last month with plain vanilla results only, which ignore attempts to target anything but the most basic search terms. If this is 'AI' at work then we are in the grip of hype hysteria.

Google are destroying a system that has worked well for a couple of decades in favour of an ultra expensive one designed only to make them money rather than perform the function that a search engine was originally expected to do. It will not end well.

In the meanwhile the inadequacy of the legal systems of both the USA and Europe means that Google can continue to make spurious appeals against legal judgements for years to come whilst they continue to exploit their illegal monopoly. Publishers have a choice: sit it out and wait for things to change (provided that 'lobbying' allows this to happen) or find some other way to make a living. I suspect that huge numbers will have little choice but to go the latter route.

Sorry to sound so pessimistic but this is the reality of the situation.