November 2024 Google Search Observations

[Shepherd]

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System: The following 3 messages were cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/5112287.htm [webmasterworld.com] by engine - 10:50 am on Nov 1, 2024 (utc 0)

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Maybe, but how would they monetize search?

"ChatGPT is shaping up to be an exciting test of whether people will pay for quality information and a search experience that delivers reliable, actionable answers. It could set the stage for a new model in which users are willing to invest in search tools that prioritize depth, accuracy, and tailored insights over sheer volume of results." said ChatGPT

In my opinion, a paid search product is going to be the ONLY way to get quality search results moving forward. AI is the latest big bang and we are going back to 1998 in terms of the search landscape. I look forward to the next 20+ years.

[Dooku]

Quant and Ecosia want to build their own search infrastructure in Europe

[computing.co.uk...]

[techcrunch.com...]

As much as I hope a REAL search engine will be developed in the EU, nothing will come of this joint venture when you look at how they will go about it and what they are planning. It's the usual half baked nonsense.....a car with three wheels. On the outside it looks the same, but it just won't work.

Unless some company get's REAL funding like they receive in the USA and set's up shop in at least 10 to 15 BIG data centers around the world using tens of thousands of servers and running this based on their OWN technology and index like Google then it might be viable......anything else is just transposing air.

[saladtosser]

They need to act fast; I believe there's more driving the development of AI summaries than just keeping users on Google to click ads. It seems part of a broader plan to dismantle the open web, eliminating competition from other search engines both current and future!

If fewer and fewer websites remain, there’s less content for future search engines to index, making it impossible for new competitors to emerge to provide a REAL search engine (Google of OLD). This will ALSO prevent future LLMs freely training on the open web as Google has had the luxury of doing and they will need to come to Google and pay for the training data, under licence I suspect for that lovely recurring fee.

Google will of course spin this as them having saved the WWW information for future generations even though it was them that destroyed it!

But wait, how will they have new data to train their AI on in the future for events and discoveries yet to be made you ask? They will keep making exclusive deals with a few choice sites like Reddit and others to keep producing content for them to adsorb of course, open web becomes the closed web (the fraction that's left of it)

Next, they'll target e-commerce. Soon, all products might be listed directly on Google, with payments processed (and commissions collected) by Google itself, consolidating even more control and reduce/eliminate the need for a ecom website!

They are pulling up the draw bridge behind them IMO!

[renatovieira]

Here we go! The November 2024 broad core update is rolling out.

[status.search.google.com...]

[gatormark]

I have noticed an uptick since the US elections. Not a change in my traffic, but a change in the ad spending. It looks like I am on pace to have higher revenue than November of 2023. If that holds true, it’ll be the first time that has happened in four years.

[ichthyous]

Big drop in USA and Canada traffic starting at about 10am here. USA is -27% and CA is -58%. Search down 6% overall. The first down day since the span of three mysteriously low traffic days before the election. Not that it matters, up or down the traffic is only bringing a trickle of customer inquiries this year. People should be inquiring for holiday gifts and this week not a thing.

[saladtosser]

I believe they are gaslighting with this update, seen hour on hour movement for the last 6 weeks (loads of posts on this in that time) then total stagnation since the announcement, nothings moving! I believe they ran the update 6-4 weeks back and announced it when it completed!

[Treud]

@Micha

From what I'm seeing: from March 2024 to July I had stable traffic from GSC but the billable visits were off the roof, after checking with WP Engine, I saw many came from the same IP (Google) and other cities in the US, so it was some boting, the bandwidth was impacted too (scrap website?). Conversions were bad at this time

August to mid-September were okay months, with normal traffic patterns (like 2023). This month, I see the same, traffic matches between the WP Engine dashboard and GSC. Bandwidth is low. There is no conversion, but I have inquiries. For this month, it's normal as everyone is waiting for Black Friday deals!

[Chris travel 30]

Just a guess: What if the update has allready been finished? The volatility on the SERPs is coming down like a stone here in germany since Nov. 12. But: The days before the official announcement have been hot. Any guesses on that? I do not see any changes for my sites at the moment at all. The movement just stopped in the night from Nov. 13.

[sk7411]

We are dropping but that doesn't mean the update has just started. We all know the update was pushed a few days or perhaps a week before they announced it.

[Micha]

@treud Thanks for the reply.

The update has been going on for a while, but it's currently interesting. The ranking of my website is improving, but the number of visitors via Google has dropped again. Meanwhile, the Google News traffic has reached 0. What I find very strange, however, is that very old articles in particular receive traffic from Google, while new articles, i.e. all the news that we publish during the day, receive 0.

[Dooku]

@Micha, Can you check who or "what" is that traffic from google that lands on very old content pages on your website?
I have heard this from other webmasters also, but after checking the log files it appeared for most of them that they are bot's, mostly phone pharms using very old user agents.

[dr_cell]

My sites also show no movement in traffic from Google. Everything is more or less in place. I don't remember such updates before. If the update was already there before the announcement, then why announce it? What's the point?

[Micha]

@Dooku I'll have to take a closer look at this later, but what I can see now seems to be bots indeed.

[edited by: Micha at 11:33 am (utc) on Nov 14, 2024]

[not2easy]

Meanwhile, the Google News traffic has reached 0.

There was news out yesterday that Google is running a test involving EU News sites: [webmasterworld.com...]
That could affect traffic to news sites.

[Micha]

@not2easy I know, but that doesn't affect Germany. Here, it's more the case that the topic pages on News only display outdated articles from the big publishers, and small websites have almost completely disappeared.

[Martin Ice Web]

Just with the new broad core update is rolling out, sales vanished while traffic is way up.

[sk7411]

We are free falling :)

[christianz]

Yes, looks like a drop. Ad revenue record low for November also.

Traffic drops go hand in hand with RPM drops. Advertisers money is being wasted on AI generated spam sites.

[sk7411]

From a crude perspective, these core updates feel like a shuffle game that occurs every 2–3 months.

[daniel1213]

big drop today... -40% ..

[Martin Ice Web]

yeah, very big drop today. Seems like google wants to ensure that they don´t lose any piece of the christmas shopping cake.

[jchiff]

I believe Google may be projecting lol

[futurism.com...]

[EditorialGuy]

We've had increases since the update started. Yesterday (the first full day of the update, unless I'm mistaken), our Google unique visitors were up 53 percent and Google pageviews were up 85 percent over the same day a week earlier.

Of our top 100 pages, about 90 percent had increases, and there were no spikes that might have been caused by external events, mentions in major news media, etc. The traffic growth was distributed pretty evenly.

Today is also looking strong. Still, it's early days yet, and even if the improvements hold or continue, I don't expect a return to the pre-SGE glory days before our Google traffic started dying late in 2022.

[puckparches]

From the 11th to the 13th, traffic increased by about 10% compared to the previous week (though it remains 80% below the peak from 15 months ago). However, yesterday's traffic dropped below last week's levels. Just when you think things might start to improve, reality hits like a slap in the face.

[ankit68]

Hopefully, the upward trend starts to stick soon.

[ichthyous]

Google traffic is all over the place...it dropped yesterday at 10am sharp and stayed down the entire day, but didn't seem to affect USA traffic much. Today traffic was high until 1pm and then dropped off a cliff hour by hour since then...the drop is mostly USA traffic. It's highly unusual to have sharp intraday drops like this so it would indicate something is shifting from hour to hour...either the number of ads, or the number of widgets on the page, or ranking shifting based on location. Whether high or low this traffic isn't converting at all. That may be seasonal but I normally have more inquiries this time of year for sure.

[Fluff_Nutz]

@ankit68

Unfortunately, that will only ever occur on Miracle Day. Though, with that being said, these updates did all start with the release of AI. So it could all very well be more AI related rather than dominance and greed. G have had to shuffle the SERP around to make room for AI. Which, as a business, it needs to comply like other SE

I have read over on Reddit that this year seems to have had less updates, though whether that is true or not is debateable. According to an article I read, also over on Reddit, Gemini is meant to be released early next year. So, if it is AI related, it could, hopefully, mean the end of the constant updates soon?

Yes, I know, it is all probably wishful thinking. But, at this point, we have all had enough of this. I had a good month last month, October, now I get to enjoy that hard earned traffic and revenue fall into the abyss and there is literally nothing I can do about it. Talk about frustrating..

[Chris travel 30]

Anyone else seeing big changes for their sites at the moment? Traffic for our german speaking main site (travel) is down by nearly 50 %

[RedBar]

Crazy page view variations this month with the last 4 days, Tuesday ro Friday, being 200% of the previous 3 days, Saturday to Monday, and so far today after more than half of my Goggleday, traffic is at 25% !

At times I actually question the accuracy of my stat programmes.

[gatormark]

My web community mainly caters to United States residents. Probably 65% US traffic. Traffic has been slowly inching up. Revenue is on par with last year. Maybe down 2% so far. We’ll see what happens the upcoming week. Using the IndexNow feature of Bing has helped my positioning on Bing, even though I don’t get a lot of traffic from them. The sale of advanced website features and guest posts is pretty steady. Strangely, Google traffic is down about 25% from last year, but my revenue is similar.