November 2024 Google Search Observations

[Shepherd]

---

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)

---

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.

[Dimitri]

I also noticed an increased of Bing activity since mid September, that lead to an increased of the number of pages indexed, and also an increase of visitors from Bing (and SE using Bing's index). It's possible that Bing is also preparing the end of Google's exclusive deals and seeing an opportunity to increase its market share.

[renatovieira]

Huge drop today... Here we goooo

[christianz]

Huge drop today... Here we goooo

Yes big further drop on top of previous drops from this tragically broken "update".

Only hope is that some employees at Google will come in today and actually notice that SERPs are turning into steaming pile of spam and do something about it.

[mosxu]

£7 billion class action in the UK basically G continues to rig the market to charge advertisers more, which raises the prices the businesses charge consumers!

[Shepherd]

rig the market to charge advertisers more

That's so last year. Now they just flat out lie and steal and sometimes they don't even lie about it.

[ichthyous]

Yes a big drop today...USA, Canada, UK and Australia all down but USA is down the most. It started to drop off yesterday with direct traffic and today is search.

[daniel1213]

Same in Europe. BIG DROP TODAY!

[Micha]

Good morning from Germany. I'm taking part: today is the big drop that started yesterday.

[christianz]

Second week of the "November Core Update" has been absolute horror show. And it continues.

[daniel1213]

Although traffic is coming in waves, the SERPs look very strange and the volatility is high, SEMRUSH Sensor and other monitoring systems show that volatility is calming down. Are they still relevant or why is there such a big difference between what they indicate and reality?

[renatovieira]

Here, the traffic pattern is still low in the mornings. After noon, the filter starts to release users.

In the SERPs, my site improved important positions in almost everything, but the traffic does not reflect the success. It's bizarre!

[christianz]

improved important positions in almost everything, but the traffic does not reflect the success. It's bizarre!

It's because of SGE and other "enrichments" which are designed to take your work without your permission, serve it in the SERP pages, prevent human beings from ever navigating to your site and enrich Google with your work for free.

Try it. Try Google on a blank virtual machine in a cloud somewhere in US with no connection to you or prior visits to your sites.

[Whitey]

Bipartisan laws are intended in Australia to protect creators with Google AI etc:

[webmasterworld.com...]

[Whitey]

Another article has appeared regarding the " Fate of AI and Fair Use Copyright Report Will Depend on Judges"

[webmasterworld.com...]

It looks messy to innovate with AI. Not just Google.

[Martin Ice Web]

Very, very, very bad traffic since yesterday. Totaly mismatched. Guess google is in full Black Friday mode and funnels all transactional traffic through their ad system.

[Micha]

Traffic has continued to decline, rankings have fallen even further, it feels like a massacre at the moment. What I noticed: Google hasn't read my sitemaps for over a week, which has a particularly negative effect on Google News. What also stands out: According to SC's crawling statistics, crawling requests have also been declining sharply for a few days.
I hope this is only due to Black Friday, because if it continues like this, my site will be dead in a few days.
(I'd rather not say anything about the shop, which is just as frustrating).

[gatormark]

Traffic is about 35% LESS than what it has been the past 2 Novembers. However, this November’s Adsense revenue is up 9% over November of 2023. Strange. Clicks are down too by 20%, but page RPM is very high. The highest it’s ever been.

Still, I have to focus on guest posts, paid memberships, and other sources of revenue to make ends meet.

Adsense is my main source of revenue, but I am still not optimistic because of recent Adsense and Google page rank history. It seems as soon as I start to make progress, some type of claw back occurs.

[Ingall]

I now believe Edward Zitron's statements.

He refers to internal emails that were made public as part of an antitrust case against the tech giant. As early as 2019, the company had actively decided to subordinate the quality of search results to growth and to dismantle technical filters that were actually supposed to keep spam and low-quality content away.

The reason, according to Zitron: These quality assurance measures had reduced advertising revenue.

A decision with consequences - the company seems to be continuing down this path to this day. Search is becoming more profitable, but increasingly worse for users.

In my opinion, every update does not improve the search quality, but only increases sales.

That's why the top rankings consist of thin content, because that's the only way visitors will return to Google and click on the ads.

[Ingall]

I now believe Edward Zitron's statements.

He refers to internal emails that were made public as part of an antitrust case against the tech giant. As early as 2019, the company had actively decided to subordinate the quality of search results to growth and to dismantle technical filters that were actually supposed to keep spam and low-quality content away.

The reason, according to Zitron: These quality assurance measures had reduced advertising revenue.

A decision with consequences - the company seems to be continuing down this path to this day. Search is becoming more profitable, but increasingly worse for users.

In my opinion, every update does not improve the search quality, but only increases sales.

That's why the top rankings consist of thin content, because that's the only way visitors will return to Google and click on the ads.

[mhansen]

This right here is the future we get with Google. In the mobile Safari browser, they now inject links to Google search result pages or AI overviews. Without the website owners consent as far as I know. I saw this mentioned about a month ago, but this is the first time I've seen it in action. I'm also an Android user, so it may be awhile before it gets to my own eyes.

Twitter discussion [x.com] of Anthony Higman, seeing these on the Search Engine Roundtable website, along with several others today.

I believe were getting to the point where Google should be required to pay us every time one of our domains registers an impression in search or any of their other products. They are the new Mahalo of the world, taking everyone's content, slightly rewording it and wrapping it in AI, ads or filling the search results links to their own properties. If Google held itself to the same standards it does everyone else, they would have been gone long ago.

Does anyone know more about this link injection? It is only on specific sites, sites with ads, sites under agreement with them, etc?

[Micha]

I'm currently trying to decide whether to laugh or cry. Today, 85% of the SERPs are complete garbage. I'm looking for a Korean grocery store, but Google shows me a results page full of fake stores and ads for Spanish food. I look at the news and see only articles about cars.

I read today that Google is personalizing more and more, and if what I see in Discover is a personalization for me, then apparently my interests consist of “knitting sweaters,” cars, “cities in Bavaria,” and “the question of estate administration and funerals.” Spoiler: I'm not interested in any of that.

@ingall, I had read that too and yes, it fits pretty well and the link injection is once again proof that the company is just taking advantage of us. For that alone, this company should be completely taken apart and smashed.

Does anyone know more about this link injection? It is only on specific sites, sites with ads, sites under agreement with them, etc?

If I understand this correctly, it is arbitrary. Websites can unsubscribe from it, but they have to repeat it every 30 days.

Well, as I feared this morning, my site's traffic and ranking continue to drop. Crypto spam now dominates my niche. So I have a 99 percent drop in traffic compared to last month. 10 years of work down the drain. (Note: the following is not meant seriously.) Does anyone know how much a flight to California costs? I would like to visit a company. I don't want to use Google because then I would probably end up in Moscow.

[christianz]

I'm currently trying to decide whether to laugh or cry. Today, 85% of the SERPs are complete garbage.

Traffic at new lows. US traffic seems to be especially badly manipulated.

As for the unsolicited link/ad injection "feature" - I have to pinch myself to believe this is even real. Can this even be real? This is like a dystopian dream. Will they be rewriting PDFs and old books to include ads too?

[Dimitri]

Are you sure that "ad injection" is not from the site itself using Adsense? There is such feature in the Adsense auto ads options.

[goodoldweb]

Same junk traffic day in day out now. Sales completely vanished (for unique perishable products that hardly anyone else sells in Australia). It is like the entire country (22+ million people) don't need our products all of a sudden. Products that used to fly off the shelf, for more than 3 years now.

Our pages show in the top ten for many of keyword combinations, BUT no sales. All we are getting recently are one hit wonders, spending less then a few secondes on the site. Bot like activity.

We stoped our paid adwords campaigns, absoulote junk tarffic too of late, and can confirm that also our popular very bussy ebay store went completely dead too.

This company needs to have it's wings clipped ASAP, and all of its directors thrown in jail for severe obstruction of trade, for millions of businesses around the world.

I am in discussions with our solicitor, looking to launch a class action in Australia.

[edited by: not2easy at 11:28 am (utc) on Nov 28, 2024]
[edit reason] Please see Charter [webmasterworld.com] [/edit]

[daniel1213]

Low traffic yesterday and today. It's not just me that assumes I'm penalized (although we have 33 sites and they all have low traffic). We have partners and collaborators, and without exception, they all complain.

[renatovieira]

Huge drop this morning...

[Micha]

What is Google's actual intention here? I don't understand the point of making it almost impossible to find small websites.

I don't need to mention that there has been a decline again today, do I?

[gatormark]

It’s Thanksgiving Day in the USA.

[renatovieira]

@gatormark - Are you saying that people don't access the internet on holidays?

[christianz]

Huge drop this morning...

Same. New record low.

[ichthyous]

It's Thanksgiving, so nobody in the US is surfing websites except for black friday sales maybe...but I am seeing huge drops across the board since yesterday. It isn't thanksgiving in Canada, Australia, or Europe and they are down by 25%-65% so no idea. Google always drops updates on holidays to obscure the results, maybe that is what is going on here...

[RedBar]

Nothing can save my global site metrics this month from being the lowest traffic since the late 90s and looks as though it will be down by about 20%.

And then again our regional UK hotel venue may just achieve its best month of the year which would be absolutely amazing since November has for decades been an industry-wide one of the quietest months of the year!

[renatovieira]

@ichthyous - My real-time data tells me the opposite. After a very slow morning, now in the afternoon there is a lot of traffic. Mainly from the US.

I don't have a store. I don't sell anything. My sites are entertainment and weather.

Holidays, christmas and new year are my biggest traffic peaks.

I still don't understand when publishers associate holidays with people away from the internet.

[RedBar]

@ichthyous

FWIW my Internet connections, three different ones, have been abysmal for a week now ever since it became much colder plus I feel the UK has turned down / rationed electricity since it has been impossible to fully-charge an EV here in the last few days.

The 70s power outages were easier to survive since there was not a www dependency, I know of many small realworld manufacturers considering giving up altogether.

[gatormark]

@renatovieira

Are you saying that people don't access the internet on holidays?

Yeah, NO ONE accesses the internet on holidays.

I am saying fewer people access the internet on Thanksgiving. It may pick up in the late afternoon. Thanksgiving is a day people typically spend with family. If your site caters to students, it can be a lot less.

[mosxu]

@notsoeasy

Canadian government is suing G for anticompetitive behaviour! For anyone in the room this is doggy!

It feels like all rushing to get a judgment before new powers come in!

[renatovieira]

@gatormark - You're absolutely right. NO ONE accesses the internet on holidays. ;-)

[daniel1213]

Hello from Europe. Huge drop here..

[Martin Ice Web]

Traffic is way up +33%. But nothing new to say about quality (0% ).
Meanwhile in our niche all transactional queries are filled with shopping ads ratio 8:2 ( ads/organic ) with amazon flodding the shopping ads.
And the remaining organics are very big players or completly unrelated / would never buy from shops.

[Micha]

That matches what I see. Slight increase in traffic, even though news traffic is currently down. But now we've arrived at AI nonsense in my niche, in addition to crypto nonsense. Google definitely seems to have lost control of news. Otherwise, you see Amazon ads everywhere and the number of fake shops in the top results has increased again.

The shop actually had a good day of sales yesterday, but today it will probably remain quiet since it is not participating in the Black Friday game.

[Martin Ice Web]

The shop actually had a good day of sales yesterday, but today it will probably remain quiet since it is not participating in the Black Friday game.

u nailed it.

[Micha]

@Martin Ice Web The shop sells specialty foods, and I'm guessing that it was a rush because of the first Sunday of Advent. So far, it's been slow today, so I hope it wasn't a one-time spike.

[gatormark]

I read today that Google is personalizing more and more, and if what I see in Discover is a personalization for me, then apparently my interests consist of “knitting sweaters,” cars, “cities in Bavaria,” and “the question of estate administration and funerals.” Spoiler: I'm not interested in any of that.

@Micha

I am definitely seeing personalized search results. Been seeing that for a while. Whenever I do a Google search related to some of my keywords. I will see my websites a lot higher in the results than normal. However, that’s only because I have visited my sites. If I go to another browser that doesn’t maintain search history, I get the normal search results or Google’s true rankings.

[ichthyous]

I am definitely seeing personalized search results. Been seeing that for a while. Whenever I do a Google search related to some of my keywords. I will see my websites a lot higher in the results than normal. However, that’s only because I have visited my sites. If I go to another browser that doesn’t maintain search history, I get the normal search results or Google’s true rankings.

Oh yes, it's been a while since this was the case. The rankings change dramatically depending on your location. I posted earlier this month that I was in NYC and my phone location in google chrome showed Philadelphia for some reason. My site was not in the top 10 in Philly, but when I changed to NYC it popped back to the tops spots I am used to. Then I checked a friends phone...It was set to NJ and my site again was not in the top ranking. Changed it to NY and there was my site at the top. This of course has a huge impact on traffic and new customer acquisition.

Traffic for me was very low yesterday but picked up toward the eve. Today also somewhat lower, but it's black Friday and many people have the day off.

[renatovieira]

Heavy traffic around here. End of update?

[Micha]

@renatovieira I'll keep my fingers crossed that it stays that way for you

You're welcome to give me some traffic, unfortunately it's still a dead dance for me, despite a significant improvement in the ranking. Incidentally, the update is still running.

[renatovieira]

@Micha - My main site is quite sensitive to when updates start and end.

They said it would take 2 weeks, I think it's almost over. When that happens, I get a lot of traffic...

It's rare for me to get penalized, but my data gets quite volatile at the end of updates...

We'll see.

[ichthyous]

My traffic is still quite a bit lower today...and very little action in terms of customers. It was all one shot over about 24 hours before Thanksgiving and done...silence for almost a full week before thanksgiving. But people are focusing on other things this weekend...

[christianz]

Traffic is terrible and worse today than yesterday or day before. Usually Saturdays seem to be when bulk of the weekly drops arrive during these updates. By all accounts, the update is continuing as before.

[System]

New month, new thread at: [webmasterworld.com...]

[edited by: not2easy at 11:37 am (utc) on Dec 1, 2024]
[edit reason] New month, new thread [/edit]