December 2024 Google Search Observations

[Whitey]

Huge 48 hrs of overall site traffic doubling on only 3 url's, then back to zero. Top slot's since replaced with G overviews. For a moment I got excited. Looks like an AI smash and grab raid to me.

[edited by: not2easy at 11:38 am (utc) on Dec 1, 2024]
[edit reason] New month, new thread [/edit]

[ichthyous]

We’ll see a year-end traffic drop starting tomorrow, the 13th. Then, we will see a larger drop Friday the 20th. It’s the same every year.

Yes, and Google made sure to start screwing us all from the beginning of November this year so that the entire season was a lost opportunity.

[Fluff_Nutz]

@Micha

Can totally agree with this. One of my writers, somehow, manages to throw out trending articles a lot of the time. One of which was bringing in 50-100 views per day for a good 2 weeks. Gave me some hope that growth can actually be obtained. Roll on the next Google ''update'' and this article just dropped into the abyss. It was not a gradual drop over time, it literally vanished. All because of a so-called ''update'',

My traffic is now back down to its usual traffic category, which it cannot seem to escape from. Every day is the same traffic numbers. Liked I'm boxed in or something. The manipulation is some serious corrupt garbage.

Also, the other day I came across my first ever search on Google that lead to zer0, yes no actual website blue links. Just sponsored boxes, Quora and Reddit. The only actual site I saw was placed way down the list. Buried. I'll admit I don't search much any more so perhaps G has a right to panic. Most sites I use are bookmarked. No way would I even want to reverse that if this is how it will all look in the future. No thanks!

[renatovieira]

@ichthyous - Everything has changed around here in the last hour. Very massive drop! Right now I have practically ZERO active users on my main site. This is insane. Either Google broke it, or my site was penalized.

[gatormark]

I try to do a few things to keep my main website active. On social media, I post 5 hashtag heavy links to website pages EVERY DAY. I write one information dense article a week. I spend 10% of my revenue on advertising (Google Ads). These are the three basic things I always do; good times or bad. It has allowed me to survive…so far. :-)

I don’t worry about SEO too much. It’s impossible to keep up with Google’s moving target.

[saladtosser]

Once Google’s AI has successfully siphoned off all our current traffic, don’t be shocked if they invent time travel next—just to go back and steal all our past traffic too. Because let’s face it, if they could, they’d do it without batting an eyelid/algorithm.

[Fluff_Nutz]

@Gatormark

I think the magic word here is Google Ads. It's a pay-to-win system that G uses now. Hence traffic manipulation and why many articles, including one I mentioned above, drops and disappears. They are very money hungry right now.

I have often thought of using Google Ads but its expensive and giving G money really gives me a bad taste. Question though, can you be part of Mediavine and use Google Ads at the same time? Both are, essentially, ad competitors. Does anyone actually combine the two?

[Mark_A]

@ Fluff_Nutz SEO isn't free. If you add up all the time and effort people put into it and multiply by an hourly rate there is an investment there. Google has calculated that rather than webmasters spending their money on SEO, and on SEO practitioners, why not get that money spent with Google directly through ads.

Either SEO or PPC, there is a spend. SEO doesn't go to Google, PPC does.

[gatormark]

@Fluff Nutz

I don’t know anything about Media Vine. However, I do use Adsense and exponential at the same time. I’m kind of grandfathered in with exponential. I’ve been using them for years, but I don’t think they are focused on the ad publishing market anymore.

I will put exponential ads on the pages where Adsense won’t allow ads.

[mosxu]

Today analytics says no organic traffic probably I miss behaved

[EditorialGuy]

Yet another Google Core Update:

[searchengineland.com...]

[Micha]

Do they actually do anything other than core updates at Google?

[searchengineland.com ]

[Fluff_Nutz]

One has to wonder if the last ''update'' even ended. There has been so much fluctuation since the November one ''supposedly'' ended.

[mosxu]

Can they not start selling that willow quantum chip instead of updating no traffic to my website?

I have nothing in my bank account!

[renatovieira]

December 2024 core update explains the rollercoaster abyss of the last few days :-|

[Micha]

Conclusion today: Traffic once again at almost 0, ranking is constantly changing, I can actually close the news page.

Shop: Sales have completely collapsed since midday, hardly any traffic from Google (despite Adwords), but Amazon adverts for every product they offer, even if Amazon doesn't sell it at all.

[MayankParmar]

Tragic. The November 2023 Core update has been repeated. I'm now ranking last on the Google News tab. Immediately after the December core update.

[ichthyous]

On social media, I post 5 hashtag heavy links to website pages EVERY DAY.

Glad if this works for you, but links out from social don't work at all for me...Meta just demotes anything with a link in FB or Instagram posts and nobody even sees it. Youtube removed captions with links, and Tiktok going to be banned in the States looks like. Reddit forums mostly dont permit links except in comments, and those are quickly flagged. Pinterest long ago converted to a paid only model and my enormous traffic from there went to zero. Which social platform are you referring to exactly?

I spend 10% of my revenue on advertising (Google Ads). These are the three basic things I always do; good times or bad. It has allowed me to survive…so far. :-)

You don't mention if that ad spend is remunerated with sales or conversions. Do you track it? I don't mean to sound perpetually negative, but many if not most of us here have tried ad spend and found it to be a complete waste of money and basically a con on the part of Google. Untargeted traffic, fake clicks, overcharges and no real return. Last time I ran ads i had to spend about $110 to get one inquiry...not sale, inquiry. 90% of inquiries go nowhere these days so if you do the math, I would never give Google that much to get one sale. Perhaps this model works better for lower priced items that are necessities I don't know...what I sell is a high dollar value discretionary spend and organic traffic worked well as it was free. Having to spend $1000 up front to recoup that free business is not a viable business model.

I write one information dense article a week

I do think that writing fresh content is still a worthwhile pursuit, but it's hit or miss whether it will ever rank and produce traffic.

Of my articles only a small number pull in all the traffic, and that was drastically reduced with both these updates. Doesn't make one want to invest time in writing more new content just to feed AI bots more data.

[edited by: ichthyous at 2:32 pm (utc) on Dec 13, 2024]

[Fluff_Nutz]

@Micha

Wow so you are saying that you pay for Google Ads and do not get traffic in return? What a complete rip off. You are paying for traffic that you don't even get! Makes me wonder how long that will last before more people realize and quit. More money loss at the expense of sheer greed and selfishness. So, no, going down the G Ads route is not the answer to gaining traffic then. Running out of options. Really hope their marketshare drops to 50% next year, apparently people are speculating.

Traffic here is, dare I say, good. My writer has, once again, released a trending article but we shall see how long that lasts.

[Micha]

@Fluff_Nutz I don't own the shop, I just look after it and unfortunately I have no say in the matter. I would have got rid of AdWords a long time ago. I'm not in favour of feeding Google money.

[thetitan72]

Cómplice catastrofic from my end... my Traffic has Gone down almost 75% in The last two days.. hopefully it's a Google issue that will be solved soon

[ichthyous]

Cómplice catastrofic from my end... my Traffic has Gone down almost 75% in The last two days.. hopefully it's a Google issue that will be solved soon

The good news is that it may or may not be resolved in ~2 weeks. The bad news is it will be immediately followed by the next catastrophic update.

[gatormark]

@ichthyous

I was just relating what works for me. Of course, much of it has to do with my niche.

For instance, I really don't sell a product, per se (until after conversion). I “sell” community and access to web-based tools. My “conversions” are measured by people registering for the community. For instance, I have 128 conversions this month on a spend of $175 through Google Ads. So, the things I do to promote my type of “product” works for me. A large percentage of those new acquisitions will pay for advanced features ranging from $39-159.

As far as social media, my main website’s FaceBook page has 11K+ followers. This is where I post my hashtag heavy links. I only use FaceBook (No TikTok or Instagram).

All of this facilitates other revenue streams like income from guest posting. I charge $50-75 for guest post content which must be written for my niche.

So, as you can see, for me it works.

[mosxu]

It is very clear that buyer traffic is being updated at the moment and not the “core”

[renatovieira]

Massive drop today!

[ichthyous]

Once again, a spate of very good quality inquiries on the first day of an update...now I expect back into oblivion for two more weeks. This is no way to run a business! It's eerie, but nothing new...that cycle has been clear as day now for years with Google, it's just that the updates come more and more often and don't seem to actually do anything now except ensure that traffic disappears.

I mean, what are these updates actually doing...zapping spammy links? zapping sites with overly optimized SEO? Perhaps they are just training exercises so that Google's AI algo can teach itself how to update without the input of so many human engineers...i.e. cost reduction = higher profits. Meanwhile, I am seeing an uptick in traffic from ChatGPT, Perplexity and other AI chat sites by the day.

[christianz]

After the convincingly bad November Core, rankings stabilized (at lower level) and started to actually very slowly recover.

But no - Google had to immediately release December Core and keywords are rapidly collapsing again.

[daniel1213]

huge drop today in eastern Europe...

[Micha]

In Germany too, and presumably in the rest of Western Europe as well. The update seems to be affecting a lot of shops at the moment, especially grocery stores.
My news page remains stable (bad, but at least it's not getting any worse).

[jchiff]

If the only way to rank is to buy your way in what's a core update for?

[christianz]

If the only way to rank is to buy your way in what's a core update for?

They are letting us know when they shuffle their spam around and add more spam.