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]

[RedBar]

15+ hours into my Googleday with global site traffic at 23% furthermore no new B2B enquiries whatsoever in December. I'll let this "update extermination" roll-out then, as looks most likely, remove a 31 year old site from the public view.

[ichthyous]

Atrociously bad traffic since yesterday...search is -18% yesterday and -25% today. USA, UK, CA all -31% to -45% this morning. We are the proverbial frogs in the pot and google is constantly turning up the heat...training us all to expect our traffic to just keep declining I think. Let's get real here...there are no valid reasons for these back to back updates all the time, it's just a pretext to kill off organic search entirely no?

[RedBar]

Just checked Dec 1-14 2024 v 2023 and so far -29% and getting worse.

v 2022 -47.6%
v 2021 -64.5%

There's absolutely no need to ask where this is going for my supposed global site insofar as the www is concerned since my realword business numbers tell me completely the opposite story.

For quite a few years, more than a decade, Google has not been a driver for new bulk B2B enquiries. It nailed its colours to the mast of localisation a long, long time ago and I completely comprehend why. For some of my products B2C enquiries would outnumber a B2B enquiry 150:1. As a close friend of mine says, "it's all about the chimney pots" !

[universenet]

Webpages of many websites are just removed, no exist in Google search
Perfect status for google is when not any website will exist on Google search , only will exist ads and with no effect

[gatormark]

It nailed its colours to the mast of localisation a long, long time ago and I completely comprehend why.

That’s it! If you are trying to get business outside of your country, you are going to have a hard time doing that moving forward. In fact, that’s been the case for a while.

[universenet]

This about google is very good example how company what has monopoly in some business can destroy economy, this is reason why monopoly in any business should be controlled, but about internet all is going too late

[RedBar]

@universenet

Nope, you need to understand how the vast majority of businesses distribute their products in many countries. For sure the last 25 years has seen a massive xhange however most business is, believe it or not, still conducted in a similar fashion, for ease of explanation:

Manufacturer > wholesaler / importer > regional stockist / B2C

Even where the likes of eBay and Amazon are conserned this is still the average method however things become interesting whena manufactures or importers / wholesalers decide to go to the consumer direct such as with mobile phones or computers for example.

In general, selling direct to the consumer was a very time-consuming and unprofitable proceedure however developments in websites, computers and the willingness of the public to look and learn, the sales game has changed for many types of products but the buyer still takes the risk that the buyer knows that the product one is buying online is actually the intended one and not one of a lower / higher specification.

Google does not have a monopoly on business but it does have a monopoly in people's minds when choosing a search engine and the unfortunate aspect these days is that Google is little more than a classified ads website ... WYSIWYG ... If one doesn't like it move on and go elsewhere however metrics tell us that G's search customers, realistically, seem to be content with what they are getting ... Bizarre but true!

[universenet]

@RedBar

So, you says it is good that monopoly company exist and do what want and no need do nothing about?

Should to be clear that even if 2 companies like google and Apple made deal about
"hey, put my browser like a default on your devices and I will pay you 20 billions"
That kind of activity is against law and will be punished
And there is many more things
It is not important what people thinking or not thinking
Activity of company can put company what has monopoly out of law and not activity of users

Next example:
2 banks or group of banks can not make deal about examle minimum fee for some activity like credit card or money transfer what they will do to clients
If they do that and regulator has recognizd that and know about so regulator will make them bg fee, this happening every month in many diferent countries

Companies are under rules and not clients or users

If we thinking in way:
"Ah people are guilty because they do not want change search engine",
so in that way companies will newer be responsability for activity because always is "chance" for users change search engine
In real life is not going in that way and big companies, monopoly companies are under special law, and samll companies are not, if you run search engine you can do what you want, but monopoly companies can NOT do and they are under monopoly rules
All that is in the name of FAIR competition

[daniel1213]

All SERP rankings have gone down. It's unbelievable. I'm completely discouraged by this evil system called Google. Personally I don't understand, a website that worked perfectly for 2 years, was at the top of searches, to bring it to the last positions without doing anything wrong, and worse websites full of SPAM were not touched. Do Google programmers write code after the Christmas party?

[Whitey]

The frequency of core updates accelerating is the new norm for 2025 it seems.

[seroundtable.com...]

[morpheus83]

Google search quality made it to 9Gag as well -
[9gag.com...]

[Whitey]

@morpheus83 - interesting opinions in that link.

Does AI justify the hype we've been hearing, and does the current activity of Google to eliminate human content production in favour of AI have a dead end? Read Ed Zitron's perspective over here: [webmasterworld.com...]

[sanjeevk89]

I have Australian clients. I did not see many fluctuations at the time. But that may change as the week proceeds.

[renatovieira]

Another day of massive drops. Today is clearly the worst of all.

[Micha]

I have nothing else to report either: the ranking has fallen massively from yesterday to today. The traffic has fallen as well. In return, Google is spitting out more and more websites that are not in German. To be honest, I don't understand this.

[christianz]

Ed Zitron's perspective

Entertaining read and I agree with most of it (about "AI companies" basically being borderline scam). But he is too dismissive and negative about LLMs. If all progress in AI stopped today and all we had was GPT4 forever, it would still be amazing discovery with real world applications.

[christianz]

Another day of massive drops. Today is clearly the worst of all.

Usually my drops are awarded with 1 day or half-day delay after you post about yours....

[RedBar]

@universenet

So, you says it is good that monopoly company exist and do what want and no need do nothing about?

Where did I write that? Nowhere do I even insinuate such a scenario, please re-read and understand what I did say:

Google does not have a monopoly on business but it does have a monopoly in people's minds when choosing a search engine and the unfortunate aspect these days is that Google is little more than a classified ads website ... WYSIWYG ... If one doesn't like it move on and go elsewhere however metrics tell us that G's search customers, realistically, seem to be content with what they are getting ... Bizarre but true!

Most people here well-understand my attitude about Google's endeavours.

[gatormark]

One more week until the DEAD ZONE!

[RedBar]

I forgot ... Did someone switch search back on for a few hours earlier today? I had completely "normal" hourly global traffic for nearly 7 hours, we'll see how the rest of the day goes!

[universenet]

$RedBar
ok,sorry seems I did understand you wrong,
but for all of us things will not be good if google will have still 90 pecent of market, will be good only for google
Google should have maybe 50 percent and no more, if more will be greedy, and will be bad for all us, when google have less of 50 percent of market google need publishers
Without losing big percent of market and go back to maybe 40-50 percent , without this will not be good for anybody
It is not easy for now even imagine that, we waiting for new and new core update but exactly without losing percent in market will notihng happening

[gatormark]

@universenet

Yes, in the search industry, Google is not a monopoly. The problem is that the other search engines are horrendous. Bing and DDG are virtually useless and their search results, although not including AI, are 100 times worse than Google‘s.

[universenet]

@gatormark
everyone who has majority in some industry is automatic monopoly in that industry
It is not that automatic bad or good
All depends about activity of that company if will be good or bad
Imagine that google doig all the best possible but will be monopoly again by definition because taking majority of search industry
For me best option is that google become good company like in old years and in taht way can have 100 perenct or search industry, monopoly but good for all

Company can have monopoly that nobody from any goverment do nothing about because if that company come in that status in fair competition way, but that kind example of sucsesfull is not easy in this world, greedy world

[RedBar]

I forgot ... Did someone switch search back on for a few hours earlier today? I had completely "normal" hourly global traffic for nearly 7 hours, we'll see how the rest of the day goes!

I suppose there's no need to say other than "As I expected" ... Traffic came to a screeching halt at UK 15.00 and dead ever since.

@universenet

but for all of us things will not be good if google will have still 90 pecent of market, will be good only for google
Google should have maybe 50 percent and no more,

The thing is that we webmasters made G the go to search engiine since it was so very good, quick and clean, even when they first introduced ads it was understandable since it required funding. I'll conveniently forget the CIA connections etc.

The big question for any G search challenger has to be "How do I make my algorithm different to Google's and give fast, accurate results?" And don't forget all the spam and garbage it has to deal with.

Does Joe Public actually like / approve of G's results? Do we have to assume they must because there certainly does not seem to be any big movement away from it? For years DDG has been my default search however its results the last few months have deteriorated so much I've had to stop using it for United Kingdom selected search since all I've been gettting has been USA results ... Yes, I have complained.

I would like to see a current genuine reason for 4 core updates a year. If I remember correctly they did say why they were going to do this however it appears to cause so much chaos and destruction that WE need a justification for them to continue this utter farce.

[universenet]

The thing is that we webmasters made G the go to search engiine since it was so very good, quick and clean, even when they first introduced ads it was understandable since it required funding..

@RedBar
Yes, I know history of google and adsense
One of my website is more of 20 years old
But things going now in totaly diferent way
Greedy......greedy.....
Greed can even kill people (boeing)

[gatormark]

@universenet

The keyword is “illegal.” in the United States and illegal monopoly exists when one company has market power for a product or service, AND AND it has obtained or maintained that market power, not through competition on the merits, but because the firm has suppressed competition by engaging in anticompetitive conduct.

I don’t have a problem with Google being a “monopoly” in the basic sense of the word (dominant market share). I think people are more frustrated with the search results and the constant changes in those results.

I have been negatively impacted by those changes as well. However, their incorporating AI and constantly making updates to their search results does not mean they are an illegal monopoly.

One thing we have learned from the past concerning monopolies is that when a monopoly is broken up it can often result in a worse situation for the consumer or business partner.

[universenet]

The keyword is “illegal.” in the United States and illegal monopoly exists when one company has market power for a product or service, AND AND it has obtained or maintained that market power, not through competition on the merits, but because the firm has suppressed competition by engaging in anticompetitive conduct.

@gatormark
That is what google did
Google paid 20 billions to apple
This is just one of illegal activity

[gatormark]

@universenet

Yes, Google did that recently and are paying for it, buy that now how they acquired their market share. They simply have the best search engine. Right?

[universenet]

They simply have the best search engine. Right?

If continue in that wat will be only one search engine
Yes, Sundar says they are the best for search for course, the are so magical,
Coca Cola CEO says too for Coca Cola ( and Coca Cola is very healthy)
Amazing
Incredible
Imagine how good google will be when will be only Gemini (if continue in that way)
Will be ultra amazing
Yes?

@gatormark
I will tell you my secret but do not say that to anybody, ok?
Google is my HERO!

[EditorialGuy]

Re Google's payments to Apple for distribution: Google didn't invent "pay for play," and the practice isn't limited to Internet search. For example:

[vox.com...]