February 2025 Google Search Observations

[mosxu]

Bros,

In the news G unveils quantum chip that confirms the existence of parallel universes…

Who is that stupid to buy their stock?

[edited by: not2easy at 5:28 pm (utc) on Feb 1, 2025]
[edit reason] New month, new thread [/edit]

[ichthyous]

@renatovieira I've been reporting massive drops all week, starting last Sunday (Feb 16th). This seems to be an extension of the drops starting on Feb 6th, but it is affecting international traffic more than USA.

I just checked more closely...searches are -10% and direct is down -19% from the 16th - 19th. USA is slightly up during this time, but UK / Canada are down a whopping 30-43%, while European countries seem to be down across the board up to 40%. Germany has been dropping like a stone since early February. Traffic from Israel is also down 40% in this time period -

The United States
+3%
The United Kingdom
-43%
Canada
-30%
Australia
-9%
The United Arab Emirates
+17%
India
+7%
France
-10%
Germany
-39%
New Zealand
+200%
Italy
-38%
Israel
-40%

Perhaps people are just not searching as much for my items because they are not necessities?

[edited by: not2easy at 4:00 pm (utc) on Feb 20, 2025]
[edit reason] politics/ToS/Charter [/edit]

[RedBar]

Ok, I am not making any political statement or blame here but the fact is that, insofar as Europe is concerned, all the major economies are flatlining or in recession plus this weekend's German election may have huge implications throughout the entire region.

It is absolutely no wonder that people are concerned and maybe even confused as to the direction of many countries. In general consumer spending is down but this does mean there are bargains to be had, I for one have done some great deals in the last few weeks.

In short, many Western economies are currently very unstable and wildly inconsistent.

[renatovieira]

Semrush is on fire and my main site is now going down the cliff. Something is going on...

[gatormark]

In short, many Western economies are currently very unstable and wildly inconsistent.

THIS!

Something BIG is going to happen soon. I can feel it.

[Brett_Tabke]

Lets stay on the topic of Google please ;-) We are doing a political debate here....

[lesseo]

I've been reading google updates here for months now. And I realize most people don't put up with the nonsense of google updates anymore.

[RedBar]

We are doing a political debate here...

No we're not.

We are hypothesizing what could be causing the seemingly instability of Google's SERPs and it's effect on our websites especially those with ecommerce sites and their extreme fluctuations they are experiencing and the possible reasons for it happening.

Recession = Lower sales
Inflation = Higher prices
Google Flux = Unknown effects
Consequences = Is there any thing one can do to mitigate it?

[ichthyous]

Lets stay on the topic of Google please ;-) We are doing a political debate here....

Brett...discussing external influences which might be at play when the world is in a total state of flux is not discussing politics. Either Google is making huge changes this week that are causing a total collapse in traffic (no sign of that that I can see) or something else is at play. We must consider external factors as well...wars, holidays, weather events, catastrophes, and...political factors such as elections.

Normally this would be very difficult to cause huge swings like this...but we are not in normal times are we? It seems to me that the mods at WebmasterWorld have become very skittish (read: afraid) of being punished for any even remote commentary about external political causes. Without being able to see the entire picture your forum becomes useless to us all. I say that as a 20+ year contributor here.

Is there anyone who can explain such massive losses within the span of the last week? Has Google announced a really, really big update? If not, I stick with the current political chaos caused by Washington DC as the most likely cause. The drops are biggest in UK, CA, and EU.

[Micha]

I don't know what you guys are selling, but in my niche, I don't think the political situation has an influence, and it can't be that AI crap from Google, luckily we don't have that in Germany. With the shop, you can pretty much see that this is something Google is currently doing in the background. The same goes for the news site, because none of this matters here. Right now it seems like an HCU to me, because leading media and big shops are clearly winning, while small websites are losing a lot in all areas. In particular, the dominance of two very large media companies in Google News has been very noticeable in many niche topics for a few weeks now.

[ichthyous]

Since the 15th I am seeing a massive downturn in UK traffic...it's 43% below normal. I checked and there is a winter break for schools from Feb 17th-21st it seems so that might explain it...but a 43% drop seems extreme. Perhaps the commercial searches are skimmed off to such an extent now that only the students remain. My site has become an academic resource more than anything else...

[EditorialGuy]

I don't know what you guys are selling, but in my niche, I don't think the political situation has an influence, and it can't be that AI crap from Google

I have an information site, not an e-commerce site, and I do wonder if the world political situation mightn't be having an effect on traffic.

We had a fairly strong January (Google traffic was up significantly), but February has been more of a mixed bag.

Ad revenues are also much weaker than one would normally expect at this time of year.

Given the fact that many of our readers are researching travel expenditures in the thousands of dollars, pounds, or euros, it's easy to imagine that--at least in the short term--political and economic turmoil might negatively influence user demand and advertisers' willingness to spend.

[ichthyous]

I have an information site, not an e-commerce site, and I do wonder if the world political situation mightn't be having an effect on traffic.

Uh, the Dow is -800 pts today and the Nasdaq is -400pts...so politics impacting the markets and causing economic anxiety...and that will definitely impact sales for any e-comm site.

[EditorialGuy]

Uh, the Dow is -800 pts today and the Nasdaq is -400pts...so politics impacting the markets and causing economic anxiety...and that will definitely impact sales for any e-comm site

The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index dropped 10 percent this month due to worries about tariffs and inflation.

"Expectations for personal finances and the short-run economic outlook both declined almost 10% in February, while the long-run economic outlook fell back about 6% to its lowest reading since November 2023."

"The Consumer Sentiment Index fell to 64.7 in the February 2025 survey, down from 71.7 in January and below last February’s 76.9. The Current Index fell to 65.7, down from 75.1 in January and below last February’s 79.4. The Expectations Index fell to 64.0, down from 69.5 in January and below last February’s 75.2."

[news.umich.edu...]

[Ingall]

@Micha. It also seems to me as if an HCU update (authority update) is underway. Only pages with high authority are among the winners. In my niche, expired domains of clinics and pharmacies that were closed a long time ago are dominating. I always hoped that Google would finally do something about this expired domain abuse. But the opposite is the case. These pages are gaining more visibility day by day, even though the content only consists of spam.

[ecommerceprofit]

If you have read my past posts you will know I dislike Google. However, seriously...I "truly" use Google about 15% of the time now or DDG or Bing. Almost everything I need is through AI engines. I used to use Bing then from home page clicked on copilot then I used openaidotcom but now am using grok. I was just annoyed by grok when for the first time it wanted me to login so I went back to openai. Will use grok first as long as no login. I have not yet tried facebook and sometimes use Gemini when I am on Google.

This is awesome. I have no idea why Google's stock is still so high. I will say that when I am searching for stuff to buy I still use Google and Amazon.

[Micha]

@Ingall For me, it's “Tagesschau” and Der Spiegel. These two sites have seen a real boost in visibility and are being pushed ahead of dubious crypto news sites that claim things that aren't true in my niche. Oh, and English websites... All the smaller pages that also deal with my niche are no longer visible and my news page is somehow surviving, but with significant fluctuations in the keywords.

[mosxu]

OpenAI confirms 400 million weekly users

Asta la vista baby!

[ichthyous]

Update - I have been going on about the head scratching drop in traffic this past week...a massive decline of 41% in UK traffic, 30% CA, 20% AU, and similar drops from most EU countries. Overall search traffic was -11%.

This was actually caused by the loss of 1,100+ aged links from a high DA site located in the UK that I worked with for years. They went belly up and were bought out by a competitor. The competitor decided to shut down the site rather than keep it running at a loss. They had mentioned to me that the process would take months, but after I declined to move my items to their platform (and pay them a lot more) they just deleted all my front end pages within days.

I know all of the backend dealings since I was the highest bidder for the site at one point last year, but I backed out from purchasing it when I went through the financials and the traffic stats they provided. The site was losing almost 7,000 GBP per month due to the costs of the hosting and constant tech support. The technical audit showed that it needed a total redesign and was bleeding traffic from guess who? Google of course. The DA was 80+ but it wasn't worth the monthly financial loss to maintain the site.

It appears that after the initial shock of losing that many links overnight my traffic might be stabilizing / recovering already. If so, it would appear that Google is not valuing these kinds of bulk links from lower level pages too highly anymore, even from a very high DA site. In this same period my ranking has shot up on both desktop and mobile...

[gatormark]

Traffic has been relatively stable for me, but the page RPM has dropped 20%. That is not a good sign for ad spending.

[renatovieira]

Massive drop today.

[nordland]

My website is steadily growing, a global site with many unique images, which I believe benefits me both today and in the future. I have practically stopped using Google myself, as I get better answers elsewhere.

[RubicCubed]

OpenAI confirms 400 million weekly users

Unfortunately sends me no traffic. The only products that exist to OpenAI are on Amazon or Walmart. Not much different then Google, except Google is all market place ads.

[ichthyous]

Massive drop today.

@Renato I saw a big increase today...the first day of normal traffic since the 16th

[renatovieira]

@ichthyous - At many times, our numbers were similar. Currently they are completely opposite...

[insideout]

I'm fed up with this infinite google #*$!-show. I have spent almost 8 months working on my website that has been hit with HCU, and I'm not seeing any improvement after 5 months of waiting. Google is part of the MAGA Kabaala. They won't stop until they make sure to kill all small businesses online, like the plandemic killed the small businesses offline.

[Micha]

If you don't have any money or are small, you are of no interest to large companies (and politics).
Today is another big day at the movies. The keywords keep changing their position faster and faster. In my opinion, it is no longer possible to optimize for keywords.
I want to ask you a question: Do you think small websites will survive this year? I'm starting to have my doubts.

[Dooku]

Do you think small websites will survive this year?

NO. The average "small website" is like a small painting on a large wall where everyone walks past only noticing it out of the corner of their eye.
And there is only a finite amount of "wall" available to display paintings. Also there is a finite amount of "attention span" available.
So G will remove the similar looking small paintings, you know the "information websites", "travel websites" and all kinds of "subjects websites", which were made by every Tom, Dick and Harry by the 100K's from that wall, and make space for properties that WILL make G significant amount of money directly or indirectly.

The only exceptions are small websites that offer products or services that just can NOT be easily copied at all by the usual suspects.
Because their customers will actively search and find them(or keep them bookmarked).

[RubicCubed]

Do you think small websites will survive this year?

I don't nor can I afford to work for free. Google hasn't even left us crumbs, and I don't know how many can continue in this state. There's always the hope of a pie in the sky update that will keep people going, foolishly hopeful things will improve with an update, but eventually they're forced out when their savings are exhausted. Better to get out before it gets that bad, and I think many will as they realize their top competitor is Google and the content Google is using in AI Overviews came from them. How can we compete against our own content, and be seen in Google's prison (trapping users in Google owned properties) masquerading itself as a search engine? These are very bad times for us and our rights/opportunities to earn from our work.

[ichthyous]

Do you think small websites will survive this year?

The way I see it, if your business model is offering the same items or information that other larger corporate conglomerate sites offer then your days are numbered. If your site offers unique content that cannot be found elsewhere and there is a market for it, then you will be fine...but do not expect to derive your entire income from Google as those days have been over since around 2018 or so. There will be ups and downs and you will have to diversify across web, email, social, and even some paid ads. It appears to me that providing a constant stream of fresh content helps to keep my small site afloat. Once I stop adding new content it really starts to taper off quickly.

[EditorialGuy]

The way I see it, if your business model is offering the same items or information that other larger corporate conglomerate sites offer then your days are numbered. If your site offers unique content that cannot be found elsewhere and there is a market for it, then you will be fine...

I think it's important to distinguish between "information" and "content." While information may be generic in many instances, how it's presented and packaged is what distinguishes Publisher A's content from Publisher B's. To use an analogy from my sector (travel), any guidebook can tell you the basic facts about visiting Widgetville, but Rick a Rick Steves Guide and a Michelin Green Guide will offer different emphases and approaches. Even in a medium like video or TV, different audiences have different needs and motivations. Some people want to learn specific things about a place they intend to visit, while others are armchair travelers who want to be entertained.

FWIW, in my own experience, adding new content can be an exercise in frustration because it seldom attracts significant traffic in the short term. All of the search engines (not just Google) can be slow to rank new content even for topics that aren't especially competitive. When I publish a new article, I don't expect to see much in the way of results for months.

[ichthyous]

FWIW, in my own experience, adding new content can be an exercise in frustration because it seldom attracts significant traffic in the short term. All of the search engines (not just Google) can be slow to rank new content even for topics that aren't especially competitive. When I publish a new article, I don't expect to see much in the way of results for months.

I find this is also true for articles...but most of my content are pages with unique images which are the best of their kind in the world basically. I am sometimes shocked at how quickly they get indexed and start performing. Alt text is crucial, and also interlinking similar images to form clusters of related images that reinforce each other, aka "silos"

[goodoldweb]

Is it possible really (for joe public) to own an Android mobile device and not be logged into any Google service, tracked right left and center including device ip and mac address?

Now go figure what "personal" search results they are getting when looking for your products, based on their search history.

It looks to me like google just dialled up personalisation 5 notches higher for better ad revenues.

[Micha]

@goodoldweb You could be right about that and it would explain the dominance of some websites in my area (and why my news page went down).

[renatovieira]

Huge drop this morning. It's an eternal roller coaster.

[BigKat]

Huge drop this morning.

Just when you think it can't get worse it does. I see the big drop too. This is real bad.

[mosxu]

@goodoldweb

Good thinking!

Moving the cheese for so many webmasters is a zero sum game! Already out smarted by deepseek and open AI after they lost most of the buyers to Amazon now they are losing information seekers too!

[ichthyous]

Huge drop this morning. It's an eternal roller coaster

Not for me, it was quite strong today and since the weekend...now the previous week was very bad for my traffic

[renatovieira]

Massive drop again.

[Micha]

I agree: Shop - massive drop, sales from customers coming from Google once again 0. News page: ranking jumps more and more back and forth, but at least a sign of life from Discover traffic, even if it's little.

[Martin Ice Web]

We do have rising traffic since 3 days. Nearly +70%. It doesn´t mean thtat this is good or targeted traffic. Sales are almost the same or less.

[ichthyous]

We do have rising traffic since 3 days. Nearly +70%. It doesn´t mean thtat this is good or targeted traffic. Sales are almost the same or less.

Exactly my experience...Feb 16th - 22nd huge drops in global traffic, less of a drop from USA. Feb 23rd-25th big increases. The entire time I have been picking up new top 3 ranking terms. New inquiries are very sporadic again, and the quality of the inquiry is junk. So an increase in traffic doesn't necessarily mean anything...

[puckparches]

Welcome to our world Chegg:

Chegg on Monday filed suit in federal district court against Google, claiming that AI summaries of search results have hurt the online education company’s traffic and revenue.
[cnbc.com ]

[Dooku]

Chegg on Monday filed suit ...

G are not only acting and are a monopoly but they are displaying outright criminal behaviour.
Every change and move in their algo updates is nothing more then "let's see what we can get away with"......"nobody can touch us, we are too big and will crush anyone who stands in our way"...

All we can do is hope until a tipping point has been reached and suddenly they wake up to a different reality where their search engine is not the almighty #1 any more.
And that day may be nearer then we think:
[telegraph.co.uk...]

[gatormark]

Traffic and Adsense revenue are back to normal after a school holiday week here in the USA.

Concerning Google, every company tries to enhance themselves financially. I am just trying to figure out how the AI overviews help Google financially. On my end, I see various layouts based on the time of day and the platform used. I understand the value of sponsored ads at the top of pages. I don’t understand the value of this new thing where they’re showing images at the top of pages. I only see that periodically. Again, the AI overviews are puzzling.

[RedBar]

I always hold my breathe when typing something like this however my February 2025 level is now very slightly ahead of 2024, nowhere near the years before that but it least I seem to have stabilised with visitor patterns and downloads seemingly normal.

Therefore it must be time for another flux update?

[renatovieira]

Just out of curiosity, guys.

Today I'm noticing something weird. I'm only getting traffic from the east coast of the US.

From the west half of the US, there's simply no one accessing my site.

Has anyone experienced this?

[Martin Ice Web]

I am just trying to figure out how the AI overviews help Google financially

It is pure training.
If AI overview is good enough that users don´t click anything else the AI can propably say that this answer is correct. (and i mean if it has shown >bigbigtime without poeple clicking other sources)
As you know that many queries bound to a single query because it would produce the same output (see it like the reverse of synonyms ) big g could sooner or later
just display AI overviews with many ads without showing blue links or the original website.

[MayankParmar]

Honestly, it makes me wonder what Google really wants. Nearly 80% of the stories I write are linked back by publishers like Forbes. Yet, a major scoop I posted on Bing Copilot Search—also picked up by Search Engine Land (https://searchengineland.com/microsoft-bing-testing-copilot-search-452500) has barely 500 visitors. It's that bad.

Nothing seems to work for me since the Google updates. So much for original content.

I'm too attached to my work to let it go... but I’m not sure what to do to recover the site.

[BigKat]

it makes me wonder what Google really wants.

Google wants publishers to create content, to train their AI for inclusion in AI Overviews, so they can keep users on their site and send publishers no traffic. The bigger question I have is how long will it take for publishers to realize this and take some sort of decisive action (quit publishing, require a login to view content/membership, etc.) so they can benefit from their work in some way?

[ichthyous]

From the west half of the US, there's simply no one accessing my site.

Has anyone experienced this?

Not today, but traffic from the west was not very strong. Traffic in general was very low today. USA is -21% at 8pm. Canada -71%, Australia -33%, Germany -14%. So just bad all around...