May 2025 Google Search Observations

[goodoldweb]

Google is not a search engine. It's an ad engine.

[edited by: not2easy at 11:28 am (utc) on May 1, 2025]
[edit reason] New month, new thread [/edit]

[ichthyous]

OpenAi, Google, Meta, Microsoft...none of these companies intend to compensate anyone for the scraped / stolen IP used in their AI. It's clear that they plan to cozy up to the thoroughly corrupt admin in power now and try to influence both policymaking and the courts to allow the theft under various excuses...i.e. it's beneficial to humanity, they have a right to copy and use the copyrighted work if it's available online, they are somehow transforming the data (fair use etc).

First they will try every excuse under the sun to be allowed to steal the data, and only then will they drag their feet endlessly and offer such low compensation that it amounts to nothing. The courts will validate that last approach and allow low levels of compensation to make the issue disappear. That is how I see it progressing.

[BigKat]

@ichthyous

Did you see what the judge in the Meta AI training case recently said? ( [pcgamer.com...] )

"You have companies using copyright-protected material to create a product that is capable of producing an infinite number of competing products," said Chhabria to Meta's attorneys in a San Francisco court last Thursday.

"You are dramatically changing, you might even say obliterating, the market for that person's work, and you're saying that you don't even have to pay a license to that person… I just don't understand how that can be fair use."

[Conro]

There was a new Google Creator Summit, this time in Washington DC , it seems with 7 "lucky" people who had the chance to talk to those who work for Google, here's what one attendee wrote, I don't know, but they seem to me to be things we've all heard somewhere before. Unlike many other users who complain on "X" and have asked to be invited by Google, I don't remember a single message from this Tomiko [tomikoharvey.com...]

[mosxu]

@BigKat

Thanks for sharing the chart of AI bots market share! It looks like AI overviews are introduced to take on Open AI and that is done on the graves of already cooked small businesses!

The politicians are so bad, they think they need roll with AI to compete with China or to advance technologically at the expense of millions of small businesses!

[gatormark]

Google must be dismantled as soon as possible

@conro

How do you see this going? What does dismantling of Google mean to you?

[Conro]

Google has already been found guilty and will be dismantled, as we don't know, but already selling Chrome, providing data to other search engines and preventing Google from buying the role of default search engine should allow competition to emerge. This is an advantage for us because we will finally no longer depend on a single search engine and the more different search engines are used the better it is for the web, users, companies and also for us, Because in this way, even if Google makes its crazy updates on our sites, there would be a much less intrusive impact. If I were in the judge, given the seriousness of what Google has done and is doing now, I would proceed by dividing Google into several companies:
1 Google search
2 YouTube
3 Google ads
4 Chrome browser
5 Android
It would no longer have to pay anyone to be the default search engine. Its data obtained from the illegal monopoly should be accessible to all to there is again competition between search engines. Google It shouldn't use any content copied and transformed with artificial intelligence of the sites in the search engine or AI in a self-referential way, basically it should be a search engine, no aio, no paa, no snippet 1 position etc.

[tangor]

The devil is in the details and time will tell. Don't forget that however it is sliced and diced the devil we know will become a bunch of new devils each setting out on the same path g originally took, resulting in devils we don't know! Not sure how sharing g's data will be anything more than g on either steroids or diluted---but since it is the same data I doubt we will get much different results.

g created the current difficulties when it first tackled the ad side. Played loose and easy (bait and switch) for a few years creating a few millionaires, building a myth of gold in them thar hills, then changed the game when sufficient uptake had occurred then tightened the screws to eek out every penny. What was originally a free to play Ponzi has become indentured publishing and desperation that is beginning to fail, so the introduction of AI and LLM and unveiled copyright theft to keep the cash machine doing ka-ching!

OR, JUST IGNORE all the above and wait to see what the courts ACTUALLY DO. No matter how it turns out I predict that nobody will like the end results! :)

[gatormark]

@Conro, sadly, none of that helps us.

[goodoldweb]

@gatormark

I have to disagree. Breaking Google into smaller parts would absolutely loosen its stranglehold on the internet. Right now, they control so many key pieces—Android, the Play Store, Google Pay, Chrome, YouTube, Maps (and Waze), Gmail, and most importantly, Search and AdSense. That kind of dominance gives them a vice-like grip on the web.

We’re looking at a massive data-harvesting machine operating across nearly every major online channel, and it’s openly abusing that power—crushing countless businesses along the way. For the average person, it's almost impossible to use the internet today without running into Google’s data collection tools or gateways.

This data-guzzling behemoth needs to be broken up—and the sooner, the better. Doing so would be a huge win for the health and fairness of the entire web.

[Conro]

@gatormark instead it is the only solution, only that it will probably take years before Google is divided because they will appeal. The only hope is that the appeal will be rejected because the evidence is overwhelming and in this case the effects of the judge's decision would be much faster

[Cryogen]

Rock bottom real time traffic today. I've never seen such low number of visitors during most of the day.

[christianz]

Rock bottom real time traffic today. I've never seen such low number of visitors during most of the day.

It's glitched out. I am more worried about rock bottom rankings and increasingly being outranked by pure junk.

[Martin Ice Web]

yesterday was the first day in two month with "normal" traffic. it reverted at 5pm and did stay junk since.
If someone would have turned of internet today ;) we wouldn´t have known it.

[saladtosser]

So, lovely people...I've rolled out an AI tar pit for my own site over the past 2 days, as a programmer it wasn't hard. If your not a programmer hopefully that wordpress garbage many of you use will get a "plugin" going on soon, else they are done as well!

This is the only valid fightback method other than moaning about it on forums )Hows that working out!? BARRY can you highlight AI tarpits on your site, see video below, else your done 2 my friend?). The other choice is, of course, waiting for really old men in the USA to ignore some extremely large cash kick backs and do something about (is that gonna happen?)....

please watch!

[youtu.be...]

We have a method against ALL LLMS (not just Google), all we need is enough of us to stand up to the LLMS, i think this will be the future of the web and all sites will have AI tarpits installed as standard else LLM will replace us and all the moaning about it in the world wont touch the sides....Click that like button, I monetise WebmasterWorld and get a couple quid per like! Joke I get nothing, click it anyway, it makes me feel slightly better about my day :(

[Micha]

@saladtosser Isn't it the latest craze in the SEO world to optimize everything so that you show up in AI responses? With this post, you'll make poor SEOs cry. Shame on you ;).
That's an interesting idea, by the way, but let's be honest: what's the point? Sure, your content won't be used by AI companies anymore, but there are plenty of other sources. As long as the big companies don't start using it, it won't have much impact.

@martin I can confirm your observation; traffic also dropped off at 5 p.m. at my shop, and it was really slow today. Strangely enough, the news site is still performing quite well. Even though news/discovery traffic has declined, the overall daily results are satisfactory.

[Conro]

@saladtosser If you use it, however, the site may disappear completely from any search engine and may be labeled as malware. For example, Google's llm bot is the same one that is used to index page, It is true that bots come into a maze with no exit, but the site will also have serious consequences if search engine bots are affected

[Martin Ice Web]

anyone noticed that bots from US are back since yesterday? We had a week of bot silence but now they are back. Maybe it is a constant fight google/bots?

[Chris travel 30]

@ Martin, yes - bot activity is high on all our 3 sites since two days. crawling like there is no tomorrow ^^...

Did anyone notice a bug in GA Real Time, that no useres from mobile are displayed? For myself, I only see the realtime pc users but have tested it with 3 smartphones. Mobile users were not displayed.

[saladtosser]

@Conro + @Micha yea agree, don't add this to your life's work site! Should have been more specific, I implemented it on a junk domain that was hit from back in Penguin 1 days! If I had more aged junk domains and sites laying around I would have put it on all but only have the one! Good catch buds and worth pointing out!

[Treud]

I feel I have more conversion with Bing & Yahoo, traffic sent by Google is really poor quality.
My last few orders show an increase number of these search engines.

[tangor]

AI and LLMs are "smart" enough to know when they hit a tar pit ... and will continue to adapt in that regard. Much like ad blockers there will be a constant ebb and flow on effectiveness either way and the "combat" continues.

MEANWHILE the copyright infringement WILL continue as the LLM is a ravenous creature that cannot grow without MORE of our stuff. THAT is the part that needs to be addressed:

COPYRIGHT

It will take something a whole lot larger than any single---or millions of---webmasters with tar pits to defeat. Nation States will need to be involved, Copyright in general will have to be updated across the board both domestic and international, and infractions will need financial penalties (at the least!) to correct this out-right THEFT.

AI is changing the end result of "search" in that "search" no longer actually works as it historically did. Users are instant gratification creatures and AI tends to bypass the sites with sufficient answers... THIS is the search observation that should be made, though freely admit the nickel-and-dime stuff is extremely important!

[Micha]

That's exactly the point: copyright law must finally be enforced. Seriously, if we watch a movie illegally, the film company will hit us hard in the pocket. But OpenAI, Google, and the like can do whatever they want because... because they're big companies? Because they have power? Something is seriously wrong here.

[Micha]

a rather frightening reading recommendation [thenation.com ]

[RubicCubed]

I feel I have more conversion with Bing & Yahoo, traffic sent by Google is really poor quality.

Agree that Google traffic is very low and of a very poor quality. Even when the little traffic we get from Google traffic converts, we find a high rate of returns from them. Maybe the high rate of returns from Google is because they are doing very badly at helping their users find the products they are looking for? Our orders are increasing from DDG and Chatgpt with a low percentage of returns. Google has become more of a headache then they're worth.

[RedBar]

Thiis month my global site is experiencing a massive change in popular pages.

For almost 30 years 15 of my top 20 pges have been specific widget product pages however so far this month only ONE specific page is there and at #20!

Traffic level is about normal however genuine web-generated enquiries have stopped completely, spam bots from the USA have increased dramatically therefore I am considering IF I can successfully block US traffic since I no longer do any business there.

[RubicCubed]

spam bots from the USA have increased dramatically therefore I am considering IF I can successfully block US traffic since I no longer do any business there.

I see elevated bot traffic in the USA too. Our belief is that Google is taking so much traffic from us in the USA with AI O they are now allowing bots to pass-thru to our website to make us believe Google is still sending a lot of traffic. Bot activity not coming from Google is up too, and I think in the lawless USA it has become an IP theft free for all.

[ichthyous]

For almost 30 years 15 of my top 20 pges have been specific widget product pages however so far this month only ONE specific page is there and at #20!

I am seeing the same thing. Two months ago Google demoted one of the most popular and important pages on my site for the last 20 years, and one with the most links. It went from #3 to #11-#14. Since then it has stayed in the lower range. In the meantime, new sites appeared that are shifting around at the top, along with a lot of really stupid junk like people's individual instagram accounts! From what I see, once again Google has demoted sites with interior (landing) pages about multiple topics...in other words, the section of my site about that specific topic just can't compete with the home pages of other sites that are bout that one topic. This may revert again...I have seen it flip flop more than once over the years.

Today I read the AI overview for the topic in quiestion, which is enormous...it takes the top third of the page. My own name and website were mentioned THREE TIMES in the AI Overview. Once in the opening paragraph without any link (three of the five people mentioned were linked to their website, two were not). Mentioned again in a list below the paragraph...this time my name was not linked but the small link icon was next to my name. The same sites that had their names linked in the opening paragraph also had their names linked in the list. Finally, my site was listed in the block of sites with images at right, in spot number one...and that is clickable.

So, to make it short...I was mentioned three times in the AI Overview for a search where I used to rank #3 and yet my traffic to that page has dropped so low that it is now the 14th most visited page on my site, below many less important pages. Losing the Google search traffic has completely removed any business for that search for two months now. So I really don't see how AI Overviews will help to drive any real business to a site, even if you are mentioned prominently.

I am wondering...is there any relationship between the sites that are linked in the AI Overview and their adwords spend? Has this been established yet?

[Conro]

But in fact it is not true that Ai overviews increase clicks, I don't see why I should click on the links if I have already gotten the answer. The only ones who say that people click on it the most without showing it are SEOs looking for someone to rip off and Google because it wants it to continue to create content that can be easily rewritten by its "ai".

[ichthyous]

Just an FYI for everyone out there...I have been noticing huge surges in AI Bot activity on my site, reported by Cloudflare's AI Audit tool. In a short span my site is being hit thousands of times by ChatGPT-User bot....always this same bot. You can see this in the image: [ibb.co ]

I did some research, and GPT-User is used for retrieving data from websites in realtime when the user performs a query. However in this article it states that it can also be tricked into launching DDoS attacks on sites -
[theregister.com ]. There are other links out to discussions about it in the article.

This article was updated to state that OpenAI resolved the issue...but clearly it has not, since the latest spike on my site was three days ago on May 7th, and another one on May 1st. Is anyone else seeing this? I am hesitant to block bots that are active in searches and which could provide legitimate traffic...but I'm fairly certain that spikes like this are not legit. Anyone else seeing the same spikes from ChatGPT-User?

[mosxu]

Very expensive zombie traffic here!

[azlinda]

RPM has been at rock bottom for two days now. If it goes much lower, it will be just a few cents per thousand! I've come to the conclusion that almost anything is better than AdSense now.

[gatormark]

The past 2 days I have been getting thousands of bot hits from Singapore. Anyone else seeing this?

[No5needinput]

@gatormark Same here for the past several weeks. I ended up blocking Singapore (SG) at the server level which helped immensely.

[Micha]

Could it be that Google is reversing its March update? The news site had really good numbers in recent weeks, but today it's suddenly dead. The shop: suddenly good daily sales again, just like before the March update.

[Chris travel 30]

@Micha this was what I had in mind since a week or 10 days. The travel site did pretty well in march and april. Starting from 25./26. April onwards it went down the drain. I think its a pattern: Algo overreacts in one direction, algo is getting pulled pack, algo is overreaciting in the other direction, algo is pulled back and gets new orders, algo overreacts in this new direction, and so on.


In the last two days there have been such low leads and sales on our site like we haven't seen in three years. It is devastating.
(We do not use any blackhat methods, never bought any shady backlinks etc. it's all organic growth so no manual actions.)
They can't be serious about that: A site is doing all it can to maintain a reliable source of information over years (!) keeping a balance to monetization, everything is fine and all of sudden G acts like "it's the worst site of the internet"? Come on G, you can't be serious about that. And when I have a look into what keywords were targetet: It's 95 % transactional keywords. In Germany we would say "Ein Schelm, wer dabei böses denkt." - "It would be mischievous to assume ill intent."

[goodoldweb]

Meanwhile in Australia, G's sick zombie traffic charade continues.

[Micha]

@chris Yep, something's definitely wrong here. The Discover feed is also going crazy right now. It's full of topics that I have absolutely no connection to (I certainly don't know why I need flight tips for a Cesna). Relevant topics are no longer available; it was different on Saturday.

Looks like Google realized, “Oh, the March update pushed small websites, that's not going to work.” It would be nice to see some stable growth, but unfortunately that seems impossible.

[mosxu]

Man,

It is never been that bad AI overviews plus zombies it is killing us!

[Micha]

Google is once again putting its foot down today. The news site was practically dead all day, and at 1pm the traffic in the store collapsed. So the weekend update was once again just there to squeeze out the small providers. Other website operators (with whom I spoke today) are also experiencing a significant drop in visitor numbers.

[Treud]

Yes zombie traffic is crazy actually, no inquiry, no orders, nothing.. And all metrics dropping

[Dooku]

Read this article carefully, it's a study on how users interact with google AIO boxes.
This is the first ever study done in this way and on this scale.
Draw your own conclusions.......yes we are completely #@$!ed

[growth-memo.com...]

[Conro]

I don't care about the impressions in the AIOs. Sites exist for users, not for Google, if Google doesn't send more users or only a measly percentage, you might as well stop because traffic is so low that it does not make it a full-time activity as it was before, an activity that was repaid with advertising and affiliate earnings. I already know the things I write for users, I don't need to write to make Google and their wallet happy in exchange perhaps and hardly for an appearance as a link in the AIO on which someone will click more by mistake than to view the source.

[gatormark]

@Dooku

That is scary information!

[mosxu]

How mad can one be to try to rank on AI overviews?

[goodoldweb]

Webmasters should have an option to OPT-OUT of AIO content use. An option Google and all other SE's actually respect.

AIO content abuse should be treated as a criminal copyrights infringement otherwise, that's exactly what it is. In fact, i'm quite amazed we haven't heard of massive lawsuits yet.

[Micha]

@goldoldweb You're right, but the AI companies have to play fair and they don't want to do that.

[saladtosser]

Do tech elites have an actual plan to address the inevitable mass job losses caused by automation and AI beyond hoping people quietly disappear into the night? Are they preparing meaningful compensation and solutions, or just building bunkers, hiring private armies, and developing AI enforcers to crush any uprising?

I’m personally convinced that those in power aren’t interested in sharing the planet with 8 billion people once machines can replace human labour. From their perspective, why keep billions of “useless” people around, contributing to pollution and environmental damage and living in constant fear of a "revolt of the plebs", when they’ve already monopolised the world’s wealth and resources and have robot slaves to wait on them hand and foot?

I think they will keep maybe a million of us around for amusement/abuse and other nasty business, esp the opposite sex, but why maintain 8 billion potential risks in the world they then own? What benefit to them?

We see these people/corps crush anything that isn't a benefit to them, so why would we think otherwise?! When "AI" can do everything we can do, the rest of us plebs become "useless" to them at best and a real and immediate danger to them at worst, would they take that risk?

Would you want 8 billion people who hate you sitting around with nothing to-do all day but plot revenge/revolution? (assuming you had their mindset which most of us don't)

Future looks bleak anyway you cut it if left unchecked and un regulated and we are sleep walking into more than just loss of meaning and poverty IMO!

[Dooku]

That is scary information!

Everything is irrelevant now, they just closed the gate and we are left standing outside.
Any well meant statements like Op-Out for webmasters and what not, are just wishful thinking.
This is what you get with unbridled and unregulated companies and markets.

The ONLY way we can make a difference is if we move away from G to Bing(for now until a better SE comes along) and make a serious dent in G's earnings.
Even 10% would scare them hugely. There is NO logical reason why you would want to steal the work of websites other than to try to profit off of it 100%. Because of the ROT economy there is no room left to grow profits the regular way other then to steal from the wallets of your customers.

At this moment in time even a simple old Yahoo type index for websites is even better then G!

[Conro]

@saladtosser If you think about it, however, automation is nothing new, robots the same, now any algorithm passes it off as artificial intelligence, forgetting that the video games of many decades ago were able to "learn". I'm still waiting for a useful artificial intelligence that can do things that are not copied by humans

[Treud]

Speaking for myself I use more and more ChatGPT for some easy informations (fish keeping), at the beginning I was comparing with websites but in the end the infos I’m looking at reliable.
So yes, the search is #*$!ed with AIO and the Chatbots