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]

[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

[goodoldweb]

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

We’re well beyond “playing fair” now. There’s a world of difference between using a page’s meta description and title versus grabbing full paragraphs—or even entire pages—and plastering them as AI-generated excerpts. That’s outright theft, and lawsuits will likely follow. I bet plenty of companies and individuals are already gathering evidence as we speak. I know we do.

[saladtosser]

@Treud but chatgbt got its info from the sites you now shun, how do you know it picked the answer from one of the sites with the wrong info, it doesn't have any experience of fishkeeping itself so why trust what answer it picked possibly from a random site it landed on? Did you use a magic 8 ball before chatGBT?

For coding, I have to go round and round and round for days sometimes trying to solve a problem and it got to the point that because I was being lazy it was costing me more time than just doing it myself! (its very hit a miss still)

[edited by: saladtosser at 12:43 pm (utc) on May 14, 2025]

[Treud]

For the Chatbots, yes have to double confirm with websites, or search a topic you know a little bit.
I also looked on many videos. I mostly use to find Infos on some species, but bigger source of Infos for me are YouTube channels

—

For coding same. Have to know what you ask.

But I would say it’s same for search, many websites are trash. And because IA feeds from them. Of course you are served this trash. ! Knowing how to search is a skill - 1 information = no information . Have to cross check sources

[saladtosser]

@Treud sounds like you just added an extra step to your journey to getting an answer if you check sites after chatbt! I agree the websites that have YouTube channels are the best because you then know they are actual fish keepers who actually have experience rather than just some text on a page without showing any real experience and could have never kept a fish before! Same for any topic really, an accompanying YouTube channel with good user metrics should be a ranking factor for the channels site, a hard signal to fake IMO

[RedBar]

Global site traffic down 25% the past few days and seemingly of very poor quality however what has noticebly increased to an unchanged site are 403 error pages generated.

I am seeing utterly bizarre url requests such as:

example.com/keyword1-keyword2-keyword3.htmlkeyword1-keyword2-keyword3.html

This is happening regularly especially from Asia.

[Micha]

Google has completely lost it. Traffic on the news site has dropped to a trickle. It’s 4 PM and we haven’t even reached 2,000 visitors, normally we’re at 20,000 by now. And this happened literally overnight. Meanwhile, the top search results are full of spam and low-quality junk, and Google News is flooded with articles that are weeks or even months old.

Same story in our online shop: barely any traffic left, and virtually zero revenue. And we’re not alone, dozens of other site owners are reporting the exact same thing. Since Sunday, Google has been bleeding us dry.

[RedBar]

full of spam and low-quality junk

I've lost count how many times I've posted this over many years ... Single keyword page with one correct but low quality image plus keyword title and keyword h1, nothing else whatsoever.

[Martin Ice Web]

Single keyword page with one correct but low quality image plus keyword title and keyword h1, nothing else whatsoever.

lucky if you come to an website where there is a picture! Our niche is full of "no pic available"

But don´t forget: these sites are Quality checked by google!

[mosxu]

What is more shocking is that we are getting mainly scammers and trouble makers it is scary how the quality of the traffic is being distributed and personalized!

[azlinda]

I will be closing down my oldest site (since 1999) in the very near future. Google will most likely rejoice. It looks like this is what they want. The pathetic RPM and resultant CPC is a real insult!

[Chris travel 30]

After speaking with some fellow webmasters, we’ve decided to inform our readers, followers, and communities that we no longer recommend using G for travel-related searches. Instead, we’ll suggest better ways to search if they want real content created by real humans. This is our first step in taking action against it. The only thing that can beat AI is being human.

[Micha]

@chris That’s a really good idea – count my Newsseite in.

[Dooku]

This might be useful:
[advancedwebranking.com...]

Scroll below to view more info about the AIO box actions within search results and buttons above for different types of queries.
The progress of implementation says it all.

[Martin Ice Web]

After 4 good days of traffic, there was a sharp drop yesterday afternoon. And again this results in -50% real traffic. in the nights we are getting overloaded with bots ccoming from google.

AI overview is killing ad clicks and now they are going to kill their search engine due to short profits.
bing is 100% better right now.

[Treud]

Looks like all US traffic disappeared !

[Kendo]

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

The last two assignments turned in by one of my coders didn't fix the problem in the originals. Apparently he used AI. He is no longer on my team, not because he was replaced by AI, but because he was stupid enough to believe that AI could do a better job.

[goodoldweb]

@Christravel30
Great to see more webmasters taking action against this parasite.

We've been including a note on every invoice and order confirmation for a while now:
"We no longer recommend using Google for search — click here to learn why."
The link leads to an article outlining Google's questionable practices and how they directly impact the prices our customers pay at checkout.

[tangor]

because he was stupid enough to believe that AI could do a better job.

That, I believe, is a telling comment regarding the validity of AI as a practical tool!

[mosxu]

Am I seeing things Microsoft valued at 3.3 trillion?

[goodoldweb]

Microsoft was 3.2t in 2024