June 2025 Google Search Observations

[Conro]

I also see bots coming, but the strange thing is that after 4 years they keep looking for pages that I deleted from the site. In any case, I closed the company because of Google's illegal monopoly, so I don't care what happens to the website anymore. I just hope that Google will be condemned for the damage it has inflicted on companies that need the web to live. If Google hadn't taken the monopoly illegally, this damage would never have happened. The small (and more) web companies all depend on a single search engine and the whims of those who manage it

[edited by: not2easy at 1:46 am (utc) on Jun 7, 2025]
[edit reason] New month, new thread [/edit]

[Conro]

@Micha I have no hope, Maybe an EU prefers to bankrupt online companies that pay taxes and make big tech companies do what they want, which instead pay taxes in candy in tax havens. It's hard to believe but that's how it is

[saladtosser]

Has the USA been blown up today? Seen 0/1 USA visitors today so far in analytics every time I check, normally 80/90 per 30 mins! Funny I got all pages to display fireworks in lighthouse last week and CWV 100% on webmaster tools, (all I needed to do was remove adsense) but I seem to have been penalised since massively.

[samwest]

Early Internet Ingredients (Simple, Organic):

Electricity

Dial-up modem

Personal computer

Copper network cables

Basic HTML

Netscape or Mosaic browser

Human visitors

Modern Internet Ingredients (Complex, Engineered):

Artificial Intelligence

Global data centers

Machine learning algorithms

HTTP cookies, pixel trackers, device fingerprinting

Google’s PageRank, BERT, and indexing systems

JavaScript, React, Angular, Node.js frameworks

Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) like Cloudflare

Real-time bidding ad exchanges

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tools

5G, fiber-optic backbones, BGP routing

A/B testing platforms (e.g., Optimizely)

Social media engagement metrics

User behavior analytics (e.g., Google Analytics, Mixpanel)

Zombie Traffic

From a cozy digital campfire to a labyrinth of data-driven machinery—the web’s now a tech titan’s playground.
#InternetEvolution

[KaseyM]

I don't know what's happened but Economic Times has been scraping all our articles for about 2-3 years now. Earlier this year, we lost our top spots to them. Am I literally just feeding an Indian content farm (+ AI bots) at this point...?

[KaseyM]

I don't know what's happened but Economic Times has been scraping all our articles for about 2-3 years now. Earlier this year, we lost our top spots to them. Am I literally just feeding an Indian content farm (+ AI bots) at this point...?

[ichthyous]

KaseyM - not sure where you are located, but if they have been scraping your articles you can sue them for infringement. Economic Times may have nexus in the US (as in, a US office or other nexus) and you sue them in the US. Why sit back and watch for two years?

[RedBar]

Crazy question !

Approximately when did all this craziness actually start?

I was just looking through my server logs etc and noticed that about 8-12th April 2025 that my overall bandwidth usage for all sites jumped by 50% and has stayed at that level ever since.

So, traffic down substantially meanwhile bandwith up ! Plus I was away on business all April thereby missing all these shenanigans.

[Micha]

@RedBar On September 4th, 1998, in Menlo Park, California ...

But seriously: Something definitely shifted again at the end of May 2025. I'm seeing the same increase as you.

[RedBar]

@RedBar On September 4th, 1998, in Menlo Park, California ...

Excellent :-))) I can still recall my G invitation to work with them and wondering WTH was this ?

[Fluff_Nutz]

Don't we all still work for Google. It's a terrible job. Wouldn't recommend it. Job pay is terrible. Very inconsistent.

But yes, as of late May traffic has been dropping, from G anyway, every single day. Either this is an entire month's worth of ''updates'' or something else is happening. According to Reddit these drops are the sign of aggressive de-indexing, which seems to be daily now.

Also, hearing of more Youtubers being hit with traffic caps as of late. How can anyone grow when its all capped? Terrible job.

[Conro]

AIO is coming to YouTube (premium for now), so users will find summaries of the video and will be less encouraged to watch the video. Thank goodness I knew about it before opening my channel of tech guides, I saved a lot of time

[RedBar]

According to Reddit these drops are the sign of aggressive de-indexing

I've not had any de-indexing but I have seen a lot of low quality sites de-indexed, however I have and many others in my industry have experienced severe downgrading in the US .com SERPs blatantly favouring US companies in the top 30.

[saladtosser]

@Fluff_Nutz I’ve basically quit YouTube. I built a channel with over 40K subs over 6 years. At its peak, I was earning about $130 a month, despite putting in every single weekend, week after week. If I’d quit my job and gone full-time, maybe I’d be looking at $450/month. Still nowhere near enough to cover rent. So really, what’s the point?

It felt like slave labour. I haven’t posted in two months and now earnings are down to $20/month.......even though I only ever posted evergreen content. I spent thousands on gear,cameras, mics, editing software. I might have broken even, but I’m probably still at a loss when it comes to equipment. Worst part? The time I spent was priceless, and completely unpaid when working evrything in.

And now, odds are they’re training their AI on videos I created......content with a level of quality no one else was putting out.

God bless Google, right? I hope they all get a fat payday, because 70 years from now, best case scenario, none of us will be here. Not them, not us. None of this will matter. Hopefully, they end up somewhere very different from the rest of us. Because when that time comes, they won’t have their bank accounts to fall back on.

Meanwhile, those of us who’ve lived in constant stress.......after helping Google rise to the top by plastering our websites with free ads promoting them back in the day....might finally get some peace. Without Google. Without their employees. Forever.

Still sucks now, though. But one day, they’ll get their own personal overview of everything they have done and the countless lives they have ruined. And it won’t be generated by AI......

[Conro]

So to recap: Google is a waste of time, YouTube is slow to rise with followers and with AIO there will be a massacre like for the search engine. Social networks such as Instagram and Facebook remain but it is very difficult to get views and followers. Then there is Tiktok but it does not have a monetization system. Then there is the play store but I don't know how to program. For ecommerce without advertising to pay to Google I don't know if something can be done and I don't want to waste time and money anymore.I don't know about you, but I have few ideas on what to do online, even if I'm trying to do something with social media it's all too slow and in the end it's new ground for me, I don't even know how to monetize with confidence. Otherwise I start creating courses for thousands of euros full of garbage and theory that doesn't work, I invent a few words and move to Dubai or here they arrest me :D

[mosxu]

@conro

Elon said that almost everything will be almost free and abundant in the age of AI and we do not want the be caught working for AI like we did for G

[Conro]

@mosxu True, I can't wait to have my robot dog gift by Musk cleaning my garden, acting as a psychologist and feeding me, even if I don't have money

[Micha]

Hey, is it just me, or is Google's ranking system completely out of control right now? The ranking of my news site changes by the hour, traffic spikes until Monday, then drops off a cliff. Today? Zero. Sometimes a category is really popular, then it gets ignored for days. It's impossible to keep track of it all.

@mosxus Oh, and the richest man on Earth says stuff like that? Sure, because he's not struggling to make ends meet every month. Honestly, I’m so done with the nonsense tech companies and billionaires keep spouting. It's all garbage, totally disconnected from reality. The world they're dreaming of? It just doesn't work. Society isn’t remotely ready for it, and the number of people getting left behind is massive. Feels like they’ve all watched too much Star Trek.

[haramamba]

@Micha

is it just me, or is Google's ranking system completely out of control

G is doing a some sort of update. Each time they are updating/tuning something, the crawl rate drops noticeably.

[Fluff_Nutz]

Oh look a consolation prize...

[fortune.com ]

[Micha]

Am I understanding this correctly, a paywall to generate revenue with zero clicks? You have to give credit where credit is due to the geniuses at Google: they know how to make money out of thin air.

[Whitey]

More experiments:
[seroundtable.com...]

[Conro]

Offerwall make flee the few remaining users and putting the name of the site in AIO links will be useless as usual because no one will click on it unless out of curiosity about what that link is or by mistake

[Micha]

@haramamba You're right, Semrush now also shows that an update is in progress. There are some major changes happening at the moment, so it's no wonder that my traffic has plummeted.

[RubicCubed]

Semrush now also shows that an update is in progress.

Probably much more damage to be inflicted on us from Google further restricting user choice to ads and AI theft answers. Nobody will come to the rescue. Just like VP Vance was in the EU lobbying for Google against the EU's digital services tax, now Trump has ceased all trade negotiations with Canada [nbcnewyork.com...] because of their digital services tax. This admin is willing to throw all American citizens, publishers and businesses under the bus to help Google utilize their dominance to crush everyone.

[Treud]

I’m totally hammered by ChatGPT bots …. I’ve blocked them because WP Engine is billing some….

Looks like the % of Bots is worst than ever, the entire internet seems to be bots and Zombies

[RedBar]

This week USA traffic to my global site is down 33% but USA bots are still rampaging however I have managed to block one significant culprit from NYC.

[Treud]

Got one blocked for Phoenix and it was appearing on a Spam List.

But it’s a never-ending battle….

[Conro]

I'm looking at AIO's sources and they seem to be put there at random, Just to say that sources have been cited. For a telegram error, the sources cited talk about how to subscribe to telegram, how to delete an account (which is not written in the aio answer), frequently asked questions about spam (what?) where to download telegram (eh?). What a disaster

[EditorialGuy]

Google launches Offerwall, a money lifeline for publishers

I've got a better idea: Why doesn't Google simply pay publishers whose content is being spun by its AI bots?

[Conro]

@EditorialGuy Anyway, even in this case the payments would be on trust as with Adsense, so there is always little to trust them now and since Google search bots are the same ones that collect ai info, my trust for Google is zero. Then they would never do it, it would cost too much for them to pay for all the sites crawled in the world, it would probably cost absurd amounts of money even to pay only the sites mentioned by aio And not penalized by hcu