December 2025 Google Search Observations

[Micha]

So I can write off November. News site: 30 percent fewer visitors, 60 percent less advertising revenue, and we'd rather not talk about the ranking: chaos... The shop: sales have declined slightly (-4 percent), which is a normal fluctuation, but here too, the ranking is in complete chaos...

I'm curious to see how December develops, but I'm afraid it won't be good...

[Fluff_Nutz]

Wow a -40% drop from Google alone yesterday. One would assume with the holidays the niche I'm in would bring in traffic. Alas.. traffic from Big G continues to drop for its second consecutive month now. Up until November all was okay still. I have noticed an increase of AIO in my niche now. Was hoping they would ignore the niche as it generally has low RPM and the original overviews more or less didn't exist. But nope, its now just spam it anywhere and everywhere

Was searching up a certain product the other day and, fair enough informational sites are screwed. Which I'm currently witnessing but so too are product sites. During my search for a particular product I came across..

2 Rows of product images at the top
One organic link
2 more Rows of product images
PAA
2 more rows of product images
2 organic links

So, in total, only 3 organic links..

I agree that Google is, now, a terrible service. Ads everywhere. No doubt to fund their AI who no one asked for. Same over on Youtube, of course! No one wants AI and they definitely do not wants ads and limited options to search for. It gets boring seeing the same hot garbage. I'll admit my time on Google gets less and less. Reddit is my top search site for info and discussions. It has its own fair share of ads, sure, but at least its not a spammed mess

[jmccormac]

Seems that Marissa Mayer's replacement (though she left many years ago) is on the same level as the clowns in Microsoft who removed the 'Start' button from Windows 8. It is a very cluttered interface that that seems more intent on advertising than providing answers. The AI blurb seems to be trying to keep people on Google and it shoves genuine results down the page.

Regards...jmcc

[RedBar]

Looks like MSFT had a couple of days off and has returned in the last 24 hours specifically from Hong Kong, Korea and Singapore ... htaccess does nothing and my webhost seemingly couldn't give a flying f**k, the only consolation is that everything seems to be working ok.

Apart from Cloudflare and its look-a-likes, is there another alternative OR, being a conspiracy theorist / realist, is this yet another US corporate blackmail scam created by big tech ?

[gronetwork]

@RedBar

You can use nftables if you have SSH access to your server/VPS/web hosting. It will be faster and lighter than an .htaccess file.

Personally, I receive thousands of connections from T-Mobile and Spectrum Internet that retrieve my content. I don't yet know how to manage them, as there are several legitimate IP addresses. Probably by blocking connections without a referral from these IPs.

[jmccormac]

Use the 204 for problem ranges. They don't get any content.

The WP probes against an up-to-date installation won't generate much traffic (typically 404s) so from a web hoster POV, they form a low traffic and low priority issue. There is always an uptick with maggots around this time of year beause of the holidays and that means that any site that they compromise might not be fixed until after the holidays. On the upside, it illuminates the maggot infested ranges so that they can be blocked. It seems like typical background noise rather than a conspiracy to drive hosters to Cloud operators with strong anti-bot protection.

Regards...jmcc

[RedBar]

Use the 204 for problem ranges. They don't get any content.

I've read several artices and have to ask how?

Am I missing something simple?

Do not assume I understand server configurations, this is not my skillset .

[jmccormac]

I don't use .htaccess so this would be from the httpd.conf:

RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^aaa\.bbb\.ccc\.ddd
RewriteRule ^.* - [R=204,L]

Not sure about .htaccess and if it can be used like this.

Regards...jmcc

[gatormark]

I’m not sure if or how my websites will survive, but I will be making hosting changes to decrease the cost of hosting. My Adsense revenue is going down to nothing. This is, with a legitimate 23,000 page views a day. Advertisers are panicking because they are not getting results. In fact, I stopped promoting my website via Adsense yesterday. We will see if that has any impact on my acquisitions. I have started working another job since my website are no longer supporting us.

[thetitan72]

I’m not sure if or how my websites will survive, but I will be making hosting changes to decrease the cost of hosting. My Adsense revenue is going down to nothing. This is, with a legitimate 23,000 page views a day. Advertisers are panicking because they are not getting results. In fact, I stopped promoting my website via Adsense yesterday. We will see if that has any impact on my acquisitions. I have started working another job since my website are no longer supporting us.

I also downgraded everything until further notice. Bad times indeed for me too. All the best.

[Micha]

@gatormark It really hurts to read that. I sincerely hope that this changes quickly.

The core update is doing funny things. Rankings are rising, Discover is back, traffic is poor, advertising revenue is non-existent, but there's a horde of bots from China again.

Well, it's Christmas, so I can continue watching my news page being torn apart later. Let's forget about Google and Co. for a while and relax a little. After this turbulent year, we all deserve it. Merry Christmas to you all.

[jmccormac]

This quote (Merlin's advice to Arthur) kept coming to mind having seen the damage caused by Google's latest "update":

" 'The best thing for being sad,' replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, 'is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then -- to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.' "

Happy Christmas/Solstice/Holidays all.

Regards...jmcc

[RedBar]

don't use .htaccess so this would be from the httpd.conf:

Thanks jmcc however I haven't a clue what this means or what to do with it that's precisely why I do not go to the Apache forum, this is something I, and many others, have never learned. I don't have the time to do so just like most people I know ... All I see are deliberate, built-in system fault-lines from the very beginning creating future expensive unavoidable continual expenditures with no resolution since they do not want one.

If I were to do this in my industry I would be dead meat!

[RedBar]

One would have thought MSFT would give up for a couple of days but no, two of my smallest sites of 40 paes together have been hit by three IPs for 20,000+pages ... Congratulations MSFT, this makes an overall average bandwith increasse the last few months of 33% for me alone, worldwide what is it?

Moving on, merry Xmas to all at WebmasterWorld.

[Micha]

Okay, folks, the update is over. Counting heads, who survived?

[status.search.google.com ]

[RedBar]

Counting heads, who survived?

To be honest my genuine traffic has been where I would have expected it to be however checking various Serps G's penchant for extremely similar, thin content single image pages are back in vogue!

The last couple of days every site has been hit by a Lithuanian bot, some sites up to four times, and each time every site was hit for 1,140 pages.

Just what is the significance of 1,140? Answers on a postcard to ... :-)

[samwest]

I’m not sure if or how my websites will survive, but I will be making hosting changes to decrease the cost of hosting. My Adsense revenue is going down to nothing. This is, with a legitimate 23,000 page views a day. Advertisers are panicking because they are not getting results. In fact, I stopped promoting my website via Adsense yesterday. We will see if that has any impact on my acquisitions. I have started working another job since my website are no longer supporting us.

I did exactly that.
We were paying over 2500/year on an overpriced managed VPS account. Would up goin unmanaged, running Ubuntu 24, and aaPanel. Its a lot more work, but also a lot more control, full root. I'm now paying $299/year. Hosting fees were never much of a concern, because we made a lot online...that was 15 years ago. Google has chipped that down to crumbs, while they feast. Happy New Year.

[christianz]

Okay, folks, the update is over. Counting heads, who survived?

To survive you have to not be dead in first place. I am not sure I qualify - my traffic has been systematically decimated throughout all of 2025. This latest core update so far has been positive but it doesn't matter. It is 10 steps backwards, 1 step forward and so on...

Besides, ad revenue per given traffic is record low. I think advertisers are really dumb. They are wasting money on slop "content" and complaining that they don't have ROI anymore and suffering from bot traffic. It is their fault to be completely ignorant of websites and not building direct relationships with good websites, instead overpaying massively to adtech middlemen.

[morpheus83]

It will be a week or more till G finally settles.

[RedBar]

So far this holiday season for my global site US traffic is averaging -25% as expected. European traffic has been on the low side as expected.

Traffic from most Asian regions is actually higher than expected. This is unusual for this site at Xmas since most of the trade knows there is a mass closedown however looking at the searches I would guess that there are several large projects circulating within the industry since there has been a commonality with the searches.

Fingers crossed it contines like this since, especially European, projects are like hens' teeth!

My UK sites open for business are looking as normal as possible but will inevitably die tomorrow afternoon onwards.

[EditorialGuy]

Okay, folks, the update is over. Counting heads, who survived?

Pretty much business as usual at this point. Our traffic is picking up sharply in the post-Christmas period, as it does every year, but that has more to do with seasonal demand than with the core update.

[blend27]

-- has more to do with seasonal demand --

It is a "Season" for tanking every-bodies ranking, wait and, not see but earn from Gs perspective.

Holiday = Tank, MayDay 1st = lets sell widgets type of adrenaline based idiotic spam from AdWords Team for the past 12 years or so.

But I hear you Mate = sails up and along the juicy coast/path. A message since 2013.

[System]

New month/year, new thread here: [webmasterworld.com...]

[edited by: not2easy at 2:31 pm (utc) on Jan 1, 2026]