July 2026 Google Search Observations

[RedBar]

It must be the first of the month, I have MSFT 20.xx.xx.xx bots all over my sites with .php attacks.

[edited by: not2easy at 4:25 pm (utc) on Jul 1, 2026]
[edit reason] New month, new thread [/edit]

[penitentman]

It's good you were able to go so long without AI overviews,

I rank for long tail location specific kw's. I run about 200 websites so a 40% haircut isn't going to kill me but I definitely need to pivot to something else in life. I'm sure more haircuts are coming like you said. I creatively navigated the google guidelines and survived/died from core updates. Survived on more. Grinded on new projects some succeeded some didn't for 14 years. I had a good run. With AI apps taking market share and Gemini answering my websites answers I don't think I have it in me to launch and test new projects anymore. I knew this day would come and I told myself I'd start preparing but just stayed complacent. Shame on me.

@Bigkat sucks man our livelihood is game over

[seokees]

I knew this day would come and I told myself I'd start preparing but just stayed complacent. Shame on me.

@penitentman no shame. In my case, the alternatives are not attractive enough. So you keep goin' with your site and making some money, instead of something new which for sure doesn't deliver any in the short term.

[RedBar]

Quite a lot of the SERP is made up of Reddit already.

Absolutely, for my specialist trade I see a huge amount of incorrect, exaggerated or downright false "facts" often supposedly posted by experienced trades people. I've given up going there, it's worse than Wikipedia ever was.

[penitentman]

@seokees Keep on keeping on I guess until it's all washed away.

I'm curious what SEO's and affiliate marketers are doing next or thinking of doing next. Something SEO adjacent like AEO or something completely different. A poll would be interesting.

[Martin Potter]

I have MSFT 20.xx.xx.xx bots all over my sites with .php attacks.

RedBar, just wanted to add that my own small, informational, non-commercial website (with no ads, for or from anyone) is visited by those same bots from 20.xx.xx.xx territory, asking for both existing and non-existent pages, often many times over within the same minute.

If my site were on my own server, I guess it would be easy to block these extremely-repeat visitors.

[Fluff_Nutz]

I have noticed that Big G are making a right mess of Chrome right now. All bookmarks I have had on there, for years. I'll admit younger me was a Google loyalist, until recently and my hatred towards them gets bigger by the day. Anyway, all of those years worth of bookmarks have all disappeared, until you sign in, of course! This never used to be the case. I used to be able to use all of my bookmarks, even without signing in, whenever I wanted to. I guess it just increases their hold on our browsing data.

On top of that, I'm currently editing articles. Really dislike this job. Alas, whilst doing this. I have just noticed a new 'Ask Gemini' tab. Which is an eyesore as its right in the path of the many browser tabs I have open. As if I want to ask Gemini anything.. To make it more annoying, I notice that it changes to 'Ask about this page' when I browse one of my articles. Allowing anyone to use Gemini to instantly locate answers within my website. Bad move for our RPM, as once readers get their answer they will leave! I can see this being a huge drop on revenue, for something I do not want..

I thought, at one point, G were going to loose Chrome? Being forced to sell or something? Guess not..

[Martin Potter]

Google claims "Google Chrome - The Fast & Secure Web Browser Built to be Yours". Other than what you have described, I am not familiar with the advantages and disadvantages of using G. Chrome.

For many years now I have used Firefox as my browser, and everything on it belongs to me. (Including all the bookmarks!) Maybe in your situation, Firefox might be worth a try.

[Chris travel 30]

@penitentman you were asking, what SEOs and affiliate marketers are doing next. As I am both, here is a short wrap up, how i changed writing content (free to be discussed if anyone likes to):

1. All the content is 99 % human written and experience based
2. I focus on real storytelling. As I am a travelwriter, its easy to fit a real story around the information I provide. When people plan their holidays, travelling starts already with the plannings. People want real experience-bases travelstories, that makes them feel like they were already there.
3. If I want people to buy something, I have to write for humans. Often texts written by Ai feel (to me) like I really do not understand what the text is saying.
4. I am completely transparent: I tell the audience, why I recommend something, as well as that I will get a commisson from the advertiser.

Writing for me completely changed over the last months and I took a step back: from keyword-optimized texts back to the roots of real storytelling. Sometimes, when I write an article, it feel more like I am writing a short book or a telling. It brings me back to early days when I started and I now realized why my early texts were performing well: I did not think about optimization.
I write for people and for intentions, not for keywords. And even with all the traffic I lost to AiO, I still manage to have a decent return that covers my cost of living and travelling.

Over that, this is the only way I can go on with writing itself. As soon as writing feels to me more like a science, I am out. And its the same with reading: When I read the first sentences and notice, this text is 99 % Ai, I stop and never visit this site again.
So basically, and I am afraid to say that openly, I transformed more into an artist without wanting to be one.

[RedBar]

I'm curious what SEO's and affiliate marketers are doing next or thinking of doing next. Something SEO adjacent like AEO or something completely different.

I have never taken any notice of what others are saying they are doing since they usually end up in a "me too" echo chamber. I've been doing SEO before the term was coined, I worked hand-in-hand with Altavista 30+ years ago on many of my projects therefore I have a pretty good idea of what goes on in the background ...well, ought to!

Good quality SEO still works perfectly for the vast majority however for highly popular keyword phrases in many industries there has been for several years realistically only one winner in G's SERPs and that is AdWords but we also now have the added "bonus competitor" of AI with which to contend.

Insofar as AEO is concerned I have constructed and launched such a site and it is already outranking my main site plus for some widgets is already AI's reference source. It has had some click thrus already but we're only talking in the 20/30 range so far.

I am not doing this for FMCG purposes, this is to be seen globally within my industry as the "go to" source for information and project pricing.

I actually view this as my legacy project for my family business (190 years) for the next 20-25 years continuation since, again in my view, AI will become extremely more refined, accurate and dependable and those who develop their global supply sites for AI "integration" for the business world will benefit the most.

Those in the FMCG sector will most probably face conflicting advice / ideas on what to do but, as in the past, successful strategies will become evident quite quickly I would feel.

[Chris travel 30]

I am not sure yet, but I think yesterday something has shifted.

[Micha]

@chris More AI Overviews in search and Google has shifted into vacation mode. We see this mode every year around the same time (just for fun, compare your data with previous years).

[RedBar]

I am not sure yet, but I think yesterday something has shifted.

For the last 5 days, plus so far today, traffic has increased so that I'm "only" -33%. Traditionally this weekend is the first of getaways for several European countries for those who can afford to.

[Fluff_Nutz]

I find it funny how some websites are talking about SERP volatility as of yesterday, July 18th. I have been loosing traffic daily all month. Am I being purposely targeted? I say this month but my site hasn't grown at all for months. This month just happens to be the worst this year, so far.. Am I the only one on a constant daily drop for the past few months?

Anyway, I have taken others advice and lets admit it was long overdue. BUT I finally switched from Chrome. Feels great!

[Chris travel 30]

My observation so far since June 18: the amount of traffic is unchanged but the user intent is mismatched. The engagement is lower than low and as you can imagine, the sales look like that. Yesterday was pretty busy in traffic and normally sundays are good sales days for me, but the intent of the users that were send by G seemed not to match, so sales were way under normal.

[Micha]

Google Discover brought in a lot of traffic yesterday, which led to a new visitor record. Today is running quite well too. In general, the rankings of my news site, especially within the news section, have improved significantly over the weekend, and I am curious to see if it holds up. The shop, on the other hand, had a really miserable Saturday but managed to recover on Sunday.

However, I can absolutely confirm Chris's observation regarding the mismatched user intent and the drop in engagement. According to Matomo and GoAccess, traffic is up, but the bounce rate has shot through the roof. Just like Chris described, we had a very busy Sunday in terms of traffic, but the conversion into sales was way below normal because the intent of the users sent by Google didn't seem to match. E-commerce websites seem to be having a tough time in general right now; looking at Sistrix, I see massive fluctuations across dozens of online shops.

[Martin Ice Web]

My observation so far since June 18: the amount of traffic is unchanged but the user intent is mismatched. The engagement is lower than low and as you can imagine, the sales look like that. Yesterday was pretty busy in traffic and normally sundays are good sales days for me, but the intent of the users that were send by G seemed not to match, so sales were way under normal.

I was searching for a 9-piun extension cable. google presented me results from a pregnancy website, a police report and food website.
Further looking for a left angled cable. Results are full of top or bottom angled cables. Not one left angled.

Paid Ads show the right items i was looking for. But organics are complete disarranged.

[RedBar]

@Fluff_Nutz

I say this month but my site hasn't grown at all for months.

I have absolutely no idea what your site is about but unless you are dealing with FMCG, popular news / sport / celebrity sites consistently updating and competing with many others head-to-head, then the oft-quoted "build it and they will come" is one of the most over-hyped mis-statements on The Net.

20 years ago I had millions of page views per month as people searched for all variations of my specialised widgets and at that time I was also an AdSense UPS club member, that volume of traffic was clobbered in 2010, I think, and AdSense earnings fell below the minimum monthly about 10 years ago.

My realworld business has grown, I have realworld production exported globally and make acceptable profits.

I am not trying to tell you or anyone else how to run their online businesses, what needs to be understood by countless wannabees is that operating big profitable "online only" sites requires constant updating, maintenance plus a willing, hopefully global, audience. Specialised widget sites very rarely attract a constant large following, sure they may have huge ebbs and flows but unless one is a major shopping / news portal then expecting big traffic may lead to disappointment.

I'll give an example from the BBC last night's World Cup final. It's peak online viewing was just over 600K, within 10 mins of the end 30K.

[christianz]

my site hasn't grown at all for months.

What does it mean? No site grows, growth in this industry is not a thing. If your Google traffic is staying level or decreasing only slightly that's already incredible achievement and puts you in the top 0.1%.