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]

[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%.