Do you remember back in the day Google would only let you have 3 ads per page?

@samsam long time ago ;). I wouldn't be surprised if Google soon only displays advertising on the first page.

This was definitely the worst week I've had in the last 10 years. Currently, traffic is increasing a little, but we'll see how the day unfolds.

What I find strange is that according to Sistrix and Xovi, my ranking continues to improve, but it's not helping at all. News-Traffic has now reached 0. And a look at the search console suggests a massacre. It almost looks like a manual penalty, only none is reported to me and I wouldn't know where my site is violating the rules.

I'm starting to think I should try AI, just for the fun of it. If traffic improves, though, I'll shut the site down because I'm not going to participate in this nonsense.

I don't really know, my traffic is back to 2008 levels when I started the site.

@Samsam1978 : Lol, same here! :) Insane... :)

"@samsam long time ago ;). I wouldn't be surprised if Google soon only displays advertising on the first page."

It is look that G goes to that direction :)

G's classified ads creep has been around for years now. It may surprise you to know that this was not a new idea by G at all since I personally experimented with this concept with Altavista in the 90s.

Whilst my overall traffic is down substantially owing to fewer Joe Public page views, recently my bulk international trade enquiries have increased owing to buyers / researchers having to delve further into their SERPs to discover suitable B2B suppliers.

These days B2C websites are so indistinguishable from each other that it really does not surprise me whatsoever that G pushes localisation in its SERPs leaving pay-to-play being the only option at present if one depends solely on the www for enquires / business.

A lot of volatility around here. SERPs like a roller coaster...

SERPs like a roller coaster...

I'm finding them consistently poor across most SEs now and I wonder just how much effect my VPN has on this plus I wonder how much effect mobile location has to do with it especially concerning localisation?

Google always "thinks" I'm 150-200 miles from where I am when not using my VPN.

Some of our sites are up to 70% mobile, if this is replicated across any country then their attempts at localisation are almost pointless.

Still can't see how AI will make google more money than using us webmasters - odd.

@Samsam1978 "Still can't see how AI will make google more money than using us webmasters - odd."

I am also trying to figure that out for months and still have no idea. AI just learned everything webmasters published ever, but can't produce new ways, can just mix existing content...

Very low traffic today...search is -25% at 2:45pm. USA, UK, AU, CA, UAE all down between 21%-42% compared to the last few Sundays. In USA people are definitely traveling back home after the holiday, but the low traffic is from every location. I did notice that the page is loaded with a scary amount of sponsored links now, up to six to start. Then a ton of AI snippits...people can barely find the organic results anymore.

Still can't see how AI will make google more money than using us webmasters - odd.

synthetic and generic from websites with possibility discovering what is better
and this exactly google doing right now

Rumours of a ChatGPT browser under consideration to compete with Google's Chrome: [webmasterworld.com...]

We are now getting massiv traffic from all over the world. All this traffic goes to 5 specific pages (items).

Yesterday evening, the message traffic suddenly increased. Today the traffic has decreased again, but it was higher than the average daily traffic last week. The ranking is also improving again.
I hope that this is a sign of improvement and that last week's nonsense was only due to Black Friday.

November update still rolling out?

[status.search.google.com...]

yes

Veeery slow today....

Will traffic pick-up now since my last 10 days have averaged -40% which is unprecedented for my global site?

I certainly won't put any money on it!

This horror update keeps rolling out with no signs of slowing down. Technically it can't go on forever. It will eventually stop - when all positions for every keyword will be fully replaced with spam.

google constantly worsen the results with every update, so i doubt this will reverse.

After the update is before the update!

google constantly worsen the results with every update

Not every update. Some time around the HCU update (not sure if it was HCU or something else, improvements began around this time last year) they actually improved results and got rid of billions of spam pages. Now they are ranking those spam pages back again. And since then 10x more spam has been created, lots of it under "high authority" domains too.

On day one of November core update it was clear that it was going to be failed update. Despite that it has been going on for 2 weeks+. It's like they see they are going to run off a cliff but they keep the foot down on the gas pedal.

And that's just 50% of the problem. Other 50% is malicious rearrangement of SERP interface, leaving little to no room for legitimate search results.

Very obvious signs of Google suppressing traffic...Europe and UK have recovered compared to the weekend, but USA is still way down. -47% at 1pm. Perhaps people are busy looking for cyber monday deals. But the problem is that there has been only a trickle of new customers for about 11-12 days now. Google is making sure to steal everything for the holidays. The number of ads and ridiculously poor nonsensical page layouts is making it hard for people to find any organic serps.

Google is fighting a desperate battle in a market that many �experts� have declared dead because Tiktok and Co. are more popular with young people. Fear of the future is causing the company to panic. That's why they're clinging so hard to AI, a technology that's far from being fully developed, and in their arrogance they don't realize how much damage they're doing to their own product. Combined with the pressure to make more and more profit, the company has embarked on a path that will completely destroy its reputation. Public opinion of Google is as bad as it has ever been and its relationship with webmasters is completely shattered. Actually, only SEOs are still defending the company, who make a lot of money with dubious tips because, unfortunately, there are too many webmasters who are so desperate and know too little.

My only hope is that the company stumbles and stays on the path it is currently on. The past has often shown how quickly companies suffocate when the leadership consists of people who are only out for profit. Unfortunately, Google is just too big, so it will take a very long time.

We can only watch, use the forum here as an outlet (which really helps) and make the best of it. Or we throw our projects away, which is not a good choice. And yes, I know that's all easier said than done, but what else can we do?

I take back what I said earlier...everything fell off a cliff again. Not just USA traffic...international traffic down by as much as 74%. All of my content categories are a sea of red. This is definitely an update talking...hopefully will snap back soon enough.

Google is fighting a desperate battle in a market that many �experts� have declared dead because Tiktok and Co. are more popular with young people. Fear of the future is causing the company to panic. That's why they're clinging so hard to AI, a technology that's far from being fully developed, and in their arrogance they don't realize how much damage they're doing to their own product. Combined with the pressure to make more and more profit, the company has embarked on a path that will completely destroy its reputation. Public opinion of Google is as bad as it has ever been and its relationship with webmasters is completely shattered. Actually, only SEOs are still defending the company, who make a lot of money with dubious tips because, unfortunately, there are too many webmasters who are so desperate and know too little.

Monopolies don't have to worry about public opinion so much. It was inevitable that this monopoly would move more and more to squeeze the life out of the market as that is the course of all monopolies. Perhaps governments now realize the threat a small bit, but they won't be able to do anything about it. You could break Google up certainly, but as long as the company depends on ad revenue they will always load the pages with ads, try to game the system on clickthrough rates and fake clicks, and try to keep all the traffic for themselves.

AI is the first real existential threat to Google, not social media. They are smart to adopt it and incorporate it into search since they invested heavily in it early on. Everything must change, and so must search. I don't think that people will stop using search any time soon but I do think Google's market share will be eroded by the new AI-assisted search competition...and that's a good thing. Those new AI platforms in turn will be pushed to make huge profits and so they will also monetize their search and their AI results just like Google. Look at what is happening now with Musk already suing OpenAI for trying to convert to a for-profit corp. He wants to slow them down since he sees unimaginable riches with his own for-profit X-Ai which is far behind the others.

Actually, only SEOs are still defending the company, who make a lot of money with dubious tips because, unfortunately, there are too many webmasters who are so desperate and know too little.

I totally agree with this. All anyone can really do is measure the daily ups and downs now. Nobody can really provide accurate tips on how to rise to the top anymore so people should not pay for that. Providing fresh content worked better last year, this year not so much. Links don't seem to move the needle either. Only raising you domain's authority seems to correlate with better search visibility. Google has digested all our content and does not need to rank any of us anymore...it will just spit our data out in it's own snippits and cut us all out of the loop.

but as long as the company depends on ad revenue they will always load the pages with ads, try to game the system on clickthrough rates and fake clicks, and try to keep all the traffic for themselves

When people search for e-commerce, they want to find what they want quickly and accurately. Google and Bing don't do that. You can spend hours or so sifting through ads, organic links and then onto sites where you use filters with differentiation features amounting to marketing tricks and games.

People don't want that, wasting time and being confused. Enter an AI search resource that cuts through all that garbage.

That's the technology threat to traditional search and a business model that depends on it with advertising. Google must have recognized that it needs to "own the content" on it's own assets, way back, but i think that will come to an end imo. For some time the big brands have been using "walled gardens" in their verticals that compete with Google.

So there are threats from multiple angles on a large and growing scale for Google and also the overall marketing environment for search dependent businesses.

Couldn�t find anything to buy this Black Friday/ Cyber Monday with google

When people search for e-commerce, they want to find what they want quickly and accurately. Google and Bing don't do that.

Shoppers also want choice, which Bing and Google fail to deliver on since they have buried SMBs well underneath ads from Amazon, Walmart and other well known distributors of Chinese goods. I'm not sure how these SMBs will survive, but I know businesses such as ours will be forced to pass price increases onto the consumer to help offset the declining retail sales from search that help to cover operational expenses. Those of us who also sell to the Government, and their suppliers, will also be forced to pass these price increases onto the taxpayer. Eventually SMBs will disappear and everyone, including the USA Federal Government, will have no choice but to purchase goods from their preferred Chinese distributor marketplace.

Shoppers also want choice

This is exactly what Google, Bing and Co. have not understood: we customers do not want to be bombarded with advertising. This can also be seen from the spread of ad blockers: we want to shopping as we would during a normal shopping trip. You don't just go to one store when you go shopping either.
The same applies to news (here I am only speaking for myself): I want many sources on a topic so that I can deal with it and get complete information. I don't just want large media companies that publish a message from a news agency and don't write anything themselves. And I bet I'm not the only one who finds this media consumption control annoying.
Google and Co. like to claim that they know their users. That may be true, but they only reduce people to their data and that's nonsense.