Below are the most recent 30 comments. I try to keep it clean of comment spam, but some times things
get through and it takes me several hours to get to it. So please excuse any of that comment spam.
Google can't hide advertisors not paying them for long, unless they lie in their accounts but I doubt they can hide the 70% Christmas ad losses tbh
I think you're right, I can feel it. I think the penny has dropped that AI is not going to pay. They are cranking up the mess of search to try to cover for more revenue loss. It is a consultancy approach for a fast buck but people are literally not searching as much anymore, as the user experience is so poor now. It is literally ruined. They ruined it. I am not sure they can even get the business model back. Advertisors had enough I bet budgets have been pulled as no ROI. Google is well and truly &*3ucked. Only way is to remove AI overviews and AI mode asap but they are too worried about shareholders, I bet the next goal is a 1.5 billion quarter ... but the thing is, ad revenue has stopped paying. Mess with us publishers money and karma will run after you, it will not end well for Google mark my words. Imagine how many people right now at xmas don't have money anymore and the kids suffering with little presents. That is some bad energy Google.
It's hard! I had to let a bunch of employees go, as a result of Google's crap. I found just being honest, about what's going on with google was the best approach, they all saw it too.
We all pretty much know what's going to happen next.
Googlers will say the statistics and findings are flawed, and it isn’t true at all. “Search is all alive and well, and we send billions of clicks a day. Many users find Google more useful than ever before.”
The same o' gaslighting BS.
Remember what @Cobra_Kai__Never_Dies:disqus said about employees.
You're not the only person who believed Google was their friend. They were just some trojan horse, being one thing and ultimately something else.
Google is obsessed with income, it has 90% of the internet search and will not stop until its either stopped or it gets 100%. It has corrupted and slithered up every politician imaginable.
They keep sending me advice on how to make adsense money but there's only one thing that can do that and that is to send me visitors, not put more Effing ads on my site.
They hired that YahooKiller who littered Yahoo with ads apparently, they hired him to wring money out of visitors like he did on Yahoo, there's no competition to Google so doesn't matter what he does now.
I've been like this since December 12. I don't know how to look at my employees, I haven't told them. I'm ashamed at home and by my family that 20 years ago I decided to work as a journalist and publisher. And the biggest mistake is that I believed Google that it helps publishers. Google kills publishers. Google is obsessed with advertising from every corner of your city and makes you dependent. In the end, they kill you physically too
I posted this earlier today, but now everyone is on this post - so reposting.
"More Perfect Union" is a quality investigative reporting channel. Here is their coverage of Googles SERPS decay
<a href="https://youtu.be/GvaOUFwXjf4">https://youtu.be/GvaOUFwXjf4</a>
Good to see @cobra_kai__never_dies:disqus and @rustybrick:disqus getting along. That alone made my day and could even qualify for a featured story. :)
Google is going scorched Earth to steal as much traffic as they can from everyone. This is what happens when a judge finds Google guilty of antitrust crimes and fails to punish them for abusing their dominance in search. This may not be entirely Judge Mehta's fault, because the Trump administration appears to be protecting Google as much as they can.
Christmas miracles really can happen after all.
<a href="https://youtu.be/dIzi2rzeT70?si=kIesgiIZxiJ6Hhv4">https://youtu.be/dIzi2rzeT70?si=kIesgiIZxiJ6Hhv4</a>
Great videos you've re/found, pretty sure I've seen the one before but its always good to see it again. Its a shame that the people who could honestly do something by this are corrupted by money, either making it themselves or using it to get votes.
I see his website and i'll be looking at some others too <a href="https://perfectunion.us/">https://perfectunion.us/</a>
<blockquote>There is no way we can survive with a team of 12 experienced journalists and editors.</blockquote>Google's goal is to reduce your staff from 12 journalists to 1.2 journalists then to none so Google can assume control over media. Once Google has enough control, they will be free to produce fake news that makes Google look good, makes Google money and protects the elected Politicrats who they control.
Check Barry's other story he posted today because it sounds like it applies to you. Best wishes for you and your journalists.
<b>Google Search Traffic To News Publishers Drops From 51% To 27%</b> - <a href="https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-traffic-drops-news-publishers-40645.html">https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-traffic-drops-news-publishers-40645.html</a>
To me, this doesn’t look like a temporary bug or some random over-correction. The data points in one direction: Google is actively redefining how reviews actually work as a ranking signal.
For years, we’ve treated review counts and star averages as quasi-accumulative assets. What we’re seeing now feels less like cleanup and more like a shift toward what I’d call credibility weighting. If a review lacks context, specificity, or real behavioral signals, it simply won’t survive long-term anymore — regardless of the rating.
Seeing both 5-star and 1-star reviews getting nuked at the same time is the giveaway. Extremes are the easiest to manipulate, and an AI-driven moderation system clearly doesn’t trust them anymore.
Bottom line: we have to stop looking at reviews as static SEO assets. They’re turning into fragile, dynamic signals — closer to real engagement than old-school “reputation.” Anyone still trying to build reviews the old way is probably misreading where Google is headed.
Complete madness. My site has been number 1 in our city for 15 years. Without Discover, it has over 100 thousand direct entries per day and 1 million fans on Facebook. Since December 12, it has been removed from the local search of Google News and Discover. There is no way we can survive with a team of 12 experienced journalists and editors. What has been left are copy-paste sites of corrupt politicians with a 2-3 year history, created for manipulation. In Discover, I constantly see our materials copied with our photos from other media. This is a crime.
More perfect union is a quality investigative reporting channel. Here is the coverage of Googles SERPS <a href="https://youtu.be/GvaOUFwXjf4">https://youtu.be/GvaOUFwXjf4</a>
This might help explain the big picture of why google and big tech is untouchable. <a href="https://youtu.be/y_q741QO_m0">https://youtu.be/y_q741QO_m0</a>
Kinda reminds me back in the day when Google decided to show music lyrics in their SERPs. Lyrical websites were hit very badly and many were unhappy. But those lyrics websites can’t do anything about it since they don’t “own” the lyrics.
I remember many lyrics websites got hit until many just ceased their websites.
It seemed like the site was coming back to life. On Saturday and Sunday, traffic from Discover started returning. And then, a sharp drop. News isn't showing up in search or Discover. It's just idiotic.
Well this core update looks to be more like Google's last shot at destroying what online publishers remain. We might have to get back to print.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ae1b52e65aa22bbd7ce38fbd438fcbf96a3830d8f68bd58caf1c5a8049569789.jpg