Recent Comments on Search Engine Roundtable

Michael Lewittes commented on Google's John Mueller Working On Christmas 2025

Amazing... as usual. Merry Christmas, John, and wishing you the best in the New Year!

Comment ID #6815085415 12/26/2025 03:28 pm

MrSEO commented on Google Search Traffic Drops 25 Points To News Publishers In Two Years

There will be something new around January 10th once everyone is back .. Usually something to start the new year.

Comment ID #6815082369 12/26/2025 03:19 pm

Barry Schwartz commented on Google Search Traffic Drops 25 Points To News Publishers In Two Years

fun :(

Comment ID #6815082263 12/26/2025 03:19 pm

MrSEO commented on Google Search Traffic Drops 25 Points To News Publishers In Two Years

I've noticed on mobile devices scrolling on disscus freezes a lot. Frustrating

Comment ID #6815081952 12/26/2025 03:18 pm

Barry Schwartz commented on Google Search Traffic Drops 25 Points To News Publishers In Two Years

such kind words, thanks and yes, I know of Lithuania

Comment ID #6815051048 12/26/2025 01:44 pm

Barry Schwartz commented on Google Search Traffic Drops 25 Points To News Publishers In Two Years

it was not deleted, it was labeled as spam by Disqus, I manually approved it.

Comment ID #6815050871 12/26/2025 01:43 pm

Ted (or Big T) commented on Google Search Traffic Drops 25 Points To News Publishers In Two Years

Why my comment was deleted?

Comment ID #6815050515 12/26/2025 01:42 pm

Ted (or Big T) commented on Google Search Traffic Drops 25 Points To News Publishers In Two Years

Barry, I would like to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year :) I've never said this before, but I can say that I'm from Europe, a small country - Lithuania (do you know such a country? :)). I found your website a long time ago, I constantly follow your news and current affairs. Congratulations, you've never left this website. Well, now about the update: so far this update is not bad at all, attendance has increased. For a country with a little more than 2.5 million people, these are very good numbers. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8f4d06364df83ca4d3f233752a85809a9c441da0c582c2fb6958c5db59cff3af.png

Comment ID #6815047125 12/26/2025 01:31 pm

SEOwhat commented on Google Search Traffic Drops 25 Points To News Publishers In Two Years

I've had quite a few inexplicable events in the past several months, and they only seem to grow stranger as updates come and go.

Comment ID #6815009446 12/26/2025 11:35 am

SEOwhat commented on Google's John Mueller Working On Christmas 2025

Happy holidays, folks.

Comment ID #6815007868 12/26/2025 11:30 am

John A. User commented on Google Search Traffic Drops 25 Points To News Publishers In Two Years

They are probably evaluating their handy work and then deciding if they need to turn it up or down a notch. Its not been unknown that they change their tactics halfway through an update based on the results volatility.

Comment ID #6814992801 12/26/2025 10:45 am

Barry Schwartz commented on Google Search Traffic Drops 25 Points To News Publishers In Two Years

never know, they can push another update to another system during this update and that can flare things up. but my guess is Google will confirm it is done around Tuesday...

Comment ID #6814990838 12/26/2025 10:38 am

Ted (or Big T) commented on Google Search Traffic Drops 25 Points To News Publishers In Two Years

I think update was done. Google will inform everyone on Monday-Tuesday.

Comment ID #6814988820 12/26/2025 10:32 am

googleisjoke commented on Google Search Traffic Drops 25 Points To News Publishers In Two Years

I wish my sites dropped to zero 2 years ago, so I could already have something running, the fact that I'm getting some revenue makes me not wanna leave much, but as I said selling the site will solve it, and then I maybe could get thoughts like - let's build another but it would be minor thoughts because the effort putting into growing it is not worth it anymore.

Comment ID #6814980827 12/26/2025 10:05 am

Claire commented on Google Search Traffic Drops 25 Points To News Publishers In Two Years

facebook gave us an xmas gift... ads on the side (on PC) that changes when you scroll after a few posts.

Comment ID #6814928854 12/26/2025 06:12 am

Kalpesh Raval commented on Google's John Mueller Working On Christmas 2025

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Comment ID #6814902704 12/26/2025 03:13 am

Virendra Singh commented on Google's John Mueller Working On Christmas 2025

Merry Christmas.

Comment ID #6814898833 12/26/2025 02:35 am

snuffy commented on Google Search Traffic Drops 25 Points To News Publishers In Two Years

Google traffic might be OK. But the people who land on Google see AI overview results completely clogging the top of the SERP and consume them. Then..... if they press on..... the searcher will see a huge block of "sponsored" results, a whole pack of YouTube links, a big pile of "people also ask", a big block of "Short videos"... some "you might also like", and many other diversions..... by the time they get down to where the organic listings are found.... the curiosity, energy, piss and buyers intent have been completely wrung out of the searcher... The organic results are like the last deformed slice in a loaf of stale bread.... Your Site and My Site might be slapt in there, maybe.... and if you are damn lucky, somebody might click. That's why we ain't seein' any traffic.

Comment ID #6814847884 12/25/2025 07:48 pm

googleisjoke commented on Google Search Traffic Drops 25 Points To News Publishers In Two Years

I will likely sell my last site in Jan and give a last dot to this blogging journey, it was nice while it lasted, but it's time to move on. I hesitated for too long to start selling something but in 2026 I plan to change it. It' scary but also liberating at the same time that you go test new waters and leave that old walked path!

Comment ID #6814822920 12/25/2025 05:31 pm

John A. User commented on Google Search Traffic Drops 25 Points To News Publishers In Two Years

According to my personal stats, I had 16,218 visitors to my site (based on Unique Ids), their IPs are varied, but they all seem to have the same User Agent. Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/142.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 Whilst everyone here would be happy with those numbers (if they were real users), I can almost guarantee that about 15,000+ are bots. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Internet_theory">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Internet_theory</a> is no longer a theory; it's a fact. I am tempted to block that useragent but I worry that that user agent might be what Google uses to test for cloaking and therefore block legitimate Google/Bing test.

Comment ID #6814805071 12/25/2025 04:03 pm

John A. User commented on Google Search Traffic Drops 25 Points To News Publishers In Two Years

The article was written in 2023; its credibility hasn't changed. It doesn't give sources until you ask it. How credible is that? Yeah, I know a lot of lazy users will not bother with sources, but even though sources do give credibility. Gemini has sources automatically, even though people don't bother, but I'd prefer Gemini to ChatGPT for that fact, not that I like these LLMs. I always use Web search and view websites.

Comment ID #6814802111 12/25/2025 03:50 pm

Alireza Naji commented on Google's John Mueller Working On Christmas 2025

Merry Christmas Barry. Happy Holidays!

Comment ID #6814773924 12/25/2025 01:55 pm

Sensei commented on Google Search Traffic Drops 25 Points To News Publishers In Two Years

2010 is right. There isn't even the slightest benefit that site has to any visitor and it shouldn't even exist, especially going into 2026. The only purpose it serves now is being a symbolic relic of what HCU was originally supposed to target, and gives gaslighting gimp JM something to still point to as a convenient example of why Google goes nuclear sometimes with spam updates. Then it only makes it more difficult for the rest of us who aren't serving up generic garbage. So I have no sympathy. They're lucky that turd is even indexed today.

Comment ID #6814713346 12/25/2025 10:03 am

DataDonkey commented on Google Search Traffic Drops 25 Points To News Publishers In Two Years

ChatGPT is very bad for running a store because our product pages are the source and ChatGPT's sources are often wrong. Even when ChatGPT rips our content to present to users, it directs them to some different products. This has been a problem for us from the start and still persists. I just don't know how an AI Slop Engine like ChatGPT can retain users in its current state. Older story, but still applies IMO. <b>ChatGPT and Fake Citations</b> - <a href="https://blogs.library.duke.edu/blog/2023/03/09/chatgpt-and-fake-citations/">https://blogs.library.duke.edu/blog/2023/03/09/chatgpt-and-fake-citations/</a> <blockquote>What you may not know about ChatGPT is that it has significant limitations as a reliable research assistant. One such limitation is that it has been known to fabricate or “hallucinate” (in machine learning terms) citations. These citations may sound legitimate and scholarly, but they are not real. It is important to note that AI can confidently generate responses without backing data much like a person under the influence of hallucinations can speak confidently without proper reasoning. If you try to find these sources through Google or the library—you will turn up NOTHING.</blockquote>As far as the critiques on CoolStuff's site, my opinion differs. With an ad blocker, I see no ads. Not that my intent is to not support sites, but I don't want to support Google which is what most sites run. I too could make significant improvements to our site, but with so little traffic from Google then who is going to really see it and is it worth my time to even do? I'm more inclined to just let the site freeze in time because I know any new content will be stolen by AI and any new improvements seen by AI theft bots and not real people. When there's no benefit from my work, all motivation is lost.

Comment ID #6814710353 12/25/2025 09:51 am

Sam commented on Google Search Traffic Drops 25 Points To News Publishers In Two Years

This is true. When people challenge the narrative they say it is isolated cases. It is lies, I don't know anyone thriving.

Comment ID #6814700980 12/25/2025 09:09 am

Mark commented on Google Search Traffic Drops 25 Points To News Publishers In Two Years

Yeah thats the nature of thing now unfortunately for seo's. declining value of the same rankings, due to AI stuff, overly aggressive ads above the fold, unnecessary filler to hide the natural results, etc I guess we'll all get forced out at some point, I'm not sure how much longer I'll have in the game before I'm in the victims list too & pretty much unemployable lol

Comment ID #6814698827 12/25/2025 08:58 am

Ken WIlson commented on Google Search Traffic Drops 25 Points To News Publishers In Two Years

I have several leads even in second page in 2023.And 100 leads /month in 2024, but now i already rank position 1, only fewer leads per months. Thats really interesting.

Comment ID #6814696747 12/25/2025 08:47 am

Andy Beard commented on Google's John Mueller Working On Christmas 2025

John has always been a gift to the community, even when his hands are tied Have a good one, everyone

Comment ID #6814692109 12/25/2025 08:22 am

Barry Schwartz commented on Google's John Mueller Working On Christmas 2025

Let's be kind in the comments today please

Comment ID #6814689138 12/25/2025 08:06 am

John A. User commented on Google Search Traffic Drops 25 Points To News Publishers In Two Years

Can't argue there...

Comment ID #6814688728 12/25/2025 08:04 am

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