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.
I get that it's a tech company and it's a tech engineering challenge. But you'd think they might have someone with a background in information science in a senior policy position rather than all engineers.
Basically. Google flipped the table and started fresh.
Probably has to do with this being largely user data based. As it constantly runs AB tests on the SERP, there was really no way to 'preview' this ranking scheme...
They just had to roll it out and see what happens.
Since the HCU I have lost nearly all positions of my articles in the Serps. Most of them had a stable and good ranking for years. Today I have checked one of the lost keywords on Google. For that keyword the serp looked like that:
Shopping
Youtube
People also asked
Organic result
People also ask
Organic Resultat
Youtube
Pinterest
People also ask
....
It is terrible. It is hard to read and find something. It was also a German Result...
That's exactly what HCU was targeting (or at least part of it), automatically changing the date of content to pretend that it's "fresh", but not actually changing anything except for the date/year. That's one that for me is a problem, because my site is for airline policies which sometimes get updated but not always, so every year I have to review the policies to make sure my content is up-to-date. When making changes I update the date of the latest revision, but sometimes being up-to-date means changing nothing if the official policies haven't updated, just the date, to show that the policies are still valid in 2024. So I think part of my HCU hit is due to Google thinking that I'm artificially adjusting my dates to seem fresh, whereas I'm actually signaling that the content is up-to-date even though it hasn't changed.... Not really sure what the correct approach here would be? especially that many of the searches include the current year in their search phrases because they specifically want up-to-date information.
Hello everyone, as a content creator from Germany, I would also like to give my feedback.
Until before the HCU update, I had almost the same positions in the top 10 +/- 2-3 on Google and Bing. The traffic share for the search engines was 80% (Google) and 8% (Bing).
After all the updates, the share is now 60% (Bing) and 20% (Google). The shift is enormous, I still have top positions at Bing. Overall, traffic on Bing has not only increased in percentage terms, but also in actual terms.
I can't understand why Google has been turning the wrong screws since KI and re-evaluates all websites, regardless of whether the content (apart from small updates) existed before KI or not.
The relevance of the search results was bad after the HCU update and is now absolutely unacceptable. Large daily newspapers rank with all sorts of topics with their SEO parasite. They have 2(!!!) months to respond to a warning - if they are warned at all (which I largely doubt).
We website owners with specialist sites had no time and were not warned in advance, but were partially deprived of our existence overnight. What Google is causing is the biggest disaster since the search engine was created. Google may currently benefit financially from the poor relevance results, but I am sure Google will pay dearly in retrospect. Many private friends are already dissatisfied with the results and have sometimes changed their search engine.
Google is run by communists.
They hate us because we make money with affiliate links or ads.
They hate us because we are independant and successful, instead of corporate slaves like themselves.
It is a fact, soy latte doesn't work to get ready for the day, hate and greed is what motivates them in the morning!
According to the new Google rules, independent websites that have ads or affiliate links are unhelpful, no matter the quality of the content.
Looking at my portfolio of websites, it is clear only independents who do it for the passion can still rank on Google. I have tried, once you start to monetize a small website, the rankings drop like a rock!
I think they trully believe that if an information comes out of a bigger entity, whether it is a government or coporate website, then it has to be true,and it has to be helpful. Therefore, these websites are allowed to put a ton of ads and affiliate links, be experts on all topics from mattresses to career advice, use AI to steal your content, propagate fake news, do clickbait, it doesn't matter: they are the good guys!
On the other hand, what you publish is automatically unhelpful because, even though you are an expert, you are an independent who did it for the money, therefore you are evil and can't be trusted.
After all, you don't have a big brother representative watching over your shoulder to tell you what you should write.
Only allowed on Google right now: corporate websites, governement websites, social media, independents who don't monetize.
Banned from Google: independent publishers trying to make a living, small businesses.
Glad Elon is putting this latest Google fuckery news in the spotlight today and giving it extra attention.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1769771195035984073
Right. It's the difference between knowledge and information. Google used to value knowledge. Now it's all about information tokens.
Similar situation here. Working professional in the field for over two decades. Hand-written, hands-on everything on my site, exclusively by me. Nothing farmed out to anyone else or any AI. Solid traffic for over a decade. Current information regularly updated, clean mobile-friendly site. And my site has been absolutely crushed.
This Google update is a significant mistake, hitting smaller sites harder than ever before. It will likely lead many content creators to abandon producing quality content, as the real experts often run smaller sites.
We will soon mostly see AI-generated reviews and guide videos lacking genuine human expertise. It seems Google didn't thoroughly consider the implications of this update, perhaps making a desperate move in response to the release of ChatGPT. However, in attempting to follow what others are doing, one risks losing sight of their unique strengths and advantages.
My 20 years of real experience in my field—which is not something many on the larger sites can claim—along with high-quality content updated regularly, and only using AI to enhance the readability of my own content, set me apart." But down down I go in Google
even if you are right about this and even if the best case scenario happens, you just can't build a business like this. For me, this whole experience has been eye opening. I don't have a real business. I have a Google business. And that is a mistake. When you lose traffic from Google, it should be at most 20% in worst case scenario. If it is any higher, you are not running a business. You are just pretending. By "you," I mean myself and people like me who put all our eggs in one basket.
Makes absolutely no sense. You are telling me someone who is dropping a few spots every couple of weeks, replaced by forums and Reddit is going to come back? How?
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4438f86e6fd5b7d63b6be0003757dc26c927320e1a276fc7da134bb01aac5fe2.png
My last 4 comments had been marked automatically as spam as soon as I posted them and my review requests had been ignored.
I was very rude to google but google also does not behave ladylike.