Recent Comments
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.
Hunar commented on
Thanksgiving Google Search Ranking Algorithm Volatility
I think it just goes to what it will be. Not what it is now. It's honestly the hype around it all. Right now, AI isn't much, It's great for a lot of things, Search, meh. Not quite there yet. In a few years though, when you have agentic, Like true Agentic stuff searching for you that knows you really well, Well that's where it will be.
But also, Google owns the whole stack of doing the AI Hype, Down to the TPU's Talking about building data centers in space etc. etc. Where do you think that money is coming from? The money they are taking from everyone else. Search wasn't enough, now they are doing the equivalent of the HCU update to Youtube. Soon, that will turn into what search has become as well. It literally just all comes down to google thinks AI is the next HUGE thing. So, they are willing to do whatever it takes to get there. Remember when ChatGPT came out? Google did a Code Red meeting or whatever it was, they all freaked out, even had sergey come back and run the team. it's all to ensure they aren't left behind and hopefully they can own the monopoly on that as well.
I'm right with ya! I've lived through every single update. HCU is literally where everything started to change. Honestly pre HCU it wasn't really hard to make money doing SEO at least i didn't think so. After HCU, I'm fighting for every dollar and everyday i watch SemRush Sensor, and i see that AI Overview Number Creep up 1% 2% I'm like crap, Guess i have to fight even more for that next dollar. :/
Comment ID #6803240593
11/30/2025 08:45 am
DataDonkey commented on
Thanksgiving Google Search Ranking Algorithm Volatility
<blockquote>I think the current developments are great.</blockquote>There's nothing great about a convict company being permitted by a corrupt government to steal the intellectual property of others and post/profit from it as if it was their own creations.
Comment ID #6803228216
11/30/2025 08:03 am
SnowInWinter commented on
Thanksgiving Google Search Ranking Algorithm Volatility
That may well be the case, of course - recent developments have indeed affected many of our purely informational sites, which I have sold or closed down. But let's be honest: were these sites really good, did they offer real added value? Not really, when I think back. It was just hype that I was happy to jump on board with - but it was never sustainable. In most other areas (products, services), I see the changes mentioned above, but I don't see a real problem, just a huge development to the next level.
Comment ID #6803207960
11/30/2025 06:43 am
Sam commented on
Thanksgiving Google Search Ranking Algorithm Volatility
Ive been in it for 29 years and it's wiping out publishers I don't know if it has hit your niche yet but 80% traffic has gone from mine and I am still first in all keywords, with millions of followers on socials. It will expand to more niches, if your still making money then your good until they turn it on in your niche.
Comment ID #6803187773
11/30/2025 04:48 am
Sam commented on
Thanksgiving Google Search Ranking Algorithm Volatility
I hear you both, but I keep coming back to the same question, why? ChatGPT is tiny. Maybe 2-3% of search. Most normal people still just Google things like "what is the weather tomorrow,, how to fix a tap etc. They're not switching to ChatGPT. If ChatGPT was actually taking their market share, the panic would make sense, and chatGTP would be massive not 1% of the market. Google are literally burning money to destroy publishers - but why. To fight a competitor that wasn't a threat? Maybe it's not deliberate. Maybe it's just bad leadership, maybe they wanted share price to go up. But the result is the same they are wrecking the open web to solve a problem that was not there to solve. I can't get my head around, the fact that google has thousands of data scientists. They knew within weeks exactly what AI Overviews would do to publisher traffic. They have the data. They carried on anyway. Surely, If it was accidental, they'd slow down but No, they are pushing it more - gone from 6% to 13% in March and AIO its still growing. They told the court open-web display dropped from 40% to 11% since 2019, and used it as a defence. Why would a company destroy the key part of the business due to a competitor that barely exists? I sill honestly don't understand what they're thinking, do they know something we don't?. Algo updates, we adapted. Panda, Penguin, core updates - we learned, we changed, we survived. But AI Overviews? There's no adapting to this. When users get the answer without clicking, there's no SEO that fixes it. No content strategy. No "just create better content." The click never happens, what's the point. This is not an algo change. This is destruction. We can't recover from this. So my question goes back to why.
Comment ID #6803187127
11/30/2025 04:44 am
Vic Daniels commented on
Rewriting AI Content With Human Content Won't Make Your Site Recover In Google Search
This guy has the cheek to talk about low quality AI content on websites, when AI Overviews are often inaccurate (and legalized theft at best) and poor quality themselves. Every policy Gooogle has for publishers, it simply ignores it totally itself because it can. The future for publishers isn't Google (which has proved itself to be a bad actor and unreliable partner). Think building your own communities and syndication, email databases, notifications and referalls from apps and aggregators. Google doesn't care about the Open Web; that concept is dead.
Comment ID #6803177992
11/30/2025 03:54 am
Dmitri S commented on
Google Ads Account Hijacks
Some crazy shuffling of serps. Some major sites dropped off to pages 4+ and first page top 5 are bogus no-name sites now. (Automotive, Canada)
Comment ID #6803137580
11/29/2025 10:51 pm
John A. User commented on
Thanksgiving Google Search Ranking Algorithm Volatility
I concur entirely. They did it with image search and probably a few other things. I bet they copied PAA.
Comment ID #6803094515
11/29/2025 07:50 pm
SnowInWinter commented on
Thanksgiving Google Search Ranking Algorithm Volatility
I absolutely don't think so. Why should Google really care about a lawsuit? Even if they lose, they pay and that's it. I've been in the SEO business for over 21 years... and you know what? I think the current developments are great. The internet and its channels are evolving - and so is SEO. I think this is the first time our industry is really consolidating, and it's about time.
Comment ID #6803091361
11/29/2025 07:38 pm
Hunar commented on
Thanksgiving Google Search Ranking Algorithm Volatility
I personally don't think google is destroying the ecosystem on purpose. I think it's just a by product of them trying to play catch up. Lets face it, google stopped being innovators a long time ago, all they've done is play catch up, and hope they don't get left behind when the new hot thing comes out. Just in this instance it's AI.
They freaked out when ChatGPT came out and it was very popular. So, now they are literally shoving AI down everyone's throat, You can't use google in anyway, shape or form without some form of them Shoving AI in your face. They don't wanna be left behind. So in return, you are stuck in their AI loop hoping you know google as the new "ChatGPT" and in return, it's taking everyone's revenue. At least that's what i think.
Comment ID #6803082736
11/29/2025 07:07 pm
Sam commented on
Thanksgiving Google Search Ranking Algorithm Volatility
Anyone think they are deliberately destroying the ecosystem so if they lose the ad tech case, there's nothing left for competitors to monetise -no traffic to the websites?
Comment ID #6803071679
11/29/2025 06:27 pm
Durant Imboden commented on
Thanksgiving Google Search Ranking Algorithm Volatility
As with most things, it depends. Today, our editorial travel site's Google traffic is up 20 percent week over week at a time of year when we're usually in the doldrums. My theory is that Americans who hate football and shopping escape to the Web to escape the NFL, bowl games, and Black Friday.
Comment ID #6803069426
11/29/2025 06:19 pm
Golden Phoenix commented on
Thanksgiving Google Search Ranking Algorithm Volatility
AI is just devouring the internet. Pinterest is completely trash now. I think 75% of it is now fake. Video, even recipes. Google is openly encouraging its users to use Veo in their Shorts, everyone is pushing AI. This is going to crush anyone who is already not a big brand. Even if you have great content, you are going to get lost because people just now copy you. It is so easy to copy content too. Gemini can reverse engineer anything.
I don't think this business is completely dead but what works 5 years ago does not work now in any wa
Comment ID #6803053136
11/29/2025 05:26 pm
Golden Phoenix commented on
Thanksgiving Google Search Ranking Algorithm Volatility
it's not about rankings or clicks. By the time people even seem my site, they have already bought from eBay or Amazon. I used to make 6 figures, I used to make $1500 a month on AdSense easily. Now it's barely $100.
Nobody should be mad at your observation. The problem is Google
Comment ID #6803052442
11/29/2025 05:24 pm
snuffy commented on
Thanksgiving Google Search Ranking Algorithm Volatility
Thank you Sam. I completely agree with you. Completely. I will start reading your posts with care and interest.
Comment ID #6803020698
11/29/2025 03:53 pm
snuffy commented on
Thanksgiving Google Search Ranking Algorithm Volatility
Thank you DataDonkey. If a website's traffic does not return to normal on Monday then I was wrong about that website. If it does return to normal then you know that your site is behaving normally.
Comment ID #6803020005
11/29/2025 03:51 pm
snuffy commented on
Thanksgiving Google Search Ranking Algorithm Volatility
What makes me really angry about AI is when shopping cart platforms/programs offer to write product descriptions. I work really hard on my product descriptions - harder than I work when writing articles. The AI generated product descriptions often sound like me talking.
Comment ID #6803018788
11/29/2025 03:48 pm
DataDonkey commented on
OpenAI Scaling Up Crawling & Bots
ChumpGPT is an AI slop engine and doesn't care about matching images to their source. We have the same problem but have come to the conclusion OpenAI's shit can't be made to stink less. We just hold our nose.
Comment ID #6803000994
11/29/2025 02:58 pm
Sam commented on
Thanksgiving Google Search Ranking Algorithm Volatility
No Data Donkey I honestly believe that for the first time ever this year, Google are facing a crash in "ad revenue" due to the set up of AI and the impact on the whole system. Before AI someone visited a site to read about say history for example and they might see an ad for a product for like $5 and be like hey I will buy that what a bargain. That "discoverability" has now gone. Keywords don't yield the same effect. Google are concerned about the fact advertisers are questioning ROI on LinkedIn. I have a feeling that advertisers are just pulling back the budgets from everything I have read (and I read allot) And the way they've changed sponsored links. Clicks are through the roof and conversions are down. People are clicking by mistake, not by intent. Advertisers are paying more for less and know it, and pulling back.
They're questioning ROI directly to Google, honestly, I don't think they thought this would happen but they are seeing they have started to break their own ad model in all this and they just believed the ad market will follow them into AI and that ent happening. Say spending £200k extra for serving AI Overviews in niches like mine, yet they are loosing $500k by not sending the traffic my way or my competitors - so my niche is alone -$500k not counting return visitors. I also see niches where they put non advertising sites above adsense sites. They are loosing the revenue this way as well. Spread this across the entire web where most queries are not leading to sales. It is billions of losses. Record quarter profits have not accounted for AI spend hidden in Capex, as they have depreciated AI over 5 years. It is super worrying. The crazy thing is that this is all over OpenAI who had no market share, no revenue model and accounts today for just 1% of total market share (tiny) and almost going bust: mainly developers, early adopters and writers as users: so Google started this whole thing without ever needing to. They could have created Gemini and slowly rolled that out as an LLM rather than mess with search. Now they have found themselves in a position where visitors, publishers and advertisors are questioning the whole search viability going forward. It does not make sense.
Comment ID #6802999850
11/29/2025 02:55 pm
Sensei commented on
Thanksgiving Google Search Ranking Algorithm Volatility
This is true. That's why unless someone has a service tailored to a localized area or is promoting something that is unique in some way, including it's marketing strategy, everything else will stay permanently drowned out as background noise among all the AI slop.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d93df0a63e873ceadbb43ef021ba7504d9e27c098f279049cb07e5e163855f77.gif
Comment ID #6802995654
11/29/2025 02:44 pm
Sam commented on
Thanksgiving Google Search Ranking Algorithm Volatility
Yes, and that is why Google I think is not promoting content >2019 it is ignoring it unless your an established website (thank goodness) that is one thing they are doing right.
Comment ID #6802995613
11/29/2025 02:44 pm
Sam commented on
Thanksgiving Google Search Ranking Algorithm Volatility
Thank you. My posts are not about this weekend or week.There is a fundamental shift here of no click internet and no click advertiser ROI which is hurting the open web.
Comment ID #6802995097
11/29/2025 02:43 pm
DataDonkey commented on
Thanksgiving Google Search Ranking Algorithm Volatility
No reason for anyone to give you a thumbs down. What you said is true and a reminder for some. But I will say with all the Googleshit in the serps, traffic returning to normal December 1st will still be a disappointment but maybe not as disappointing as it is now.
Comment ID #6802994981
11/29/2025 02:42 pm
snuffy commented on
Thanksgiving Google Search Ranking Algorithm Volatility
I know that lots of people are going to give me "thumbs down" on this but here is what you need to know if your website gets a lot of visitors from the United States.
In the United States, Monday, November 24 was the first day of "Thanksgiving Week". Lots of schools (Kindergarten through 12th grade, and universities) in the United States close for that entire week (Monday through Friday) and students return to school on the following Monday or Tuesday. Lots of people travel to visit family (or take vacations) use the internet much less during that week.
So, the traffic for most sites with lots of USA visitors will see traffic numbers down 10% to 20% or more on Monday and Tuesday. Traffic will be down a lot more on Wednesday. And traffic will be even lower on Thursday (because it is Thanksgiving Day) and Friday (because it is Black Friday a shopping holiday that a lot of people go out to buy Christmas gifts).
However, on Monday, December 1st traffic for most sites will jump back up to about normal.
A lot of people see their traffic drop on the Monday before Thanksgiving, panic and they go out yelling that their site got hit by Google, or Google did an update. Don't be deceived into thinking that "Google did something". Learn that this happens during the last week of November every year. It is part of the annual rhythm of most websites.
I know that many of the people who visit this site know all about what I wrote above, but many people need to know this.
Comment ID #6802991835
11/29/2025 02:34 pm
Golden Phoenix commented on
Thanksgiving Google Search Ranking Algorithm Volatility
1 thing AI is doing that people underestimate is how easy it is making people to come up with tons of content. Think about it, if anyone with a laptop can generate 100s of pages a day, it is going to overwhelm the internet. You are competing with them for eyeballs. In the past, you maybe had 10, 20 competitors. Now you could have 20k thanks to AI.
Comment ID #6802983927
11/29/2025 02:15 pm
Ziko commented on
Thanksgiving Google Search Ranking Algorithm Volatility
Discover's interface has changed; social media taken over everything, distorting Discover's appearance....
Comment ID #6802976388
11/29/2025 01:57 pm
DataDonkey commented on
Thanksgiving Google Search Ranking Algorithm Volatility
Forgive me Sam, but I feel I'm not the only one who doesn't understand what your 70% Thanksgiving theory is. Do you mean clicks are reduced by 70%? My clicks/traffic is worse, but Google is doing that to push up the value in ads/need to pay for traffic so they make more money. Fewer options in the serps for people to see means less competition and advertisers may see improved conversions to help offset the unwanted clicks/CPM Google is forcing them to pay for. About the only thing that changed since the end of Q3 and the start of Q4 is even less organic traffic and Gemini 3 touted as overtaking competitors. These are all positives for Google and bad for us.
<blockquote>Google and Bing are saying ROI cannot be measured by clicks</blockquote>This is more big techie gaslighting. They haven't figured out how to define ROI when they've taken it all.
Comment ID #6802973143
11/29/2025 01:49 pm
Sensei commented on
Thanksgiving Google Search Ranking Algorithm Volatility
<blockquote>They are trying to change the ROI definitions - it ent going to work guys.</blockquote>When the typical woke Googler can't even define what a woman is, it's no surprise they'll try to redefine any reality or fact to suit their bullshit.
Comment ID #6802969480
11/29/2025 01:39 pm
Sam commented on
Thanksgiving Google Search Ranking Algorithm Volatility
They will as they are now starting to see that ROI is totally down (see Barrys 28th Nov video) and they are worried going around saying ROI needs a new calculation
Comment ID #6802955871
11/29/2025 01:07 pm
Sam commented on
Thanksgiving Google Search Ranking Algorithm Volatility
Don't forget the web and websites are thriving
Comment ID #6802955197
11/29/2025 01:06 pm
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