Recent Comments on Search Engine Roundtable

DataDonkey commented on Some News Publishers Took A Big Hit With The Google Core Update

With digital fingerprinting I'm sure it's easy for Google to disable ads and AI for specific users. Some call it personalized search results, but the purpose is also to misinform/confuse us. What Brin and Page spoke about years ago was gaslighting in its infancy. Today Google has an AI content theft friendly administration in DC. Trump loves AI and frequently uses it to attack his enemies. See the pic below from his Truth Social post yesterday attacking the Illinois Governor. Ivanka Trump also congratulated Google's DeepMind chief earlier in the week for his documentary that received over 200 million views on Youtube. Also was revealed that Greg Brockman, OpenAI's co-founder, donated $25 million to Trump's Super Pac (MAGA Inc.). https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b9264e6e98096292a568d12099827de994079bea3891f6683c314f10d56feec4.jpg

Comment ID #6818073566 01/03/2026 11:14 am

John A. User commented on Some News Publishers Took A Big Hit With The Google Core Update

That's definitely the case in my niche; they never show any ads. I guess there are no appropriate ads to show, so they can flood with AI Overviews. But if you went to sites in my niche, there are adverts, and if Google sent people there, they would win more. Talking about starting, Brin & Page wrote that ads would sway rankings, but how quickly did they change their mind? Eric Schmidt was called in because investors didn't like B&P, two youngsters being in charge of a billion-dollar company, but if you look at FB, Zuckerberg didn't get the same treatment. Something feels iffy. B&P nearly sold their site for $1 million; can you imagine that? They nearly gave up on the site before it took off. To be honest, they should have made it not for profit but if they'd done that, they wouldn't have got the investment.

Comment ID #6818051643 01/03/2026 10:32 am

Marston Gould commented on Google On Why 404s Don't Matter For SEO

Okay so I've been practicing SEO since before Google started. That's been a minute. I've worked on 100s of large domains - both as an external consultant and as an internal team lead. The websites that I've managed have 100,000s of pages to 10s of millions. I also have a degree in math, have taught statistics and worked at NASA for a decade writing guidance, navigation and control algorithms. So I'm not an idiot. Over these decades since Google launched Google Search Console - particularly after they launched the Pages report, I have been keeping track of the relationship between discovered but not indexed URLs, indexed URLs, impressions, clicks across a wide array of domains: lead generation, ecommerce, media - in a wide variety of industries: travel, finance, insurance, education, retail, automotive, healthcare. Some of these timeseries go back a decade. I can say unequivocally that there is a strong relationship between the level of discovered but not indexed URL, total URLs and peformance measures like impressions, clicks. This isn't to say that other factors don't play, they do, but I can say without a doubt that for scaled websites, if you have a large number of discovered, not indexed pages - particularly 4xx pages, that has a strong negative impact on performance. I'm not saying that 4xx pages should be replaced with 3xx - but I am saying that good SEOs will root out Google from continuously discovering 4xx pages either because they are internally linked to, are part of a redirect chain, can be discovered through crawled backlinks, and a wide variety of other esoteric reasons. For Google to suggest that 4xx links don't matter flies in the face of the page rank patents. Sure I know that page rank has evolved over the years, but at its core, there is still a core principle that discovered (or remembered) 4xx URLs are page rank sinks. To suggest that isn't a negative impact to SEO is somewhat dishonest.

Comment ID #6818014244 01/03/2026 09:18 am

DataDonkey commented on Some News Publishers Took A Big Hit With The Google Core Update

When Google search started they had no ads so they could gain acceptance from users and build dominance by taking away users from other heavily cluttered search engines. Google is doing the same with AI. You probably don't see ads in your niche because Google is making so much money they don't need to spam ads in your niche yet. I'm sure Google has a 5+ year growth plan to dial up the enshitification once Google's AI becomes so widely accepted their competitors fail. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f0590f57432c8a57d2343633bff4d91ea71d338d8fdff4cf68bc5f203407c2af.jpg

Comment ID #6818008449 01/03/2026 09:05 am

Mark commented on Some News Publishers Took A Big Hit With The Google Core Update

Things aren't getting any easier, cheaper, or faster to seo. And Google continue to screw us at every turn. If anyone is sitting here now in 2026 with multiple failures and nothing working, its time to go get a real job.

Comment ID #6817995896 01/03/2026 08:37 am

googleisjoke commented on Some News Publishers Took A Big Hit With The Google Core Update

I get the site to the certain point, leave it, I'm in a good niche, tried various niches, none of them work, this one is very specific and I can make lots of money but only over the long term, that's why I need main thing and this would be the long run guy for little but consistent

Comment ID #6817987507 01/03/2026 08:18 am

googleisjoke commented on Some News Publishers Took A Big Hit With The Google Core Update

yes that's why I won't relly on google

Comment ID #6817986889 01/03/2026 08:16 am

Sam commented on Some News Publishers Took A Big Hit With The Google Core Update

Imagine loosing 2 million users a month for 20 years - and loosing them all apart from a few thousand bots - all due to AI. And, not being able to go get shopping, and face homelessness with disabled children depending on you. This is the stark reality of this insane AI su@acide strategy that google are following. The karma is real. Roll on Q2 earnings, I would like to know how much is being made given no-one is advertising in my niche, and nothing on AI mode or AI overviews on my key terms.

Comment ID #6817946572 01/03/2026 06:20 am

John A. User commented on Some News Publishers Took A Big Hit With The Google Core Update

Bing can do a lot more to help itself, such as degooglising itself. Just look at a BING page for my niche, and you have to wade through a lot of crap to get anywhere. Maybe if they went classic look or made it easy to go classic, then they'd claw people back.

Comment ID #6817915875 01/03/2026 04:34 am

Rowan commented on Some News Publishers Took A Big Hit With The Google Core Update

With all due respect, you (we) know you aren’t quitting, so please stop claiming you are. We all have seen it many times - you kept cursing Google and how your website got affected. But you kept sharing images (hell, you even took the effort to make a GIF image) just to show how much your traffic is. Your claims of “being hit” are just like only 5% or so, while the rest of the community experienced up to 80% loss in traffic. I also remember there's one time you said you sold one of your websites and you only got one left. But, <i>miraculously</i>, you later showed different and multiple GIF images of your website’s traffic. Few months back, I also recall you said you're quitting for good and you're selling your 'last' website but just before the new year you posted a GIF image of your website's traffic growing. So please cut it out. It is getting annoying. It's just humble bragging behind the curtain of victimhood. If you want to boast or share the good news, just do so openly without pretending you're angry and quitting or the "victim".

Comment ID #6817897680 01/03/2026 03:07 am

Sam commented on Some News Publishers Took A Big Hit With The Google Core Update

Check your Google console, I had a good look inside and non-branded traffic has gone from 10000s to a few hundred. Crazy. I think this is the most maddest business strategy for Google as they have lost so much ad revenue from me and there is 0 ads in my niche. AI overviews have 0 ads in my niche. So what's the point, every update they shaved off a bit more and more and more and there is so much fodder above the natural result there is no hope

Comment ID #6817833620 01/02/2026 08:57 pm

Dark OG commented on Some News Publishers Took A Big Hit With The Google Core Update

6 7 nga.

Comment ID #6817820949 01/02/2026 08:09 pm

Luc Wiesman commented on Some News Publishers Took A Big Hit With The Google Core Update

Try 100k a day to 500... yes, 500. Sad times.

Comment ID #6817815475 01/02/2026 07:48 pm

Taryn White commented on Some News Publishers Took A Big Hit With The Google Core Update

It's almost starting to look like this update affected news publishers similar to how the September 2023 HCU hit informational sites in which hardly anyone recovered ever since. In an instant, everything changed and there was no coming back. It didn't matter how good you were, how many years of experience you had, or how big your site was. If that is the case again with this update, sadly many news publisher businesses will end with this new year.

Comment ID #6817808031 01/02/2026 07:19 pm

C3POh commented on Google's John Mueller Working On New Year's Day 2026

There's always more publishers to obliterate

Comment ID #6817804506 01/02/2026 07:05 pm

googleisjoke commented on Some News Publishers Took A Big Hit With The Google Core Update

I'm decided, today I went through the ideas and I'm starting a online product store, products for 20$ to $50, I will let you know in a year how it goes, also build a blog at the top of that. the products are also easy to make so this is a no brainer for me, I had issue recent 2 years where I tried to outsource everything, I was literally stuck in that blogging shit where I had a good timing and luck where outsourcing made a sense, so at least I realized that and that's good enough for me now to act and build something different, let's see.

Comment ID #6817794010 01/02/2026 06:28 pm

Sam commented on Some News Publishers Took A Big Hit With The Google Core Update

They have totally almost wiped out my niche now they are after news. They will just keep on going until no-one is left, 100k a day to just 16k in my niche. And, I am still one of the biggest. Crazy. The ad revenue must have fallen so much.

Comment ID #6817752402 01/02/2026 04:25 pm

MrSEO commented on Some News Publishers Took A Big Hit With The Google Core Update

I noticed way more bing traffic too these last couple of days. Was there an update?

Comment ID #6817746973 01/02/2026 04:11 pm

Dark Red Owl commented on Some News Publishers Took A Big Hit With The Google Core Update

You are not alone. We had about 1 million clicks a day for years. Since December 13, we have fallen to 300 thousand, which is not enough for 12 journalists to survive. Currently, Discover shows my publications reprinted from other media. We are at 0 from Discover and Google News. We are left with direct traffic and from social networks. I earn 250 euros a day working around the clock, and our expenses are about 700 euros a day. It is terrible. The worst thing is that I can't close the company and declare bankruptcy. Our brand is very well-known in the country and it will become a big scandal. At a dead end. We are working at a loss and we can't stop.

Comment ID #6817694066 01/02/2026 02:03 pm

FokGoogle commented on Some News Publishers Took A Big Hit With The Google Core Update

I asked Gemini why my Bing traffic has quadrupled and is now half of Google traffic. Maybe Gemini is not as dumb as I thought. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/241438d98263180ee9a752b9d168ea60464dfeaebabed36ed38a447d9c882024.png

Comment ID #6817683879 01/02/2026 01:40 pm

Dan commented on Some News Publishers Took A Big Hit With The Google Core Update

I am a news publisher. For the last two years (excluding several minor dips), I averaged 10,000-80,000 clicks per day and saw steady growth across News, Discover, and Search. Since the core update, traffic has been decimated. I am lucky to hit 100 clicks period, that's 100 clicks across Search, Discover, News for a whole day, I have been entirely wiped from the latter two. The loss is catastrophic, and if there is no recovery, the business will end.

Comment ID #6817679331 01/02/2026 01:30 pm

Susheel Singh commented on Google On Why 404s Don't Matter For SEO

404 pages are not good for crawl-budget. I prefer 410 gone to save crawl-budget.

Comment ID #6817593154 01/02/2026 10:07 am

Susheel Singh commented on Structured Data & Schema Does Not Help With Visibility In AI Search

Mostly on page tools are proving LLMS.txt file for it.

Comment ID #6817592358 01/02/2026 10:05 am

Barry Schwartz commented on Some News Publishers Took A Big Hit With The Google Core Update

whoa

Comment ID #6817581726 01/02/2026 09:36 am

Ted (or Big T) commented on Some News Publishers Took A Big Hit With The Google Core Update

Today big drop. I lost 30 percent traffic, than yesterday

Comment ID #6817579783 01/02/2026 09:31 am

Ste. P commented on Google 2025 Algorithm Updates Infographics

Good update Bazza

Comment ID #6817566212 01/02/2026 08:52 am

bellamideocy commented on Google On Why 404s Don't Matter For SEO

These are valuable points

Comment ID #6817565984 01/02/2026 08:51 am

John A. User commented on Some News Publishers Took A Big Hit With The Google Core Update

I am presuming IndiaTimes.com is dropping exposure in India, and you're not about exposure in the USA. If not dropping exposure in the USA, I think by past comments, that'll be welcome. If one is losing, who is winning, is it AI generated content? Is it Reddit journalists winning whilst the news publishers are losing?

Comment ID #6817552604 01/02/2026 08:08 am

David commented on Google 2025 Algorithm Updates Infographics

Nice information.

Comment ID #6817547080 01/02/2026 07:49 am

DataDonkey commented on Google December 2025 Core Update Done Rolling Out

<blockquote>They have forgotten themselves and don't understand the harm they are causing to normal people.</blockquote>I'm certain Google knows the harm they are causing, which they measure in profits. Everything Google does is with purpose to reach for more money and control. Even more concerning is Google operating above the law in the USA having been found guilty of abusing their monopoly and not even having any consequences or even a one cent fine. This lack of accountability allows Google to continue their crimes while also making the USA guilty of providing safe harbor/material support to a global crime syndicate.

Comment ID #6817545877 01/02/2026 07:44 am

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