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 don't see anything major in my niche but that could change. It's as bad as before but not much different. I do know Google's services were glitchy earlier today and maybe that has had something to do with the reporting?
My niche is astrology and spirituality, and since last week I have been seeing mostly Indian sites dominating the search results. When you type in any angel number, sites like “Raja Fas*ion,” a fashion brand based in Hong Kong and Pakistan, appear in the first position and receive hundreds of thousands of visits.
What is going on? I am based in the UK, yet my search results look Indian. While I spend hours writing in-depth articles for my 12-year-old blog, these sites publish low-quality content within days and somehow rank on position 1.
Results are pñrtty much garbage in myu industry,, 80% I woudl say and it's beign goign on ever sicne the HCU in 2023 so it is purposeful. Bing seems to be able to manage the qaulity way better than google but traffic capture is tiny so not really worth much. any 2026 predicitons ont he next update? Usually it's marhc but perhaps some new type of algo dropping in Feb?
I guess it depends how long people have been doing this, or how successful they've been.
I think only a fool would get into this career in an entry level job in 2026, thats been the case for a good few years now really.
I think I'm going to have see this journey out as far as seo goes, nobody else is going to pay me the money will Google will give me, and in my 40's I aint going to start again. I'm not even sure what I'd do if I was forced out - I've done this for 20 years, basically unemployable, but need a 6 figure salary or its not worth going to work at all.
What I don't get is the people repeatedly posting "I've lost 99% of my traffic, I make $30 a week". If thats the case why are you still here, go get a basic job and make more money picking up rubbish or serving food or whatever.
<b>Google to pay $68m to settle lawsuit claiming it recorded private conversations</b>
<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g38jv8zzwo">https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g38jv8zzwo</a>
I find this news very infuriating. Remember how Google kept using ‘Users’ Privacy’ as a way to push their crap to the general public? For example, Manifest V3 to Chromium browsers; how they followed Apple by banning app tracking because of ‘user’s privacy’ (which, of course, is just a move to attack Facebook/Meta’s advertising effectiveness).
And, now, they have been caught spying on Android Users just to serve targeted ads.
Seriously, fuck Google. Fuck them hard.
People, your work should bring you happiness and meaning. It should be your hobby. If you find such a job, you will be happy for the rest of your life. I have not read a single comment from a person who is happy to work with Google, that is, for Google, because it is the same. There is no happiness in trembling at every Google update, but it shows that you have lost the freedom and meaning of your life. Google is not freedom, but slavery. Drop this stink as soon as possible. The world is beautiful without Google, SERP and SEO
I'm seeing a lot of old timers coming back...
@Dan Richardson
@oldgooglemaster:disqus
@the291iq_equalizer:disqus
I noticed Equalizer has increased changed slightly...
Still missing among others, Cat, SomeOldOne CamelaHairys ......
You would think school administrators and school boards understand why they get free Googleware is because their students are the product. I wouldn't be surprised if those students are also helping to train Google's AI. Since schools won't do the right thing, hopefully parents will demand Google be removed from the classroom so their children are no longer Google's product.
Wow, Google is taking inspiration from Bing, the presentation of results are awful. It may have like this for a while but I've been away from Google main search, instead using Web Results. Just look up IC1101 . Facebook, Videos, Facebook and then more Videos. Has it been like this for a while?
@F1Stevee:disqus sums it perfectly, just a few additional comments of my own.
Will add a lot of those that do try to survive will probably go behind a paywall. Review (e.g. Movie (movieweb) /Holiday (almostginger) / Tech (Mark's site) ) sites will go first because they won't have the income to get what they want to review. AI can't review a site and all AI reviews are based on other reviews like so much of every other AI crap.
Google needs to stop with the quality visitor crap, all visitors are quality.
Wikipedia will feel the heat one day although the AI companies of Microsoft + Google finance the site. They'll have no sites to reference and they'll be forced to slim down because their reference sites will have disappeared.
Infuriating but not too surprising. Googlers are all woke AF, and woke is all about indoctrinating children.
It figures soulless shitdemons at Google found another way to exploit kids as part of their corrupt business model to prey on the youngest for future profits.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f0b6ccc2b4369779b632b6d3dfd7e2b9365287019b97ceda83a6b66dea36b409.jpg
Almost missed this story which states internal Google documents prove Google puts Chromebooks and their Education Suite into schools to manipulate youth into becoming lifelong Google users.
<b>Google's work in schools aims to create a 'pipeline of future users,' internal documents say</b> - <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/google-schools-aims-pipeline-future-users-internal-documents-rcna255175">https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/google-schools-aims-pipeline-future-users-internal-documents-rcna255175</a>
<blockquote>Newly filed internal documents show how Google viewed its work with schools as a way of turning children into lifelong customers — while the company simultaneously acknowledged research suggesting that YouTube, one of Google’s main platforms, can be unsafe and distracting.</blockquote><blockquote>One internal Google presentation, which is undated, conceded that using YouTube for learning is hard because the platform is distracting and disorganized. It showed an example in which YouTube recommended “Will Ferrell Hilarious Acceptance Speech” from user “cocksandballs123” to someone who had searched for content about “linear equations.”</blockquote>
Long term Google becomes the internet for information with a few choice partners like reddit which themselves will be eradicated slowly over the following years and a few partnered news sites for breaking information. Google will become a marketplace for all products, removing the need for ecom websites and taking a slice of all internet sales worldwide competing with Amazon and Ebay. Payment platforms will go under like paypal & stripe as Google pushes Google Pay taking another since from the transaction. Hosting companies and domain registrars go out of business leaving only AWS, Azure and Google in that area, allowing them to push up prices to premium levels for any sites left.
Short term, every quarter Googles profits go up, publishers/ecom profits go down as the ecosystem is finite. More and more western publishers/business go out of business quarter by quarter replaced with 3rd world country publishers/Business who's living/business costs are far lower than the west so can scratch out a living on far less for far longer, essentially becoming cheap content farms for Google AI to harvest until it has enough.
So, you don't know what the word "bubble" means.
Following your "logic" there wasn't a dotcom bubble, because we still have .com sites, and there wasn't a tulip bubble either, because we still have tulips.
AI is a bubble. And a huge one. Period.
Maybe because of the shrinking user base, and getting back in the Play Store not stopping the slide, Epic was ready to wheel and deal with Google in other ways? Since I'm not a player, I don't know anything about Fortnite really. But I do know what Google did in this case may be a blueprint in how they limit the damage caused by other lawsuits.