Google Algorithm Updates - 2024 Ongoing Discussion

Encrypted said:
Anyone here loves a conspiracy theory? :D:evil::evil:

More proof that HCU has absolutely nothing to do with "Rewarding Helpful Content"?

Check this out:
Then.....

March 2024, BOOM! HCU IS NO MORE!: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-helpful-content-update-gone-37196.html

Do you see the pattern here?

HCU was a thing for about 18 months, then it was suddenly baked into the core algo after brutally smashing tens of thousands of small businesses..

So, what was the thought process behind this? Why was HCU baked into the core algo when it's clear that something isn't "right" with the last HCU? And why were there no recorded recoveries despite it being rolled into the march core update?

My hypothesis on this:
  • This is exactly how Google wants it to be (at least for now). HCU wasn't a mistake or broken algo. "HCU" is likely a code name for some internal google project/goals.
  • The first 2 HCU (August & December 2022) were likely a pilot test to see the impact on Google's revenue.
  • The HCU wasn't part of the march core update. That's just some bullshit PR stuff they told you. Historically, there's always a core update in Q1 or first half of the year, which serves as the perfect time/excuse to "retire"/"end" the "Helpful content update". It explains why we've seen very few recoveries even with the core update. If HCU was truly about content quality/helpful content then lots of people should have seen varying degrees of recovery with the march core update.

NWzu8pS.png


Finally, there are some recent comments from Google folks on twitter that seem confident about HCU sites recovery in the next core update...and i agree that this will likely happen... WHY?:

  • Historically speaking, the next core update should happen in August/ September 2024. This will mark the 1-yr anniversary of September HCU.
  • The Google x Reddit deal likely happened around the September 2023 HCU, but was only announced Feb this year....It was probably a requirement for Reddit's IPO listing (IPO listing was announced shortly after the API deal announcement: https://searchengineland.com/reddit-google-ai-content-licensing-deal-437782)
  • If the above is true, then the deal will expire in September...Which means Google will demote reddit and "small blogs" will automatically get higher visibility???:D. It kinda aligns with the "next core update".

Technically, its a win-win for Google. They get 1-yr worth of reddit data and by demoting reddit, they also get fresh insights from "small blogs" that significantly improved their content.
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Why do you think the reddit deal was only a year or was that explicit? Did that include archives? I don't know why Google didn't just use an old reddit archive before it was heavily botted anyways if they were only interested in training data for their llm's as it would be much higher quality. The Reddit demotion in Sept is interesting and possible as they realize many reddit results are not worth of promotion. Maybe OpenAI realized that as part of their deal.
 
marigoldwhale said:
Why do you think the reddit deal was only a year or was that explicit? Did that include archives? I don't know why Google didn't just use an old reddit archive before it was heavily botted anyways if they were only interested in training data for their llm's as it would be much higher quality. The Reddit demotion in Sept is interesting and possible as they realize many reddit results are not worth of promotion. Maybe OpenAI realized that as part of their deal.
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Well I don’t have insights into the deal but my guess would be that they thought they needed to send more traffic to Reddit to increase engagement and harvest a lot more data even though Reddit spam would also increase by a small %. It also helps the IPO too, and temporarily solves the problem of dealing with the massive volume of AI content websites flooding their systems.
 
Heh.
They sending a lot of traffic to reddit.
Watching previously dead subreddits come back to life like crazy now.
Seems like they're getting fresh threads into the results the same day they come out in some cases.
I'mma watch for this and post a few as it happens.
 
Encrypted said:
Anyone here loves a conspiracy theory? :D:evil::evil:

More proof that HCU has absolutely nothing to do with "Rewarding Helpful Content"?

Check this out:
Then.....

March 2024, BOOM! HCU IS NO MORE!: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-helpful-content-update-gone-37196.html

Do you see the pattern here?

HCU was a thing for about 18 months, then it was suddenly baked into the core algo after brutally smashing tens of thousands of small businesses..

So, what was the thought process behind this? Why was HCU baked into the core algo when it's clear that something isn't "right" with the last HCU? And why were there no recorded recoveries despite it being rolled into the march core update?

My hypothesis on this:
  • This is exactly how Google wants it to be (at least for now). HCU wasn't a mistake or broken algo. "HCU" is likely a code name for some internal google project/goals.
  • The first 2 HCU (August & December 2022) were likely a pilot test to see the impact on Google's revenue.
  • The HCU wasn't part of the march core update. That's just some bullshit PR stuff they told you. Historically, there's always a core update in Q1 or first half of the year, which serves as the perfect time/excuse to "retire"/"end" the "Helpful content update". It explains why we've seen very few recoveries even with the core update. If HCU was truly about content quality/helpful content then lots of people should have seen varying degrees of recovery with the march core update.

NWzu8pS.png


Finally, there are some recent comments from Google folks on twitter that seem confident about HCU sites recovery in the next core update...and i agree that this will likely happen... WHY?:

  • Historically speaking, the next core update should happen in August/ September 2024. This will mark the 1-yr anniversary of September HCU.
  • The Google x Reddit deal likely happened around the September 2023 HCU, but was only announced Feb this year....It was probably a requirement for Reddit's IPO listing (IPO listing was announced shortly after the API deal announcement: https://searchengineland.com/reddit-google-ai-content-licensing-deal-437782)
  • If the above is true, then the deal will expire in September...Which means Google will demote reddit and "small blogs" will automatically get higher visibility???:D. It kinda aligns with the "next core update".

Technically, its a win-win for Google. They get 1-yr worth of reddit data and by demoting reddit, they also get fresh insights from "small blogs" that significantly improved their content.
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Right or wrong, i like the way you think.
 
Is anyone else seeing a massive drop in organic over the last 48 hours? Like 80-90% down?
 
ok, just an update. After i submitted my disawol file and fixed all my internal anchors and pushed all the links trough crawlers several times, I went on a 1 month road trip with an rv in the north west. Yellowstone and Glacier are amazing, btw a must-see for everyone. Anyway, the results are close to 0. My traffic is about the same. I still rank ok for my review articles, but my best articles are still between 20-40 (they used to be between 1-3).

But I guess its just a shift in what google wants to show as results. Now that Im checking the serps, the few 'best' articles that survived the initial march update are gone now, and the results are pretty much amazon, reddit, quora and some random e-com sites. Almost 0 affiliates (with the exception of cosmopolitan and wirecutter) in all the best terms i was following.

Not sure where this is heading, but the results are not the most useful to the users lol.
 
Smith said:
Is anyone else seeing a massive drop in organic over the last 48 hours? Like 80-90% down?
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A friend is freaking out about this but I assumed it's just a GA4 delay. It's a service business (not local). If it's related, let me know and I can dig deeper for you.
 
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illmasterj said:
A friend is freaking out about this but I assumed it's just a GA4 delay. It's a service business (not local). If it's related, let me know and I can dig deeper for you.
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Thanks. This is exactly what I was seeing too. But I just checked and the data seems to have caught up and everything is back to "normal". Hopefully your friend is sorted as well.
 
Ok, another observation. My rankings in europe (except the uk) are as if there was no update ever. Still ranking in top 3 and i get some traffic in conversion there. Not sure if you guys have noticed that, but europ and us serps are totally different. Im not sure what they did to mess the us serps that bad, but according to google, these results are the best they ever had.
 
GeorgeG said:
Ok, another observation. My rankings in europe (except the uk) are as if there was no update ever. Still ranking in top 3 and i get some traffic in conversion there. Not sure if you guys have noticed that, but europ and us serps are totally different. Im not sure what they did to mess the us serps that bad, but according to google, these results are the best they ever had.
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I have noticed this in tier 3 countries too.
 
.com is their testing ground/playground. Its the largest market they can test run stuff out on, gather data the fastest due to volume, make corrections they want, then roll it out (and roll back what they dont like) to the next English speaking countries. After that, they do the best they can to translate this to other language speaking countries. Takes longer (translating all the shit, or did till AI), sometimes you wont see it hit you guys till months later, but as sure as the sun rises every day, its on its way to a serp near you. Or thats what i have noticed...
 
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GeorgeG said:
Ok, another observation. My rankings in europe (except the uk) are as if there was no update ever. Still ranking in top 3 and i get some traffic in conversion there. Not sure if you guys have noticed that, but europ and us serps are totally different. Im not sure what they did to mess the us serps that bad, but according to google, these results are the best they ever had.
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Europe serps are definitely way less advanced, but to my understanding, most countries were hit by HCU and March updates, though not the kind of 90% drops that were reported, more on a page level.

That could also have to do with Mediavine-like sites being much less common.
 
bernard said:
Europe serps are definitely way less advanced, but to my understanding, most countries were hit by HCU and March updates, though not the kind of 90% drops that were reported, more on a page level.

That could also have to do with Mediavine-like sites being much less common.
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In the countries I have work in (for example Germany, Poland, Norway and Italy) we see the same big drops as in the US, unfortunately.

It's actually fascinating, and very telling, when looking through the SERPs of smaller countries in the EU.

In the US many sites are replaced by big shops, Reddit, Quora and big affiliates like Forbes. In smaller countries, like Poland and Norway, we don't have those big shops, forums and magazine-affiliates - but we still see the same pattern in our SERPs.

For example, the other day I looked at a keyword for one of my sites, it had been number 1 for many years, now it's at 40. In the top three, there is one site that hasn't been updated since 2015 and their article is filled with code. Some plugin is corrupt/outdated, so there is more code than actual text showing. To make things worse, the article has no pictures (which is crucial for the keyword) and only 250-300 words. The website menu is covering 30% of the PC screen and can't be used, because of the above plugin error. According to waybackmachine the site have been looking like this for at least 3 years.

I looked that site up, and it's an old shop that closed down in 2016.

This isn't the first time I encounter this, I've seen it several times in different countries in EU. Which makes it obvious that sites that were mainly built for affiliate/ads were targetted.

I think Google have decided that specific keywords/queries needs an X number of shops and X number of ads/affiliate sites in top 10. That might work (but it doesn't..) in the US where you have loads of established websites and shops - but in Finland? There isn't much to choose from, but since they have already decided that one type of sites must be promoted and one type of sites demoted, we end up with crap SERPs like the above.
 
Trump said:
I think Google have decided that specific keywords/queries needs an X number of shops and X number of ads/affiliate sites in top 10. That might work (but it doesn't..) in the US where you have loads of established websites and shops - but in Finland? There isn't much to choose from, but since they have already decided that one type of sites must be promoted and one type of sites demoted, we end up with crap SERPs like the above.
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I agree completely which is why my initial theory was that HCU/March was ran on top 10 results on typical ads/affiliate queries and then simply demoted. No real rhyme or reason, however, if you want to make a cost-effective bang for your buck move, then demoting most of the top 10 would be the way to do it.

Why go through 100 results and spend compute on that when you can achieve most of it just demoting some of the top 10?

And that's why we end up in Europe with these absurd results.
 
The June 2024 Spam Update finished rolling out on June 27th (two days ago). It took 7 total days to wrap up. Seems like it was a typical, general spam update unrelated to links, but to stuff like cloaking and all that.
 
New core rollout?

I'm seeing a massive drop in daily traffic (-30%) over the last two days. I think this is Google coming to suck whatever life is left out of my site. Just wondering if anyone else is seeing this too?

chubes said:
Brandon from Retro Dodo visited Google HQ
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Imagine having your entire livelihood ripped away from you... and then walking into the enemy's castle, literally pocketing scraps of food... what the actual fuck?
 
Smith said:
Imagine having your entire livelihood ripped away from you... and then walking into the enemy's castle, literally pocketing scraps of food... what the actual fuck?
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Eh, he was collateral damage, all those small-medium sites that got smashed were. It's not a bad thing, his site might go on the "legit small business creator sites that got smashed too much and let's see if we can fix it" list that they'll use when testing some stuff.
 
Smith said:
New core rollout?

I'm seeing a massive drop in daily traffic (-30%) over the last two days. I think this is Google coming to suck whatever life is left out of my site. Just wondering if anyone else is seeing this too?
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Was this one of your new domains?

Is it possible the filter people been getting hit with just got an update.

Edit - Looking at my stuff I had a nuked site just get partially un-nuked.
Went from everything over 50 to some clicks and crappy first page rankings.
Visible bump up was the 12th. 15th was the top Monday I've had in months.
 
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they usually test stuff like this, then they evaluate and if they like the results, the launch the core. so a new one is probably coming soon.
 
secretagentdad said:
Was this one of your new domains?
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Main site. Organic down 25% to 40% compared to the previous week.

It doesn't matter, the site is down 88% from Sept last year... total clusterfuck.

But I don't care, I'm sticking to my plan. Organic is one fucking channel. And even with an 88% drop in traffic I'm still winning, revenue is growing, and the business is thriving.

I'm forcing my business' success into existence... with the kind of violent brute force that's needed every few years to remind you what you're capable of... Fuck sleep, fuck weekends, and fuck google.
 
New Study: More Than Half of Searches Don’t Leave Google: organic search decline

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-As you can see from the data above, zero-click searches make up 58.5% of mobile and desktop searches in the U.S. This means users aren’t clicking on any results after performing a search.
-Nearly 30% of clicks direct to Google-owned properties, including YouTube, Google Images, and Google News.
-For every 1,000 Google searches in the U.S., 360 clicks will go to the open web.​


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