Do you feel there is any real growth where you are?

Most Western economies have a middle income class that struggles right now. High interest rates and inflation are punishing, (maybe a variance of 20-30% on disposable income over the last 5 years or so) so products and services that are less in demand will be impacted.

Then you have the SERP's which are undergoing enormous change with AI uncertainty. That has to be having a further impact in the context of this community.

On the other hand there is significant upside to a pool of around 3.5bn (est) people (India and China dominate here), growing a middle income population. Not all of that is accessible to the West for the sale of goods and services, due to protectionism and other market dynamics. There has to be a sort of balancing out of the old World order and the new World order.

All i can say, from my limited perspective, is that growth can occur by making things better taking advantage of technical improvements to promote on the "new" web paradigm (whatever that is or is going to be).

Game on, but we all know that technology moves fast and geo politics and economics are playing a massive part.

I'm sure that if someone finds the magic button, everyone will try to be in on it.

Does anyone else have problems with site indexing? I purchased a .com domain for a website in the UAE. The website already has about 100 pages. In webmaster tools it takes it for indexing, it's ok. but for 2 days nothing has happened. Only the homepage.

Traffic much higher all week, including today. So there was def a seasonal drop. My ranking has not improved at all, in fact I am still losing top ranking terms but at a very slow rate now. It's really all about the domain authority...

@daniel1213
same situation. also experienced issues on indexing Jan 10, 2025 GMT+8

Big drop today!

@Renato...yes, huge drop this morning starting at 8am after an entire week of stronger traffic. The inquiries that are coming in are startlingly bad...completely clueless fools asking to purchase things things that cost 20x their budgets. Google has truly learned how to skim the cream off completely and leave websites with the leftovers...I have never seen anything like it

Very worse weekend with left over google traffic. But amazon sales are as high as never before. Poeple clearly moving to amazon for purchasing itmes.

@ichtyous, i can confirm our observation. And like to add that there left over are low budget buyers and tricking buyers ( fake names/business with fake adress ).

I agree, bad weekend. The traffic is ridiculous. The Discover traffic has been at 0 since Wednesday, but the ranking has improved, it just doesn't help.
About the shop: I can confirm what Martin wrote, it's the same for me.

Massive drop today... The 'Google Dance' never ends... :-D

'Google Dance' ...... massive drops!

Yes drop is huge since 3 days !

The carnage continues, my main .com 1-12 Jan 25 v 1-12 Jan 24 was -45.9%, yep almost halved and this trend, and it is a trend now, continues and is very doubtful to alter for international traffic.

I am referring to international traffic since my .co.uk sites are experiencing a -10% drop in traffic which, considering the state of the UK economy, would seem to be in line with recent govt stats.

So, is it localisation that is affecting international B2B sites like mine when I see local (UK) sites not doing as bad?

Are there any members here who run local sites experiencing massive falls or only relatively small drops versus a site like mine?

Clearly those November and December "updates" have had a dramatic effect on sites like mine, can we get to a consensus of precisely who / which sites have been so adversely affected?

I run an international site and the US traffic dropped 75% in December where the rest dropped little.should be a shift on Google usage for this market or layout pushing me far down in the results pages.

On the other side big sites like Amazon Alibaba are ranking well but offer nowhere the same products … it’s sometimes not even relevant to the query…

I have better conversion with Bing than Google but my Bing traffic is very small

One of the UK sites I run is a very specialised site. It's not a site one would accidentally visit, the product is very niche specific and covers a large UK county area of 2,300 sq miles (6,000 sq kms), it has been in existence for 100+ years and a website since 1998.

This site's traffic is consistent all-year round and varies very little and during this current carnage it is still averaging exactly the same daily traffic and page views per visitor. This is not a site that receives 10X thousand PVs per month, it has 80% UK traffic with the rest split fairly evenly amongst other European countries and the USA.

This site seems to benefit in that it is local / regional for its specialist product even though it does have quality competitors.

My question has to be why has this site sailed through many, many updates over the years meanwhile my B2B .com has experienced such a wild and unexplained rollercoaster ride? It's absolutely nothing to do with the information quality since the B2B easily wins that globally for its products.

@RedBar - this made me curious, so i took it over onto a separate thread for some analysis and inputs: [webmasterworld.com...]

Big drop...

Huge drop here...

feels like a penalty was added to our page. So far we are at 66%. Some good sales with organic traffic today but amazon sales are at a new high today. I would say it is time to say good by google....

Let's be honest, Google is definitely running an update. The fluctuations are just too extreme.

As a UK-based content creator, I’ve found it increasingly difficult to survive on Google’s meager earnings year on year for the last 12, especially with AI encroaching on the creative industry.

So I recently bought a house in Thailand and will be moving next week. There are plenty of pros and cons, but the drastically lower cost of living makes a creative career far more manageable. In fact, based on my current savings, I could potentially live another 40 years there (in 40 years i want to have been dead for at least 10) compared to only 8 in the UK and with AI aside the UK is now a sess pool of filth and depravity! For creativity, living in a poor country moving forward maybe the only way forward before it also becomes pointless there also!

Let's be honest, Google is definitely running an update. The fluctuations are just too extreme.

@Micha Our adsense earnings only falls when there is an massive update and even though it only stays low for a week or so. In this case or adsense earnings has fell of the cliff since New Year's Eve & I see no sign of recovery.

@saladtosser Important thing is to survive. Anyway, good for your bro and good luck.

Let's be honest, Google is definitely running an update. The fluctuations are just too extreme.

Maybe, google should instead announce the time when there is no update:

Today from 1pm to 2pm we are not worsen the results.

Last ~7 days have seen some mildly positive trends for a change (after 3 awful Google updates in a row). But I don't think this trend will last much longer, if at all.

I've had strong traffic this week again...a small dip one day but it recovered. You can easily see when google is updating these days, the pattern is always the same. A sudden freeze in traffic and usually the biggest drop is in USA / Canada traffic.

I pay for search clicks via Google Ads. Some webmasters are not fans, and I guess that depends on your niche, but I get back half of what I pay to Google Ads in Adsense revenue. Also, I offer paid features to new members, and that revenue more than makes up for what I pay using Google Ads.

Got a message from google today, starts with:

"Lawmakers in state capitals across the country are proposing regulations that could make it harder and more expensive for you to reach customers online. You can stay up to date on potential regulatory changes and make your voice heard by signing up below.
We believe America’s small businesses should have a voice in this potential legislation, and the first step is being in the know. That’s why we’ve been working with business leaders like you, across the country, to make their voices heard on these issues."

Well ain't that rich. Hey google, you know what makes it harder and more expensive for small businesses to reach customers online? The answer is google you greedy fu......
If google is against a regulation you can bet I'll be visiting all my representatives in person to endorse it.

We believe America’s small businesses should have a voice in this potential legislation, and the first step is being in the know. That’s why we’ve been working with business leaders like you, across the country, to make their voices heard on these issues

Has G lost it's mind.

Google is driving small publishers and shops to ruin, but wants their support? It doesn't get much more cheeky than that. @Whitey Not the mind, but the connection to reality.

So, the traffic to my news page has improved and today the Discover traffic is back too. But the ranking has deteriorated.
The shop: Unfortunately, it's not worth mentioning; sales are minimal even though visitor numbers are high.

G wants more spam on the first page. Now it's a huge "AI Overview" block at the top.
Just tested few searches in my niche. These "overviews" look stupid and sometimes misleading.

Yesterday was a good day, lets say "normal" day with some good sales.
Since yesterday 7:30pm we see a sharp drop and today we started at 39% from normal traffic.