Google profit up by 15% - Forget any recovery

A very interesting post that I read a couple of days ago that I think makes a lot of sense too:





If their profits are going up then the search results are bad by design and I don't think they have made any mistakes there as many believe, it is like this by design.

There is nothing really new under the sun, they mess with the results so they can bring in more money via PPC but this is the first time where it's so clear-cut and specifically pointing to a manipulation.

INCC said:

A very interesting post that I read a couple of days ago that I think makes a lot of sense too:

https://www.reddit.com/r/SEO/comments/1cdrk4p

If their profits are going up then the search results are bad by design and I don't think they have made any mistakes there as many believe, it is like this by design.

There is nothing really new under the sun, they mess with the results so they can bring in more money via PPC but this is the first time where it's so clear-cut and specifically pointing to a manipulation.

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If they could up their profit by 15% by simply fucking everyone else over on search, they could as well go hardcore and up that profit by 100%. Why stop at 15?

Typical corporate greed. Shareholders and top execs need more zeros to feel good about themselves.

HenryObi said:

If they could up their profit by 15% by simply fucking everyone else over on search, they could as well go hardcore and up that profit by 100%. Why stop at 15?

Typical corporate greed. Shareholders and top execs need more zeros to feel good about themselves.

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They will do that eventually.

Yesterday I saw a post on Twitter that claimed Google started laying off their essential employees in Tier 1 countries to hire them from developing countries instead.. so they are taking as much as they can from every corner they possibly could.

I think they went up short term but unless there's a fix they'll go down long term

I think an update is going low key because GSC data has not updated for almost 23 hours now.

INCC said:

They will do that eventually.

Yesterday I saw a post on Twitter that claimed Google started laying off their essential employees in Tier 1 countries to hire them from developing countries instead.. so they are taking as much as they can from every corner they possibly could.

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More zeroes while spending lesser is more important to them. Well, I won't fault them much. Everyone's desire is to spend less while making more.

The mistake we do is building businesses to rely on a single source of traffic.

My Google rep sent me a deck stating that in many industries they see an increase of 20% in avg CPC, and in some industries it goes up by 40% (Jan 2024 vs Jan 2023), so it probably has a lot to do with that rather than with poor search results.
I attribute this massive increase in CPC to automated bidding strategies that become better and better, but also pushed very hard by Google. This leads to higher CPC and higher CvR, so advertisers are happy as well as Google.

roydan said:

My Google rep sent me a deck stating that in many industries they see an increase of 20% in avg CPC, and in some industries it goes up by 40% (Jan 2024 vs Jan 2023), so it probably has a lot to do with that rather than with poor search results.
I attribute this massive increase in CPC to automated bidding strategies that become better and better, but also pushed very hard by Google. This leads to higher CPC and higher CvR, so advertisers are happy as well as Google.

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But PPC adverts have taken up almost all the search results - this didn't occur before.

Advertisers might be happy but the vast majority don't advertise with Google so a small fraction of highly established businesses can benefit from it, the rest however will be left under the rain.

If even a fraction of ecom sites suddenly started using PPC instead of SEO then I don't think anyone would be happy tbh.

They do it on purpose. Nobody sane would rank Quora which is 99% of false information and bullshit written by people who DO NOT exist.

https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/why-are-people-saying-blogging-is-dead-and-to-give-up.1589606/page-2#post-17571650

Google Search is a Wall Street money game, and only those who can afford it can play now.

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The Wolf of Blog Street - Tom Belfort aka https://www.blackhatworld.com/members/splishsplash.712528/#recent-contentcan afford it.

We all know what their game is, If they could get away with it, it would be just be a page of ads.

INCC said:

But PPC adverts have taken up almost all the search results - this didn't occur before.

Advertisers might be happy but the vast majority don't advertise with Google so a small fraction of highly established businesses can benefit from it, the rest however will be left under the rain.

If even a fraction of ecom sites suddenly started using PPC instead of SEO then I don't think anyone would be happy tbh.

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My point was not that advertisers and Google are happy that the increase in CPC didn't really lead to increase in CPA, but that I'd attribute the increase in Google's revenue to the increase in CPC rather than to bad SERP.

Pardon my tendency to blab off topic ;-)

INCC said:

They will do that eventually.

Yesterday I saw a post on Twitter that claimed Google started laying off their essential employees in Tier 1 countries to hire them from developing countries instead.. so they are taking as much as they can from every corner they possibly could.

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They seem to be making as much as they can within a short time. Replacing CEO and other CXO positions with talented BHW members will save them a lot of money.

Google is just like any typical large American corporation.

They are not making decisions with their customers' best interests in mind.

Instead, they are making decisions driven solely by how the stock market will respond to their decisions.

This is why chasing after profits is their top priority.

And here's the thing: All of this drama regarding the March 2024 update and the November 2023 update before it is essentially noise.

Seriously!

This is just a distraction.

The real issue is what happens 10 years from now.

Let me tell you.

Given the rise of ChatGPT and AI search platforms, the days of multiple search listings are over.

That window of opportunity is shrinking day by day because consumers eventually will prefer and expect one answer.

So how do you get traffic as an online publisher when there is only one answer?

The obvious answer is, of course, you don't!

This is the big challenge.

This is where SEO is headed.

But this doesn't mean that SEO will be dead because what will happen will be data optimization, training optimization, and agent optimization.

That's where all of this is headed, so Google will continue to profit if they stay ahead of the eight ball.

Right now, there's probably a tremendous amount of handwringing at Google's corporate offices because they feel that they're gonna lose their business model.

Make no mistake.

Seeing a results page full of links offers a tremendous amount of ad opportunities for Google.

But just as horses and buggies were replaced by cars, money will still be made.

I'm sure, given how big Google is, they will find a way to make money with that one-answer model.

As for the rest of us, online publishers, it's another matter entirely.

The rule for us is the same as it was a hundred years ago: adapt or die.