Google Search Case Study - Rand Fishkin's Been at it Again!!!

Search Engines And SEO Google
1

Hey Everyone,

Just thought I'd share the following with you.

I actually listened to the Niche Pursuits podcast yesterday morning which spoke about Rand's latest blog post (Rand was the person who first WROTE about the Google API leaks).

There's a lot to take in, and I know you ALL love numbers, so here's a quick (approximate) breakdown for you, and I'll put it into terms that hopefully make more sense to you.

If a keyword has 1,000 search volume, so 1,000 people type that keyword into the Google search bar every month.

Only 371 of those people will click on a result.

Of those 1,000 people, 415 people will DO NOTHING, they have had their query answered (AI overview, featured snippet, etc.)

And, 214 people will perform another search (the search they initially made probably didn't answer their query and they can tell this from the title's of the articles).

Anyway, out of those 371 people who will click on a result approximately 25% will click on a GOOGLE-RELATED result (a sponsored/PPC ad, which has now been made to look like a "normal" organic result <---- sneaky Google, all about the "profit", a shopping ad, YouTube <--- owned by Google), so that's approximately 93 people.

This means that only 278 people (out of 1,000 searchers) will click on an organic result.

HOWEVER

Things will have changed now, but approximate values for people clicking on the top 3 results used to be:

Position 1 = 31% click on that result

Position 2 = 25% click on that result

Position 3 = 15% click on that result

BUT

We can now see (since the introduction of shopping ads, making PPC results look "organic", YouTube carousels, image corousels, AI overviews) that even these percentages are not accurate any more.

But, let's use them as an example, if only 278 of people are clicking on an ORGANIC search result, using the above percentages, let's see what we get.

If a keyword gets 1,000 visitors per month, in 2024, you will receive APPROXIMATELY

86 people will click on the article ranking NUMBER ONE

70 people will click on the article ranking NUMBER TWO

42 people will click on the article ranking number THREE

That's 198 people, so the remaining 80 people will typically click on a result ranking from number 4 to number 10 (you are highly unlikely to get more than 3-4 people going over to page two).

What does this mean?

Something I've ALWAYS said, if you're not ranking in the top 3 spots you're not going to get much traffic at all (no comment on the "little wins" for ranking on page 3, plus you're not even getting that much traffic now for ranking 1-3)

Ranking in Google in 2024 will bring you LESS traffic than previous years (btw, consider this, if your website has been hit by HCU and you make a FULL recovery, you still won't have as much traffic as you used to, because everything has been pushed down the page now, PPC ads have been made to look like organic results, etc.)

I'm not sure everyone is getting my point about "recoveries", which is... WHY DO YOU WANT TO RECOVER?

If your website does "recover" you'll still get less traffic from Google than you were last year, plus, Google has treated you badly, imagine if that was a human being who did that to you, would you go running back to that person trying to "fix all YOUR problems" just to satisfy a person who has TREATED YOU BADLY?

If your website does "recover", you're still relying on Google for the MAJORITY of your traffic, what are going to do if you get "hit" in two years again... cry for 2 months, then start "fixing" everything on your website to SATISFY GOOGLE AGAIN, and then you "recover" again, and then you get "hit" again another two years after that.

Okay, I agree, Google typically brings you the "most" and the "best" traffic, but the days of being solely reliant on Google for traffic ARE GONE (yes, I know some people are waiting for an "amazing change of Google heart" in August/Septmeber 2024, whereby, all the high authority websites will disappear from the SERPs, and little old Gertrude and her 3-month old Bootcamp website will suddenly rank for 10,000 keywords and get her 1,000.000 visitors per month...)

Here's a simple way to look at it, and this is just personal opinion, I have no proof, but if your website lacks "authority", and you have OVER 70% of your traffic coming from Google, you're going to get hit AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN.

View Google from now on in the same way as Bing... it's always nice to get a bit of traffic from Bing, but you're NOT SOLELY RELIANT on Bing Traffic, you MAINLY get traffic from other sources.

As I mentioned in a recent blog post, the MORE traffic you get from OTHER SOURCES the better your website will do in GOOGLE.

Basically, the LESS you concetrate on Google, the better you're likely to do in Google... strange but true.

Anyway, here's Rand's article, so you know what the hell I'm going on about 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

https://sparktoro.com/blog/2024-zero-click-search-study-for-every-1000-us-google-searches-only-374-clicks-go-to-the-open-web-in-the-eu-its-360/

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I've read somewhere that Google's shares are going down as well, and Bing is going up, because of the AI overview in the US.
In my niche, the image ads/carousels/columns have gotten worse than ever in Google,for sure. I couldn't even compete with that by creating my own google ads. People who were dropshipping/e-commerce miniature kits before, have now completely disappeared, in all languages lol

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***RANT INCOMING

In my opinion, Google is over the hill now and will eventually die out.

And this is more than just sour grapes (I would like to believe). We are doing things like parasite now at the cost of quality so we can find ways around the changes.

If you look hard enough and think out of the box, you can even find niches with no competition and thus no ads (Google will still put up irrelevant ads because Google). Here is a website I started in January that is coming along nicely. Zero DA and zero backlinks and ranking #1 for 90% of the keywords targeted.

[attach]1079[/attach]

But from my perspective as a user, the experience on Google is horrid now.

In many cases, they are actively trying to keep you away from information.

4 ads
1 Organic Result
People Also Ask
1 Organic Result
People Also Search For


I can't stress how often I search for something and give up before finding the answer. A person has only so much bandwidth for scrolling when using a search engine.

The fact that they have eliminated long-tail keywords is a also huge blow to user experience. A basic example - many people looking for coffee machines want a specific capacity in terms of how many cups the machine makes. We're talking about thousands of keywords.

[attach]1080[/attach]


Search any number of cups and with the exception of Amazon, you will only get the same catch-all results from high DA sites that do not answer the long tail keyword, no matter how you change the keyword. The articles with the answers are there but they have been wiped off the face of the map by the Helpful Content updates.

It's quite clear that the quality of the search experience is no longer a priority to Google. In many instances, they would rather make you go around in circles to force an ad click to you than give you what you want.

With any business, once you pursue profit at the expense of the quality of your product, so begins the downfall.

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I am not surprised. Even after all these years, I need more than I want to admit to check if it is an article or an ad!
And if you only need quick, short info to refresh your memories, more often, it is enough to do just that.

I am still thinking about one thing: Google is slow, as we know, to stop things. It is so much bullshit from the sites I am going to mention that I, as a local, get angry most of the time).
I have seen many websites that use essays to provide information.

Meaning. This is a travel website where the author seems to write only about Iceland but doesn´t live here.
And no, comes the point. I have seen many times from Flipboard, and I think Medium, what this and that website wrote that he, owner of the key website, is saying this and that in this post on his site.

So it is like one big fishing ship is in the Barents Sea, and each day, 15 small boats fish, and then they come back each day with the fish.

In all cases, his main site, too, doesn´t allow comments. And I understand that very well, looking at the "quality" in many of them.

But this guy was nobody to me in the sense I hadn´t heard about him before. But I am starting to see people, real ones, saying he said this and that on forums.
I know it is serious, people, because I have analyzed all key forums for this topic in 3 years, so I have seen both the people and the question (incredible how many ask without looking at the answers on the same board, which have been asked a million times).

But this looks to work but if I understand thing right, this should damage the sites. But as they can start as many as they want, and the key site can say they have nothing to do with it, it looks like this could be going on for a long time!

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[quote data-userid="57" data-postid="2001234"]

the quality of the search experience is no longer a priority to Google

[/quote]

Totally agree Lebogang and congrats on those stats! Thanks for the rant 😊

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@lebogang22 I couldnt agree more as I was one of these people looking 👀 for a specific coffee machine and K cups. 🙄 with the google update taking away the scroll bar i now have to jump from page to page to find what i want. Even then google does not give it to me. So, I change search engines and try my search on Bing, inspite of their ads i find what I was looking for. The little K coffee cups. This is getting absolutely stupid of google! I will be mixing in other search engins outside of anything google based.

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I never ever realized how little traffic I will get from a keyword that gets 1000 searches a month, won't probably even get me 100. (like if I will be ranking number 1, lol!)

Anyway, I wanted to start doing Facebook ads (boosting my posts). Just wondering if anyone thinks this is a good idea or not, or if I should go for another platform (couldn't think of a better platform to do ads on).

Anyways, would love to hear your thoughts, maybe even any suggestions if you think this is a good idea.

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[quote data-userid=“35” data-postid=“2001263”]

I never ever realized how little traffic I will get from a keyword that gets 1000 searches a month, won't probably even get me 100. (like if I will be ranking number 1, lol!)

Anyway, I wanted to start doing Facebook ads (boosting my posts). Just wondering if anyone thinks this is a good idea or not, or if I should go for another platform (couldn't think of a better platform to do ads on).

Anyways, would love to hear your thoughts, maybe even any suggestions if you think this is a good idea.

[/quote]

Hi Jonathan,

I've been doing some FB adds since a month and a half or something and it is making me grow my page to a 1000 subs,will before that was harder to do.

But I don't see the point in 'boosting posts' with ads,as Jay explains in his classes, rather create an add with getting people to follow and like your FB page. And then make sure you post daily as much as possible. Because those people who follow your page,are the ones really interested in your niche. Boosting a post is just temporary traffic. That's my opinion,

Lizzy

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@ohnoo_not_her Hi Lizzy,

Thank you for your opinion, I will still learn a bit more before I start doing it. Thanks!

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[quote data-userid="35" data-postid="2001263"]

Anyway, I wanted to start doing Facebook ads (boosting my posts). Just wondering if anyone thinks this is a good idea or not, or if I should go for another platform (couldn't think of a better platform to do ads on).

[/quote]

From what I've learned (and from the thousands of dollars I've spent on FB ads), the 'boost your post' thingy isn't worth it - Like Lizzy said, create an actual ad (where you have a much better way to target a specific audience) and then 'boost' your posts that way - if you actually want to do that.

HOWEVER,

From the people that I follow about getting traffic/leads/clients from FB, you really want to push people to a fb group, and not a page. You have a lot more customization with a group than with a page. Both are free to create, and both you can easily create an ad to have people either follow your page or join your group.

I just checked, and you're a Premium+ on WA - doing boost any more of your posts. Log into WA, search for "BenjisDad" and look over his training. He created video training on "How to Build An Engaging Facebook Group". While he is no longer on WA and it is on the older side, that training is going to be valuable to you. He knows what he's talking about, and well, you can just watch it to see what he says 👍

Just my two cents.

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Andy,

I will be checking this out as well. My thought was to create a "debatable" idea, (UGC)

Battle Of The AI Writers: Which Bot Offers The Most Engaging And Human-Like Style?

The Medium post is ranking, put it on FB, and boost the debate to draw attention to the post.

You got me to stop, just before boosting this post.

[attach]1086[/attach]

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[quote data-userid=“1” data-postid=“2001267”]

[quote data-userid="35" data-postid="2001263"]

Anyway, I wanted to start doing Facebook ads (boosting my posts). Just wondering if anyone thinks this is a good idea or not, or if I should go for another platform (couldn't think of a better platform to do ads on).

[/quote]

From what I've learned (and from the thousands of dollars I've spent on FB ads), the 'boost your post' thingy isn't worth it - Like Lizzy said, create an actual ad (where you have a much better way to target a specific audience) and then 'boost' your posts that way - if you actually want to do that.

HOWEVER,

From the people that I follow about getting traffic/leads/clients from FB, you really want to push people to a fb group, and not a page. You have a lot more customization with a group than with a page. Both are free to create, and both you can easily create an ad to have people either follow your page or join your group.

I just checked, and you're a Premium+ on WA - doing boost any more of your posts. Log into WA, search for "BenjisDad" and look over his training. He created video training on "How to Build An Engaging Facebook Group". While he is no longer on WA and it is on the older side, that training is going to be valuable to you. He knows what he's talking about, and well, you can just watch it to see what he says 👍

Just my two cents.

[/quote]

I found that for traffic to my site or to my Youtube channel, it is better to get FB page followers (really interested in the niche), than people clicking on my links in my groups. I think because the links in groups get lost in the algorithms between other people's messages, especially when it's getting larger, my posts kind of drown between the rest. (even when I highlight them)

( "Niche site lady" gets a lot of traffic to her site by ads to her page, and monetized it with ads again, so type of ads arbitrage )

To be honest also, I didn't learn much new from Benjisdad, I saw that class.

But as you said and helped me out (thanks again for that), groups do get a lot more subscriptions to my newsletter, while setting the 'welcome ' message and adding the 'join the newsletter' thing above the font.

I've subscribed to Benjisdad newsletter for a while also, and he doesn't talk about FB at all anymore, even started a new Youtube channel, because his older one seems to not do well anymore. So, I don't know, but sure, if he knows nothing about FB, that could be a great start, as always on WA, great starts, but no deep diving hahaha. (I loved Benjisdad though, one of the few on WA, but they stopped him there from giving lessons , don't know what happened )

Lizzy

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Jonathan, I think you should test both and see what works best.

I'll also throw my two cents in as well if it helps. I only started a Facebook group in January, though, to accompany the website I mentioned above, so I am no expert but I will share what I have experienced.

The group is growing much faster than the page (almost 10 times the number members to the page's followers).

While the group is public to the eyes of everyone else, this is a private marketing tool that I am using for my own purposes. With a group, you can create a marketing tool and allow everyone else to build it for you. Even in search, because a group is UGC, they create a diversity in topic coverage that will not be possible with a page because the page is only what you put on it. In a group, people will ask some obscure questions that you wouldn't practice as an SEO practitioner, but that some people out there want the answer to.

If I may digress, this isn't just limited to Facebook, but any private community. That's why Discord is very big in tech circles and Meta is trying to get into it with WhatsApp communities.

So as it it clear by what I explained above, personally, I side with the FB Group strategy.

If you grow the group enough and can serve all of the members alone, there is no need to allow competitors into the group. You can have yourself a private community

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@ohnoo_not_her I had never heard about him before Andy mentioned him, which is not strange because I want to look for a few, and then, man, I missed someone.
But it looks like he have stop or even go from WA and the lecture about how to FB group seems to have been deleted which is very rare.

Same for YouTube, as you say, it looks like he stopped there eight months ago.

I look at your lady and will analyze it here. But to see how she does things, I subript her and almost gave up. Because the emails are 100% only ads and some of them, she sends, I have the feeling they are not good.

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[quote data-userid="33" data-postid="2001280"]

But it looks like he have stop or even go from WA and the lecture about how to FB group seems to have been deleted which is very rare.

[/quote]

I might have misunderstood you, but his training is still up - you can find it here, and you can find all of his training in this link.

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@andy Thank you! I did not find the title of the training as I used How to…
I will look at it.

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[quote data-userid=“33” data-postid=“2001280”]

@ohnoo_not_her I had never heard about him before Andy mentioned him, which is not strange because I want to look for a few, and then, man, I missed someone.
But it looks like he have stop or even go from WA and the lecture about how to FB group seems to have been deleted which is very rare.

Same for YouTube, as you say, it looks like he stopped there eight months ago.

I look at your lady and will analyze it here. But to see how she does things, I subript her and almost gave up. Because the emails are 100% only ads and some of them, she sends, I have the feeling they are not good.

[/quote]

yeah, admitted, her newsletters used to be better, more informational about facebook