2024 Election Year and Google Shenanigans

[dash]

Do you guys recall in May 2020 when Google changed their algorithm and drove traffic away from forums. Here is a link from that time where forums were losing 50%+ of their traffic.

R

Thread '"Google May 2020 Core Update" affecting your xF Forum?'

May 6, 2020

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-may-2020-core-update-live-29403.html

My tech forum just lost about 25-30% search engine traffic just today.

• rdn
• Replies: 457
• Forum: Forum management

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After the election, Google redirected some (but not all) of the traffic volume back to forums.

Any thoughts on whether Google will massively manipulate internet traffic in 2024 due to the election?

 

[dash]

This was my 2020 organic search traffic which coincides perfectly with the US election and my forum has NOTHING to do with politics.

 

[cwe]

Snowden showed that Google is essentially an arm of the NSA, so yeah, I expect they will try to help government efforts to centralize the public's attention to a few platforms that are easier to pressure/control than a million disparate forums.

 

[FTL]

Google can be so helpful it warms the cockles of my heart.

Just not to the right people.

 

[Rusty Snippets]

They should live their logo……… Don’t Be Evil!!

 

[Mendalla]

They should live their logo……… Don’t Be Evil!!

They dropped that a while back IIRC.

Google Removes 'Don't Be Evil' Clause From Its Code of Conduct

Google’s unofficial motto has long been the simple phrase “don’t be evil.” But that’s over, according to the code of conduct that Google distributes to its employees. The phrase was removed sometime in late April or early May, archives hosted by the Wayback Machine show.

gizmodo.com