BikeGremlin gone from Google?

[BikeGremlin]

It seems like BikeGremlin articles are getting harder and harder to find when doing a Google search for the questions they answer.

I’ve just published an article discussing that (my observations and thoughts):
Google demands the impossible

I’m curious to hear your thoughts - and how did you find out about this forum?
(the voting is anonymous)

Google search engine stats for the period from June 2023, to October 2024:

 

[BikeGremlin]

A nice video by Arun Maini discussing the current state of Google search results:

The video is good and I generally agree, with a few remarks (technicalities):

• 03:15 - Author says that "Google clearly understands what I'm looking for". No, those sponsored links are paid by those companies to be displayed when people search for a certain term (or a list of terms) - and they pay per view or per click (one needn't exclude the other). So that doesn't prove that Google understands anything.
• 05:56 - One should take Trustpilot reviews with a bucket of salt.
• 10:57 - "As far as Google's rules are concerned, if an article has been edited in 2024, it's now a 2024 article." This is not true as far as I know. My 2015 rim tape article had a major addition/update before about 10 months, but when you set Google search to show only one year or newer results, it is not listed. When you don't limit the search by date, it is shown as a 2015 article.

• 16:01 - I use and recommend Windscribe VPN. Unlike the author-recommended Surfshark, Windscribe offers no affiliate program and doesn't pay YouTubers to promote it. But it's cheaper than Surfshark, and it is quite good. Also: any VPN will most likely make your connection at least a little bit slower (compared to not using a VPN), it won't give you "even better speed" as the author claims for Surfshark (though I haven't tested it with Surfshark, I don't see how it could technically be possible).

Apart from the above-listed remarks, the video very nicely explains the problem as I too see it. Google is pretty useless now. Ironically, with all the AI criticism, I can usually get faster and better response using Chat GPT than I do using any current search engine.