The coordinated push to eliminate weather websites

[Dan Robinson]

I've posted before about big tech companies' effective removal of most web traffic to independent websites. We now have more confirmation of this. Twitter's source code was released in Github, where it was revealed that outside links were suppressed to everything but news media sites:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1828866680778265006

I've been in the professional web design field since 1997 and have been maintaining my own sites since 1995. Some points I've reported on previously:

• My own web sites' traffic has plummeted to almost nothing over the past 5 years, getting less than 5% of its unique visitors and pageviews from 10 years ago. This is despite the fact that the number of competing web sites in my niche (storm chasing and weather photography) have continued to decline as chasers stop updating their sites or let their domains or hosting accounts lapse.
  
  
• Within the past 5 years, media and government sites now outrank me, and sometimes push me completely out of, organic web search results on weather events where I've had one or more of the following:
  
  * I was the only chaser with imagery/video of the event.
  * I captured the best and most popular imagery/video of the event.
  * I had the only web page with information on a particular subject matter or niche.
  
  One of the biggest examples of this was when I captured the Gateway Arch being struck by lightning in June of 2023. News media articles written about about my photo, including some by small-market radio station sites, comprised the first page of results when searching for various keyphrases such as gateway arch lightning strike, st. louis arch lightning and so on. Meanwhile, the URL for my original photo on my site was at position 20 or 30 in the results, for others I was not in the results at all.
  
  Another is my lightning science topic article pages that have been a part of my site for 30 years. These always ranked at the top or near the top of organic searches until about 5 years ago. Those same keyphrases now return only media and NOAA/NWS web sites, with my pages completely gone from the results. The same has occurred for many storm events where I had the only established web page with actual imagery of the event. For example my page on the Greensburg tornado:
  
  * was posted the day after the event
  * has been online for over 17 years
  * is one of the only independent sites with actual firsthand imagery of the tornado
  * had always ranked very high in search results for keyphrases related to the event.
  
  My Greensburg page is now nowhere to be seen in organic searches. StormTrack threads for storm days or other subject matter also used to rank highly in severe storms and weather keyphrases. Those have also vanished from results.
  
  All it takes for the government or the media to remove an independent site's page from search results is for them to write an article on the same subject matter.

You can do many of these searches yourself to see that it's not just me and my sites that are affected. Do a web search on any tornado, hurricane or any weather or natural science subject matter. You'll see nothing but media and government web sites. It's also not just Google. DuckDuckGo displays the same type of behavior.

The revelation of the Twitter source code is further confirmation that there is a systematic effort under way to direct all web traffic to government or media sites. This is not an organic phenomenon driven by online user behavior, it is the result of deliberate and coordinated efforts by big tech. Even if a social media platform's user base widely shares a non-media or non-government site, those posts will be suppressed regardless.

Are we OK with media and the government being the only sources that the world is allowed to read on weather and science topics? The presumed justification for this has been the rise of misinformation. We all agree this is an issue when we see the sites sharing 330-hour GFS hurricane or snowstorm forecasts, making outlandish predictions or statements or pushing long-debunked conspiracy theories. But is the solution to that to silence everyone but the government and the media?

I'll close with this: when I posted the link to this thread on Twitter/X, it received zero impressions/views in 20 minutes. When I posted *about* the thread with no link, it instantly started getting impressions.

 

[Bill Eckrich]

No wonder I have never joined any social media. I guess Stormtrack kind of is, but I read more than post anyway. I guess I am not missing much.

 

[JamesCaruso]

It’s very disconcerting what’s happening. But maybe it’s the natural evolution of things. The core business of these social media companies is no longer technology. They are really just new-media companies. Before social media, the big news organizations had a monopoly on the news too. Just like the Amazons and Walmarts of the world have a monopoly on retail.

I don’t have my own website and I don’t do much on social media. So I’m not speaking from any specific knowledge, other than the general trends and ideas I get from reading and from podcasts. One such thought leader, podcaster and author is Cal Newport, who does not use social media at all. He advises creators that high-quality work will rise to the top the same way it did before there was social media - through word of mouth and reputation. We can all come to forums like this. Sure, discoverability is being lost, but that’s a low-probability gamble anyway. Then there’s the “1,000 true fans” concept and intentionally building an audience with platforms like Substack.

Just some thoughts FWIW; like I said, I’m no expert… I think it’s about finding ways to adapt; flow like water around the obstacles, and find a new path to achieve whatever goals you are trying to achieve.

 

[John Farley]

I have my own weather-themed Website, and while it has never gotten the traffic that Dan's used to, I have noticed the same things about search results. Seems to me like there is an opportunity here for some new search engine without bias towards news websites.

 

[William Monfredo]

This concerns me greatly on a number of levels, and I feel for your situation. I've read this good 2017 book; it explains a lot (not sponsored.)

​

 

[Jeff Duda]

Seeing as there are entire companies whose main purpose is simply to allow people to access the internet, I'd say we were all screwed from the word "Go" on this one.

Maybe if internet access were deemed a public utility things might improve. I'm not sure the big corporations will ever allow that to happen, though.

 

[Ben Holcomb]

I've thought this one over for a couple days. It's most definitely a bigger societal issue than just websites and search engines. The internet seems to have been slowly "taken over" somewhere in the 2008-2010 time period by a number of factors - End result is that the same few multinational corporations pretty much run and own everything. This is especially true for any news or news-adjacent site that gets any sort of traffic.

The internet is a great way to share information. A lot of this information perhaps calls into question a lot of things we have been told, such as the Kennedy Assassination. Even 20 years ago, it was very difficult to quickly share contradictory opinions very far. The internet exploded and suddenly people could talk to anyone in the world with very little difficulty. As we've progressed, it's become even easier to communicate (ie: Better translation apps, more bandwidth, smartphones in almost everyones hand) than ever before and the "establishment" known as our government is at risk of being exposed for the frauds they are.

If people actually realized we were sending trillions to other countries to fight wars we shouldn't be involved in, they might demand action. I read today that it would cost a total 3.2 billion to make I-35 6 or more lanes from DFW to OKC. Why can't we do that? It is an obvious need. But we can just send 100 billion to a foreign country at the snap of a finger. The solution for those in power is to just control the information and shape the narrative.

Dan - I truly do not know how to combat this. I used to make a few hundred to a grand a year on my website with ads for a couple IT tutorials I had. They were well written tutorials with screen shots (rare back in the 2004 era) and were top hits on Google. Like you, I have been working my butt off to try and top some of these search engine queries. Unfortunately, it seems almost impossible to register with high results. The competition isn't even very good in some queries, but you have to go 2-3 pages deep to find chaser sites.

John - The idea of a competing service would be great, but the internet is still controlled. Look at what is happening to X in Brazil currently. Access to X/Twitter has been cut by order of the government. The founder of Telegram, Pavel Durov, is currently in jail in France for allowing secure communications. If someone were able to successfully challenge Google with a competing service, I'd imagine they'd find themselves either taken over (Like duckduckgo) with a lot of money or by some nice fellas with sunglasses and suits. Then when you factor in the stuff Matt Taibbi uncovered in the Twitter Files, you have to wonder who those fellas with sunglasses and suits work for.

I continue to make content on my website and it receives fair traffic. I've noticed an increase this year and a decent bump after the movie that's been somewhat sustained for over a month now. I just hope the content is useful and educational for those alive now or in the future.

 

[Jamie H]

I wonder if this topic could be moved to the Bear's Cage as it's going to veery off topic a bit, or whether an alternative thread could be set up? Seems like there's a legit discussion for those who run websites and want to figure out why traffic is down, versus bigger picture chat about who controls the internet and what we see.

 

[John Farley]

If you can access the Washington Post, this is an interesting article. I wonder if this or something like it might eventually make it easier to find non-news media websites, or information from them.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/09/04/openai-searchgpt-chatgpt-google/?utm_campaign=wp_todays_headlines&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_headlines&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F3eedd8f%2F66d9814824743f380cf61887%2F647bb2dfb5f7f52324107913%2F21%2F63%2F66d9814824743f380cf61887

 

[Laney Cole]

Found all the information here enlightening. I had no idea about the following/ follower ratio and the impact it has on content placement. Thanks for sharing, Dan and everyone who has posted.
I thought I should add a bit of hope: I looked up positive vs negative lightning yesterday as a refresher and came upon a independent source

https://kuefler-lightning.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/positive-vs-negative.jpg

Would not be surprised though if they are a contractor company

 

[Jeff Duda]

I wonder if this topic could be moved to the Bear's Cage as it's going to veery off topic a bit, or whether an alternative thread could be set up? Seems like there's a legit discussion for those who run websites and want to figure out why traffic is down, versus bigger picture chat about who controls the internet and what we see.

Thanks for the heads up, Jamie.

As long as posts remain on-topic, I will keep this thread here. If posts start veering off-topic, then we'll make changes.

 

[Blake Naftel]

All. Please just drop this internet BS and go back to pulse generated phones or rotaries. Goodnight!

PS: That's a little WX CHASE listerv humor for y'all, (Ryan not included).

Cheers!

Blake William Naftel

 

[Jason N]

Dan,

the way you describe this, it makes me wonder if this is connected to 3rd party fact checker companies or corporate sponsored algorithms consolidating and filtering content/information that leans heavier search weight to .gov or .edu and or global institutions, because it feels to me that the outside global influence, market driven with ideologies in the mix have concocted a brew that has the whole "we're doing you a favor by ridding you of misinformation/disinformation". when in fact it's really ridding you of speech, no matter your background. If it's not .gov approved, sorry. Maybe that's a bit Machiavellian/1984 of me, but to see this the way it's happening has got to make you wonder.

 

[John Farley]

Dan,

the way you describe this, it makes me wonder if this is connected to 3rd party fact checker companies or corporate sponsored algorithms consolidating and filtering content/information that leans heavier search weight to .gov or .edu and or global institutions, because it feels to me that the outside global influence, market driven with ideologies in the mix have concocted a brew that has the whole "we're doing you a favor by ridding you of misinformation/disinformation". when in fact it's really ridding you of speech, no matter your background. If it's not .gov approved, sorry. Maybe that's a bit Machiavellian/1984 of me, but to see this the way it's happening has got to make you wonder.

Maybe, but I am thinking more likely just plain ol' corporate greed, as the handful of major news outlets seek to maintain their near monopoly and direct all searches to their websites.

 

[Jason N]

I think the greed part factors in for sure, but I think the stuff I mentioned is part of a digital playground in shaping information, politics, economies, and legislation, it all plays a part in the giant sausage making that is power, state craft, and national self-interest. Who remembers the movie "sneakers", if you haven't seen it.. I think there are some aspects of it that are entirely valid despite the hollywood effect.