Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

goodcheapandfast.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 409 posts

Re: My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

#121

Post by blunte »

jere wrote: post #74

I have no clue about this topic and this comment isn't representative of my employer whatsoever, but... Since you've never experienced this with other domains, does the word cheap have to do with it? When I think domains, "cheap" instantly reminds me of those early quasi-legal online pharmacies and if I see it in an email almost certainly it's spam of one sort of another. I could see being problematic in spam filters…

It's a fairly common English expression that's used especially when giving a quote for development of some product or service to a client (or manager): "Good, cheap, and fast: pick two".

Cheap is just the everyday word for low cost. It can also mean low quality, but that connotation depends more on context.

Besides, there are many other successful companies with "cheap" in their domain names.

Re: My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

#122

Post by Kaze404 »

jjcon wrote: post #30
hsbauauvhabzb wrote: post #8

I’ve had similar experiences with other google products: My mom forgot her gmail password and no longer had the same mobile number for a reset, the secondary reset option was set to my email but would not send a reset despite this. We had a live session via thunderbird but there were no channels of support. Luckily we were able to register her old mobile number to achieve a password reset, thanks to a helpful phone p…

> My mom forgot her gmail password and no longer had the same mobile number for a reset, the secondary reset option was set to my email but would not send a reset despite this. I’m in a similar position except I know my password. Google decided for whatever reason that my location was too different and now requires that I verify via a phone number I no longer have. I have access to the recovery email and even get ‘su…

Same situation here. This service is a joke.

Re: My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

#123

Post by manfredo »

jbman223 wrote: post #94
manfredo wrote: post #24

This is one of several posts I've seen on HN lately following a similar trend: sudden and unexpected drops in search engine traffic. On the one hand it must be jarring to suddenly have a drop in traffic. But is it necessarily indicative of a bad administration of a search engine? Popularity of sites shift. People's tastes change. Even without an algorithm change we would not expect search traffic to remain constant.…

You’re saying that user preference shifted, but in reality, Google’s preference shifted. That, to me, is the problem highlighted by this story and others.

I'm saying both user preferences and search algorithms change. Even absent an algorithm change, it's not reasonable to expect search traffic to stay high over time. A drop in search traffic is always a potential, and one that exists regardless of any change in the search engine.

And it's also unclear whether algorithm changes - "Google's preference" as you put it - is a problem. Unchanging algorithms would likely trend towards a small set of incumbents collecting most search results. A shifting search algorithm landscape means users are more likely to see results that were previously buried. This story highlights one loser of this change, but not all the aspiring websites that would be eager to get even half of goodcheapandfast's traffic. These search results went somewhere. One site's lost traffic is another site's opportunity. Algorithm updates changing things up is not altogether an undesirable factor in a search engine.

Re: My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

#124

Post by Hnrobert42 »

donmcronald wrote: post #107
hsbauauvhabzb wrote: post #8

I’ve had similar experiences with other google products: My mom forgot her gmail password and no longer had the same mobile number for a reset, the secondary reset option was set to my email but would not send a reset despite this. We had a live session via thunderbird but there were no channels of support. Luckily we were able to register her old mobile number to achieve a password reset, thanks to a helpful phone p…

> My mom forgot her gmail password and no longer had the same mobile number for a reset, the secondary reset option was set to my email but would not send a reset despite this. I've seen this before too. A huge problem right now is the massive tech companies want an unreasonable view into your life. They want your identity, phone number, photo id, location history, credit history, etc. before they'll treat you like a…

Not to take away from your larger point, but you can get an email address without a phone number from ProtonMail. In the past, gmx.com also let you register privately, but I didn’t know anymore. Also, there are lots of sites that let you receive an SMS in their number.

Re: My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

#125

Post by jdeibele »

KMag wrote: post #45
jjcon wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My mom forgot her gmail password and no longer had the same mobile number for a reset, the secondary reset option was set to my email but would not send a reset despite this. I’m in a similar position except I know my password. Google decided for whatever reason that my location was too different and now requires that I verify via a phone number I no longer have. I have access to the recovery email and even get ‘su…

As someone who occasionally moves countries, this is horrifying. Did you enable 2FA and still need to authenticate via text? I used to enable 2FA, but got worried about phone loss/damage.

It's been a couple of years but I was able to set up 2FA for security keys (Yubikey and HyperSecu) and Authy (same as Google Authenticator but allows me to user more than one device to authorize). I then removed the phone number and backup email address.

Re: My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

#126

Post by lemonspat »

jjcon wrote: post #30
hsbauauvhabzb wrote: post #8

I’ve had similar experiences with other google products: My mom forgot her gmail password and no longer had the same mobile number for a reset, the secondary reset option was set to my email but would not send a reset despite this. We had a live session via thunderbird but there were no channels of support. Luckily we were able to register her old mobile number to achieve a password reset, thanks to a helpful phone p…

> My mom forgot her gmail password and no longer had the same mobile number for a reset, the secondary reset option was set to my email but would not send a reset despite this. I’m in a similar position except I know my password. Google decided for whatever reason that my location was too different and now requires that I verify via a phone number I no longer have. I have access to the recovery email and even get ‘su…

Same thing happened to me with other services too. Sadly this is too common

Re: My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

#127

Post by matt_heimer »

creato wrote: post #118
dj_mc_merlin wrote: post #98

I'm really torn over the author's website. On one hand, the design is much less ad-ridden and well-written than other SEO/affiliate link-driven websites.. but I don't see much value from it. * the reviews for products are too short and vague * until you actually read the top part and realize it was written by a human being, it looks exactly the same as all the other affiliate websites that get deranked (probably the…

What is the real honest use case for affiliate links? It basically seems like a way for Amazon and other affiliate program operators to deniably outsource black hat SEO. Not that this particular site is using black hat SEO (as far as I can tell), but many affiliate link farms are. This particular site seems like it is less offensive, but still something that would be annoying to get in search results.

Maybe if affiliate links only functioned for products that an affiliate was verified as owning? I think there is a need for in-depth product reviews but people need a way to be compensated for them without being paid off to provide good reviews.

Highly targeted recommendation services like pcpartpicker also provide value.

Re: My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

#128

Post by ryan29 »

viraptor wrote: post #79
hsbauauvhabzb wrote: post #8

I’ve had similar experiences with other google products: My mom forgot her gmail password and no longer had the same mobile number for a reset, the secondary reset option was set to my email but would not send a reset despite this. We had a live session via thunderbird but there were no channels of support. Luckily we were able to register her old mobile number to achieve a password reset, thanks to a helpful phone p…

> I have no idea why ipv6 would indicate that I’m not a spammer It's likely not about ipv6, but instead it's about your ipv4 having bad reputation in the past. Basically you changed your source address to a cleaner one.

This is very likely the case. Check the IP on a site that does IP reputation scoring [1]. They probably don't have a database of "bad" addresses for IPv6, so it squeaks by for now. I'm sure that'll change in the future though.

My current IP shows "0 - low risk" with that tool. Grabbing a random PIA IP shows "93% - Abusive IP" with a warning about being a high risk proxy connection. The random VPN IP is also on SPAM blocklists.

I'm guessing a huge portion of cheap shared hosting is the same.

1. https://www.ipqualityscore.com/ip-reputation-check

Re: My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

#129

Post by ryan29 »

kenniskrag wrote: post #56
hsbauauvhabzb wrote: post #8

I’ve had similar experiences with other google products: My mom forgot her gmail password and no longer had the same mobile number for a reset, the secondary reset option was set to my email but would not send a reset despite this. We had a live session via thunderbird but there were no channels of support. Luckily we were able to register her old mobile number to achieve a password reset, thanks to a helpful phone p…

can't you just disable ssl and sniff the password via wireshark?

No. It'll be a token.

Re: My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

#130

Post by mav3rick »

hsbauauvhabzb wrote: post #8

I’ve had similar experiences with other google products: My mom forgot her gmail password and no longer had the same mobile number for a reset, the secondary reset option was set to my email but would not send a reset despite this. We had a live session via thunderbird but there were no channels of support. Luckily we were able to register her old mobile number to achieve a password reset, thanks to a helpful phone p…

You can get support by paying for Google 0ne where a human helps you.
Post reply on HN