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My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

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Re: My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

#261

Post by skrebbel »

dsnr wrote: post #258
_jal wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one reason I will not give out a phone number for the vast majority of services. If that means I can't use something, so be it. Building proprietary, impossible-to-understand Rube Goldberg mechanisms based on associations between accidental aspects of my life (location:phone number pairs, for instance) is not a security system, it is a design for randomly fucking me over. If your system is designed to fuck me…

> I would prefer to use something else, thanks. What is the alternative to Gmail? Genuinely interested. I'd be willing to switch if I found a future-proof email solution for both personal and business usage.

Fastmail, Protonmail, Microsoft365

Re: My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

#262

Post by nunodonato »

dsnr wrote: post #258
_jal wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one reason I will not give out a phone number for the vast majority of services. If that means I can't use something, so be it. Building proprietary, impossible-to-understand Rube Goldberg mechanisms based on associations between accidental aspects of my life (location:phone number pairs, for instance) is not a security system, it is a design for randomly fucking me over. If your system is designed to fuck me…

> I would prefer to use something else, thanks. What is the alternative to Gmail? Genuinely interested. I'd be willing to switch if I found a future-proof email solution for both personal and business usage.

Seriously? Fastmail is awesome and so much better than gmail. And I'm sure there are plenty of good alternatives as well, this just happens to be the one I use.

Re: My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

#263

Post by laurentdc »

dsnr wrote: post #258
_jal wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one reason I will not give out a phone number for the vast majority of services. If that means I can't use something, so be it. Building proprietary, impossible-to-understand Rube Goldberg mechanisms based on associations between accidental aspects of my life (location:phone number pairs, for instance) is not a security system, it is a design for randomly fucking me over. If your system is designed to fuck me…

> I would prefer to use something else, thanks. What is the alternative to Gmail? Genuinely interested. I'd be willing to switch if I found a future-proof email solution for both personal and business usage.

I just use my own domain and then forward incoming email to whatever service. This way it doesn't really matter what I use: if I get locked out I simply change the forwarding email. It's free with most providers.

Re: My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

#264

Post by pjc50 »

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…

It would be a hilarious unintended outcome if the Google Union developed into the official unofficial Google Support Channel, because they care about public perception in a way that Google don't.

Re: My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

#265

Post by visarga »

mrslave wrote: post #200
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…

I'll echo the sentiments in this thread except for the swear words at Google. Losing access to a Gmail for similar reasons has been a net positive, though at the time it was mildly frustrating. I haven't gotten sucked into their aggressive cross-selling of all their products, and the consequences of always being logged in. Occasionally I can't view or comment on something. You can bookmark 5 YouTube channels without…

> YouTube resembles cable television more and more every day.

Depends on what you're searching, there is also the perspective that YT is a vast library of content that would never have appeared on TV, such as lectures, talks, conferences, courses, demos, gameplay, cooking, home improvement, product reviews, obscure music. It's the library of Alexandria of modern age. I would be devastated if I lost access to it. Wikipedia and Arxiv are complementary collections.

Re: My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

#266

Post by FreshFries »

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…

There there is me: lost access to my gmail account (and reset telephone number) and all it took was a couple of emails & phone calls over a couple of days and I had the best customer experience for a free service ever.

I was very happy with the proceedings. This happened twice over the last 10 or so years.

Kind, professional, knowledgeable & acting according a strickt rulebook that tries to prevent social engineering as good as possible.

I love google :)

Re: My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

#267

Post by johnofthesea »

weisbaum wrote: post #141

Taking a look at your site, it seems quite clear where all your traffic went. You have a pretty great backlink profile compared to other affiliate sites ive seen but the content is incredibly thin. Based on this, me or anyone else who visits the site just sees an advertising site. There are no personal experiences with the products, the products are not related and the UX does not make the user want to continue explo…

>increase the word count, add more photos

It seems that thanks to this policy of Google most cooking/recipe sites are full of fluff. Not always 'more content' means the content.

Re: My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

#268

Post by jsmith99 »

yokem55 wrote: post #150
ryan29 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

FWIW - I suspect the "IP reputation" site you referenced is utter bullshit when it comes to its "Proxy Detection". Looking at my own residential public address it calls it a 'low risk proxy' when I can assure that it most definitely is not. It doesn't help that their explanation for how they attempt to detect this is a pile of marketing word salad. I don't expect them to be completely transparent to their methodology…

It says that for me too, so I tried 8.8.8.8 and it was rated as "100% abuse". I don't think this tool is very accurate.

Re: My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

#269

Post by Abishek_Muthian »

londons_explore wrote: post #246
Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>add more photos How much does image actually weigh in the site's score? What about the text only websites e.g. PG's essays, not including forums like HN. I would presume PG's blog has great backlink score but would a similar site with same number of backlinks but with several images rank more?(hoping for clarification from an anonymous Googler). I'm asking this because my text only blog content titled 'Startup ideas…

All modern search engines use neural networks for final ranking. Even the Google employees who work in it wouldn't be able to tell you exactly how much images help or hinder your rankings.

Yes, I just wanted to know whether article with more images for SEO is a common knowledge now as the parent comment suggests.

Re: My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

#270

Post by visarga »

Syzygies wrote: post #220
alvah wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Google has had it in for affiliate sites for as long as I can remember, and they specifically dislike thin content. While the site has ~250 words of value editorial at the top of the pages I've looked at, the descriptions of the products themselves are extremely thin (~30-50 words), and would likely fall foul of this Google policy: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/guideline... "Pages of produc…

Agreed. I used to loathe the experience of trying to Google an Amazon alternative, and the first fifty links would be Amazon affiliates. I'd pay Google a subscription to simply block all affiliate links. I'd call these changes in Google's algorithms progress.

This could be handled locally, like uBlock. I'd like to have such a browser extension to re-filter and re-rank the search results, where I could simply ban/boost a keyword or a topic. The same extension could be applied to FB and Twitter as well - they too generate feeds that could be re-filtered and re-ranked.
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