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Google Update Tanks Traffic

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Re: Google Update Tanks Traffic

#11

Post by eloff »

idoh wrote: post #8
eloff wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except nobody wants to click on something produced by an NLP algorithm. I don't doubt people will do that as they have every other shady SEO technique, but Google will continue to fight it as spam. At the end of the day I think quality content is still king and the only viable long-term SEO strategy.

The point is that SEO itself is not a long term strategy.

I disagree with that point. People are not going to stop searching for things online, and while Google does try to capture some of that traffic and keep people on Google, it doesn't work, even when they get it right, except for the simplest of queries. Anything more involved and I always click through to read more of the source material. I don't think that will change either.

Re: Google Update Tanks Traffic

#12

Post by paulcole »

eloff wrote: post #5
cblconfederate wrote: post #3

Web content makers have to realize their days of monetizing are numbered. Free web content is free food for NLP algorithms , which have already become impressive. In one of the next Google updates, they will eliminate web results compeltely and just give you the predicted answers. We're bound to see original content trying to hide themselves from google in order to remain relevant.

Except nobody wants to click on something produced by an NLP algorithm. I don't doubt people will do that as they have every other shady SEO technique, but Google will continue to fight it as spam. At the end of the day I think quality content is still king and the only viable long-term SEO strategy.

I agree to an extent but there's more varieties of search than ever before. There's product search, local search, organic search, image search, etc.

You can absolutely "win" at some of those without kingly content.

Re: Google Update Tanks Traffic

#13

Post by jermier »

cblconfederate wrote: post #3

Web content makers have to realize their days of monetizing are numbered. Free web content is free food for NLP algorithms , which have already become impressive. In one of the next Google updates, they will eliminate web results compeltely and just give you the predicted answers. We're bound to see original content trying to hide themselves from google in order to remain relevant.

It's as if the author writes content to /please/ Google. There are other players in town that will spread my message wide, other than Google. Google is a single point of failure too. If most of your traffic relies on a black-box algo developed by Google, at some stage you are going to be butthurt by that algo. Others will celebrate their success at gaming Google's algo and getting good rankings consistently, but these people are mostly blackhat SEOs probably trying to peddle cialis with a cheap discount.

Re: Google Update Tanks Traffic

#14

Post by Reedx »

eloff wrote: post #5
cblconfederate wrote: post #3

Web content makers have to realize their days of monetizing are numbered. Free web content is free food for NLP algorithms , which have already become impressive. In one of the next Google updates, they will eliminate web results compeltely and just give you the predicted answers. We're bound to see original content trying to hide themselves from google in order to remain relevant.

Except nobody wants to click on something produced by an NLP algorithm. I don't doubt people will do that as they have every other shady SEO technique, but Google will continue to fight it as spam. At the end of the day I think quality content is still king and the only viable long-term SEO strategy.

A possibility: Parent comment generated by GPT-3

Re: Google Update Tanks Traffic

#15

Post by kartayyar »

I don't get how companies can blame Google for loss of traffic. Google is going to do what it thinks will produce the best results.

And if you somehow think that gives you a right to show up in those results or be there if you benefited from showing up in results in the past, that's flawed thinking.

Re: Google Update Tanks Traffic

#16

Post by zelly »

If you depend on SEO for traffic you will go extinct one way or another. Even if you don't get black swaned by an update. SEO is a really an outdated strategy for getting traffic, something that used to be popular in the 2000s when just having a website at all put you on the map. I have seen declining search engine traffic on my sites for years but it has less to do with Google and more to do with the changing culture. Less and less people browse search results and when they do it's more often to glance at the rank-0 result or click an ad. In general SEO being a zero-sum winner-take-all game makes me reluctant to even play when there are alternatives.

The new SEO is optimizing social media. Your visitors and customers are out there, you can talk to them, they can talk to you. You either create a following or pay an influencer to rent their following. In a way this is like going back to the old days of promotion and marketing where you'd go door-to-door to sell. Nowadays the web is saturated and filled with so many scams that word-of-mouth and being associated with a trustworthy face has become important once again.

Re: Google Update Tanks Traffic

#17

Post by hn_check »

The bit soliciting people to link to the site is not only desperate SEO -- the author claims they're moving away from relying upon Google, when actually they're trying to double down, seriously asking for "high-quality, earnest links from highly ranked domains" -- it will yield very close to zero natural click through.

People are fairly impatient and when searching for something often hope for an answer as quickly as possible. This site seems heavily narrative based, with a number of paragraphs of content per point. I imagine that the median dwell time on the site is poor as a lot of people hit the back button to the SERP and just go to another page that cuts to the chase. Like the Physioplus page that this author mocks, which seems much clearer and succint.

We know that Google is constantly measuring and judging based upon that -- dwell time is king, and while SEO and desperate link solicitations might get you in contention, if the dwell time isn't there you will rightly get punted from the results. I doubt many care whether alternatives were written by a "high school dropout" if they get to the core of their need, which is usually developing the proper heuristics to know what they're dealing with.

Re: Google Update Tanks Traffic

#18

Post by asadkn »

kartayyar wrote: post #15

I don't get how companies can blame Google for loss of traffic. Google is going to do what it thinks will produce the best results. And if you somehow think that gives you a right to show up in those results or be there if you benefited from showing up in results in the past, that's flawed thinking.

It's perfectly normal to react and criticize failures of an almost monopolistic search engine, when the good content is outranked by inferior content.

Re: Google Update Tanks Traffic

#19

Post by manquer »

jermier wrote: post #13
cblconfederate wrote: post #3

Web content makers have to realize their days of monetizing are numbered. Free web content is free food for NLP algorithms , which have already become impressive. In one of the next Google updates, they will eliminate web results compeltely and just give you the predicted answers. We're bound to see original content trying to hide themselves from google in order to remain relevant.

It's as if the author writes content to /please/ Google. There are other players in town that will spread my message wide, other than Google. Google is a single point of failure too. If most of your traffic relies on a black-box algo developed by Google, at some stage you are going to be butthurt by that algo. Others will celebrate their success at gaming Google's algo and getting good rankings consistently, but thes…

> I don't write to please Google.

You can afford to do that if the website is not your primary source of income , not everyone has that luxury.

Online small and medium biz have to pay for their expenses , it is not for ad driven models either , organic traffic is significant source for people to purchase of your site. if your content is invisible to google for most sites that is a killing blow .

Re: Google Update Tanks Traffic

#20

Post by idoh »

eloff wrote: post #11
idoh wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that SEO itself is not a long term strategy.

I disagree with that point. People are not going to stop searching for things online, and while Google does try to capture some of that traffic and keep people on Google, it doesn't work, even when they get it right, except for the simplest of queries. Anything more involved and I always click through to read more of the source material. I don't think that will change either.

A - Agree that people will continue to search for things online.

B - Google does and will continue to capture that traffic, and it will continue to get better. Case in point, I read earlier this week an article about a site devoted to celebrity net worth and how their business was eaten up by the change.

C - Agree that more involved information is safe or safer.

But you know, it is obvious that Google will continue to eat up more and more queries. I don't know what percentage they are currently able to eat up and keep to themselves, but they are surely devoted to upping that rate. So as a long term play, do you really want to put yourself in competition with all the Google data scientists?

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