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My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

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Re: My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

#171

Post by josephjrobison »

My take on the site by the author - he's great at the tech side of websites, and SEO, but needs to go more in-depth on his articles. The Wirecutter, Healthline, NY Mag Strategist are the baseline now - high quality, in-depth articles.

If small sites want to compete they have to specialize and go deep - it's hard to beat incumbents at the thing they've been doing for decades - and with paid staff/journalists writing the articles!

It's not so much the tech side of SEO, it's about the content.

Re: My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

#172

Post by behringer »

tharkun__ wrote: post #132
Triv888 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had that problem too, multiple times, where I knew the password but Google wouldn't let me use it (I almost lost my account). Google doesn't like users that clear cookies, block trackers, etc... I wish that there was a way to disable those "protections".

There is a really really simple one (at least for your private life but if your company uses G-Suite, you always have the admin to take care of things you forget): Do not use Google! It's as simple as that. I have never had a Gmail account until an Android device sort of forced it on me, because I definitely didn't want to link things up to my real email address, so I just signed up for the whole thing. Do I ever use…

Google's screwed over more than a few g suite admins. Caution is advised in all things Google.

Re: My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

#173

Post by ev1 »

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #124
donmcronald wrote: post #107

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'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.

On many (most) VPN connections, Protonmail prompts for another email or a SMS (due to abuse, presumably) or a non-disposable email (depending on severity)

Re: My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

#174

Post by alvah »

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…

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 product affiliation where the majority of the site is made for affiliation and contains a limited amount of original content or added value for users."

Also, the site may not comply with this policy: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/guideline...

"Sites that copy content from other sites, modify it slightly (for example, by substituting synonyms or using automated techniques), and republish it"

While I have seen much poorer quality affiliate sites than this ranking in Google, IMO this model is on borrowed time. I think the way to survive in this market is by increasing the value:affiliate ratio, and diversifying income sources, so affiliate revenue isn't the sole focus.

Re: My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

#175

Post by codazoda »

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…

Get your own domain for ~$13 a year and then forward your email to Gmail or another online provider you like. If Google kills your account you can forward it elsewhere.

I recently started using the startup https://hanami.run to forward my mail. It's a brand new startup that I read about here on HN and the creator is super helpful.

Edit: I realize that parents Mom and my Mom are not going to do this, but us Hacker News types should.

Re: My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

#176

Post by ryan29 »

djitz wrote: post #161
ryan29 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not really sure what to think of that site. I think it's above average for an affiliate marketing site, but I also wonder how reliable the recommendations are if they're derived from automated analysis of other systems like reviews, pricing, etc. when we know those are garbage systems that are constantly gamed. Even filtered, it's still garbage in garbage out, right? I think that (affiliate based monetization) is…

Wouldn’t this mean it’s a good market to be in right now?

I think reviews, especially something honest like the site in this article is aspiring towards, might be an ok market because the quality of those sites has declined so much in the last decade that I think there's room for a much better product.

However, it's the affiliate based monetization that I was calling tough. At least for me, an affiliate link is an untrustworthy link because that link is working for the manufacturers and retailers, not me.

I can't think of a decent way to monetize a review site without relying on a revenue stream that's susceptible to corruption (product access, affiliate links, advertising, etc.). Just look at the whole Hardware Unboxed / Nvidia thing that happened recently. The whole review industry must be completely FUBAR for Nvidia to think they could get away with that.

Re: My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

#177

Post by cwyers »

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…

Flip it around for a second. You sign up for online banking. You use your GMail account as your e-mail address. You get banking statements in your e-mail, you can reset your password to the bank with that e-mail address, etc.

Now, a scammer is trying to access your e-mail account. What level of proof do you want them to have to offer Google to get ahold of that e-mail?

These tech companies are not asking for an "unreasonable view" into your life as long as people are using these products to interact with the real world. They are trying to strike a balance between convenience and security that meets real-world needs. And they are trying to set that balance point somewhere where it works reasonably for the majority of their non-technical users, not for the edge-cases and not for people who think LARPing as a 90's cyberpunk novel is the most important usecase. So, yes, so long as the vast majority of GMail users are using their GMail account in a number of ways that intersect with the real-world financial system, they are going to want some way to verify your real-world identity if you lose the log-in credentials to your account.

Re: My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

#178

Post by yokem55 »

viraptor wrote: post #168
yokem55 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 doesn't have to be bullshit. You have a sample size of 1 and realistically we can't expect 100% accuracy. We also don't know how often your IP is changing - maybe it was a proxy endpoint recently?

It's a static address that hasn't changed for 3+ years. The only thing I can think of the makes it proxy-ish, is that I have a 6 person household here.

Edit- The IP my employer uses as its outbound nat IP that we vpn from while WFH (so it actually is a proxy) gets a clean bill of health while our corporate email server (not a proxy at all) is tagged as one.

Re: My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

#179

Post by raindropm »

dannyr wrote: post #87
Imnimo wrote: post #50

It feels like there's two possible explanations here. One is that somehow the website has been incorrectly flagged or blacklisted, like the example he mentions with Bing. In that case, it seems like it'd be at least nice for Google to be able to look into it, but it also might be the sort of thing where Google just decides it's not worth the effort. The other possibility is that Google just updated their search algor…

The problem is that there are very few viable distribution channels that we are forced to rely on companies like Google. What other viable choices does this site have aside from Google?

You know what you're in for, I think?

Also, if your site is thread the line of review-spam-without-actual-content-or-actual-review-site, then this bound to happened sooner or later.

Re: My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

#180

Post by hsbauauvhabzb »

hertzrat wrote: post #156
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…

Hmm... my mom forgot her outlook password recently and doesn’t have a cell phone so she can’t get any auth codes. She says she can’t find a way to contact support. Any suggestions?

See if a telco will provide her the old number. If it’s owned by another entity, kindly explain the situation and ask them (though, that’ll be an awkward conversation, as the messages quite often have ‘do not share this code with anyone’)

The password reset also supports a backup email along with a ‘when did you sign up for this account’ question - for me the backup email was not working. I was able to derive the creation date via an email to my account (which was the backup email address). For me, the backup email function wasn’t working, thus sniping the mobile number from a provider was the solution.

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