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

391–400 of 409 posts

Re: My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

#391

Post by thesuitonym »

selfhoster11 wrote: post #380
thesuitonym wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When this question is asked, there's always a hundred people eagerly telling you to switch to Fastmail, forgetting that 14 years ago, everyone was saying switch to Gmail because it was the good option. I would just suggest people think about what might happen if Fastmail gets enough of a userbase to be the next Gmail.

14 years ago, Google was a very different company. I don't think it's reasonable to criticise people for not seeing what they would become that far in advance.

I agree with you, I just caution that they may not have become what they are today if we didn't all flock to Google. Fastmail is good today, will they be good if they become the dominant player?

Re: My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

#392

Post by samb1729 »

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.

If you can tolerate a completely different way of doing email, I wholeheartedly recommend HEY[0]. I've been a customer since it went live and their business model is very straightforward. You pay $99, you get email for a year. Their track record running Basecamp instills confidence in the longevity of the service and that they won't sell out their customers.

I honestly think it's a much better approach to email. One of the key issues with having an email address is that anyone who knows it is granted permission to get your attention, whereas with HEY you get rid of that problem for the most part but without having to 'program' your inbox.

[0]: https://hey.com

Re: My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

#393

Post by weisbaum »

johnwdefeo wrote: post #275
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…

Thank you for the thoughtful reply. I agree that the spirit of my site is closer to "a statistics site for products" than a typical review site. Adding more content, photos, etc. may help to remedy my situation, but I would feel like I was abandoning my original purpose. I designed the site with "satisficers" in mind, i.e. allow people to make a decent decision as quickly as possible. No frills. Until recently, I wor…

If that is the case than perhaps organic traffic is not the best vector by which your site will grow.

I could make the case that targeted paid search for low comp, buy ready keywords would work well. Your content is what would push someone over the edge to buy. If you think about it, your site is much further down the funnel than other affil sites because you've vetted reviews, instead of just copy/pasting/spinning from other sites. You should also retarget the people who come to those pages with ads specific to the products they're looking for urging them to "not make a decision without all the facts" which is what you've done by mining all of the review data.

I do very much like the approach and the original idea but sadly google likes what google likes. If deeper authoritative content is not what you want to be doing, that's fine, but you shouldn't have the expectation you are going to be able to compete with the big dogs who operate in that way.

Im happy to take this convo offline as you're getting a lot of weird advice in this thread that are just random people's opinions. Shoot me an email at m@darkmatter.io if you want to keep chatting.

Re: My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

#394

Post by weisbaum »

Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #269
londons_explore wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

More images isnt directly correlated with rankings but it can help increase time on site, improve user experience and lower bounce rate - all which are ranking factors.

There is no one silver bullet for SEO. Its many things combined.

Re: My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

#395

Post by JoeAltmaier »

robertlagrant wrote: post #362
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't actually matter. Its a 'poor Google' argument, not an argument against breaking up a monopoly. The new divisions would have to figure out how to survive, like anybody else in the market. Definitely 'not our problem'

Why break up totally different services in the name of monopoly-cracking? What's the monopoly on? In what sector would breaking it into different services decrease monopolies?

Interesting issue. The oil companies got broken up geographically. Same with the phone company. How to break up an internet business?

Re: My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

#396

Post by melbourne_mat »

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…

I see a lot of people complaining about not getting what expect out of free Google services. How about choosing a non free provider of those services that has support?

Re: My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

#397

Post by graeme »

germanjoey wrote: post #358
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…

Is this the reason why top recipe results always contain the poster's entire life story before they ever show a list of ingredients?

That plus you can’t copyright a recipe but can copyright a story. So it thwarts scrapers.

Re: My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

#398

Post by grecy »

KMag wrote: post #162
grecy wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yikes. I've logged into my gmail account from 55 different countries, and I've never had a problem. Some of those countries must have set some flags - Nigeria, Sudan, Mali, Rep. Congo, Bolivia, El Salvador. Maybe I'm on thin ice..

Did you clear cookies before signing in from the other country? As I remember, Google made me re-authenticate via text the last time I cleared cookies, despite connecting from the same IP address as my last login.

No, often used an existing session, though back in the day I was also using computers in internet cafes around the world, so totally new sessions each time

Re: My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

#399

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #230
_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…

"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 system for building better profiles of potential targets for advertising. Gathering data is a means to improve online advertising services to Google's customers. The more data you volunteer, the more their on…

s/sacrafice/sacrifice/

Re: My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero

#400

Post by oliv__ »

busterarm wrote: post #68
oliv__ wrote: post #63

It's really messed up that people like you who take time and effort to do things right and play the SEO game fair and square get stripped of their livelihood overnight but black hat SEO sites and spammy ad-filled sites thrive...

Or maybe playing the SEO game for its own sake is not something we should stand for and for the scumbags & cheaters it is only a matter of time. If somebody asked nicely to shit on your lawn, would you say yes?

It seemed to me like his site was providing value. I meant SEO in the strict "do the best you can as far as google is concerned" way.
Post reply on HN