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Google Update Tanks Traffic

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Re: Google Update Tanks Traffic

#71

Post by ClumsyPilot »

cbsmith wrote: post #60
xamuel wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you're seeing lower traffic on your site and don't feel like you need to improve the content or do something different, you deserve to be losing that traffic to someone else who does. I disagree. Suppose you're unquestionably the world expert in some niche field, and you write a site with high-quality, timeless content. It would be really infuriating if some SEO knocked you out of the search results with an adfar…

You're missing the point here. Regardless of the causes of the decline, there are invariably things you can do to improve your content or just generally change your approach.

Improving your content to optimise for SEO is not the same as improving it for the user. I hope that fact was made bloody obvious by SEO-hugging websites full of garbage occupying top spot of many google searches.

In fact i might google a spesific product, like a Monitor, and the top result will be "but Monitor XYZ on Amazon". When i click on the link, turns out they don't actually sell or stock that product at all!

Re: Google Update Tanks Traffic

#72

Post by dkersten »

JungleGymSam wrote: post #37
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.

Did you read the article?

> Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Google Update Tanks Traffic

#73

Post by idoh »

eloff wrote: post #40
idoh wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

To the question raised in C, what's the alternative? I think it's the best strategy. If you have a business, like the celebrity net worth one, you're in trouble. It's worth keeping in mind these days if your business has long term staying power based on the trends we know are currently underway.

It’s never been better to be in the content creation business. But it is a business, and one has to find ways of getting your customers to pay you money. There is substack, patreon, and probably lots of other ways to do it. But the perspective has to revolve around getting $X0 from thosands of customers rather than getting $0.50 per thosand impressions.

Re: Google Update Tanks Traffic

#74

Post by ghaff »

xamuel wrote: post #52
weisbaum wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't accurate for a few different reasons... 1. There will NEVER be a time in which being forced to think about and organize your content to align with customer business objectives will be a bad idea. 2. If you're seeing lower traffic on your site and don't feel like you need to improve the content or do something different, you deserve to be losing that traffic to someone else who does. 3. SEO is not a zero su…

>If you're seeing lower traffic on your site and don't feel like you need to improve the content or do something different, you deserve to be losing that traffic to someone else who does. I disagree. Suppose you're unquestionably the world expert in some niche field, and you write a site with high-quality, timeless content. It would be really infuriating if some SEO knocked you out of the search results with an adfar…

>How is that "deserved"?

It may be deserved because that's what many people want rather than a plain vanilla list of ingredients and instructions.

Re: Google Update Tanks Traffic

#75

Post by sowbug »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #71
cbsmith wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the point here. Regardless of the causes of the decline, there are invariably things you can do to improve your content or just generally change your approach.

Improving your content to optimise for SEO is not the same as improving it for the user. I hope that fact was made bloody obvious by SEO-hugging websites full of garbage occupying top spot of many google searches. In fact i might google a spesific product, like a Monitor, and the top result will be "but Monitor XYZ on Amazon". When i click on the link, turns out they don't actually sell or stock that product at all!

You clicked an ad. Amazon is happy to have paid for you to land there.

Re: Google Update Tanks Traffic

#76

Post by RyanOD »

john_moscow wrote: post #23

Anecdotal, but I run a small business of fairly niche B2B software. Around the end of April/beginning of May our traffic took a nosedive and has been slowly declining ever since (about 33% down now). I kinda got paranoid, so I used the Google Trends and Webmaster tools to decompose and quantify what is going on. Well, it turns out, the ranking of our site in most major queries hasn't changed. People are genuinely sea…

The time has come to finally finish Zork!

Re: Google Update Tanks Traffic

#77

Post by weisbaum »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #71
cbsmith wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the point here. Regardless of the causes of the decline, there are invariably things you can do to improve your content or just generally change your approach.

Improving your content to optimise for SEO is not the same as improving it for the user. I hope that fact was made bloody obvious by SEO-hugging websites full of garbage occupying top spot of many google searches. In fact i might google a spesific product, like a Monitor, and the top result will be "but Monitor XYZ on Amazon". When i click on the link, turns out they don't actually sell or stock that product at all!

There is absolutley a blend that the smartest marketers understand how to activate. In fact, id argue that the advent of adding 'reddit' to the end of a query signals a change is necessary in order to really surface the best content for a given result. Even Quora is filled with spam these days. Spammers will get into anything wherever they can.

With that being said, in any marketing tactic, the right way isn't always the best way - however - understanding why some garbage site ranks for your query is incredibly helpful in figuring out how you can improve your content to do the same.

Re: Google Update Tanks Traffic

#78

Post by justcomments12 »

A botnet is attacking the site in question (domains include xxxcommitted, pornsextube, qastack, thecouponholiday etc)

Around May 2020 the attacks started on your site, see your data: https://i.imgur.com/mfFRgVj.png

This botnet contains thousands of sites (so far I found this botnet includes 9000+ domains). The same botnet that's attacking my sites and thousands of others companies.

It may well be this is a foreign state cyber attack: so many sites are target and the 9000+ botnet domains to pay aren't free. No doubt this is costing governments lots of money.

When this botnet is attacking your site(s), it's goodbye to your blogging income. Sad but true.

Quality or best results is not the ranking factor anymore, it's large botnets that decide on the Google ranking.

Try Google disavow tool, it barely works, but at least it's something. I hope someday Google will fix this (ignore negative SEO), but for now this is the way things are.

Re: Google Update Tanks Traffic

#79

Post by tehjoker »

ghaff wrote: post #74
xamuel wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you're seeing lower traffic on your site and don't feel like you need to improve the content or do something different, you deserve to be losing that traffic to someone else who does. I disagree. Suppose you're unquestionably the world expert in some niche field, and you write a site with high-quality, timeless content. It would be really infuriating if some SEO knocked you out of the search results with an adfar…

>How is that "deserved"? It may be deserved because that's what many people want rather than a plain vanilla list of ingredients and instructions.

I haven't met a single person that prefers the current state of things. Every time my friends and I search for a recipe we are constantly annoyed by having to scroll through a story that appears to be there simply for ad placement or SEO.

Re: Google Update Tanks Traffic

#80

Post by T-hawk »

weisbaum wrote: post #33
zelly wrote: post #16

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 cultur…

This isn't accurate for a few different reasons... 1. There will NEVER be a time in which being forced to think about and organize your content to align with customer business objectives will be a bad idea. 2. If you're seeing lower traffic on your site and don't feel like you need to improve the content or do something different, you deserve to be losing that traffic to someone else who does. 3. SEO is not a zero su…

There's room for both of your arguments. Industries are different.

Industries that work on a workflow of hunting and fulfilling need SEO. People search for an item or service that they know exists and grab the top result.

Industries that work on a workflow of discoverability and browsing take advantage of social media. You didn't know you wanted that cute dress or household gadget until some listing pushed it into your attention.

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