Let's get to the bottom of this Google Update!

[dmxsta]

This time around I've been hit pretty bad, 6 of my websites have lost over 70% of their traffic. A few of the sites I can understand, I know they were going to get hit sooner or later but google hitting my tech blog doesn't make sense.

They hit my 4-year-old tech blog, this is a blog that I've been working on every single day, I only allow QUALITY content and each article is over 1,200 words. I don't even allow people to post sponsored content on the blog, that's just how picky I am!

This site is 100% whitehat, the only links that we're placed on the blog were the best quality guest posts, again most of them having 1200+ words of content.

All of my sites had one thing in common, and that was backlinks from guest posting websites. I NEVER used any PBN links... I really don't think this new update is anything to do with content as I have ensured my content is TOP notch!

Could they be clamping down on guest posting?

What are your thoughts?

 

[GuruPapa]

Seems like alot of sites has been hit, both shitty and good ones. I think we need to wait a week or two and see how this evolves.

In past updates, websites that were hit unintentionally got their rankings back. Google devs tweaks the settings and back to normal for all people who has nothing to hide

 

[dmxsta]

Seems like alot of sites has been hit, both shitty and good ones. I think we need to wait a week or two and see how this evolves.

In past updates, websites that were hit unintentionally got their rankings back. Google devs tweaks the settings and back to normal for all people who has nothing to hide

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking, not much we can do at the moment, just have to sit tight and wait.

Just trying to think of the problem that caused this in the meantime.

 

[GuruPapa]

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking, not much we can do at the moment, just have to sit tight and wait.

Just trying to think of the problem that caused this in the meantime.

I think you should try to relax and keep posting good content. From what you told us you have done nothing wrong, there will come a correction.

Don't start making changes in the middle of this, so if you really sink you don't even know what caused it

 

[hideath]

Well, I got hit pretty bad as well
I don't think to hope to get the traffic back will get it back, in fact, that's not how thing work.
However, let's be more realistic, we should check what's probably changed in this update and what could be changed to fix things or recover most of the traffic.
Waiting 1-2 weeks is a must, but don't expect it will be back to normal 100%.
Be prepared, but you can get it back

 

[OlafRustle]

The only thing I could make out is that the sites that were hit the most were those that had web 2.0s pointing to them. That is what I am suspecting in this update because they said something about them shortly before the update.
Also a web 2.0 post is kinda like a guestpost

 

[Silver Dragon SEO]

Here's a couple of sites in my portfolio that I thought were interesting enough to share:

It seems like the next site lost ranks a month ago, and gained it all back with this update.

 

[aadelmalik]

I have a site that was hit, no affiliate links, no blackhat niches over 8 years old. Main keyword down 10 positions, long tails down 100 positions, rest of keywords did not move not even a little bit.

This is completely random. We can honestly see that they are causing more harm than good, which means they'll re-haul it.

 

[ignobleentity]

This time around I've been hit pretty bad, 6 of my websites have lost over 70% of their traffic. A few of the sites I can understand, I know they were going to get hit sooner or later but google hitting my tech blog doesn't make sense.

They hit my 4-year-old tech blog, this is a blog that I've been working on every single day, I only allow QUALITY content and each article is over 1,200 words. I don't even allow people to post sponsored content on the blog, that's just how picky I am!

This site is 100% whitehat, the only links that we're placed on the blog were the best quality guest posts, again most of them having 1200+ words of content.

All of my sites had one thing in common, and that was backlinks from guest posting websites. I NEVER used any PBN links... I really don't think this new update is anything to do with content as I have ensured my content is TOP notch!

Could they be clamping down on guest posting?

What are your thoughts?

i have 2 year old techblog hit as well

about my site:
- tech niche
- wordpress cmss
- cloudflare and their https
- english articles, about 1k words per article, some 5k, some 500 words
- images have alt tags, many images are hosted on Imgur though (that could be drop reason if they blacklisted imgur domains)
- id say good onpage seo. ton of categories (not very full tho, lost motivation) on homepage.
- about 300 manual links. forums,profiles, blogs
- anchors may not be the best

BTW OP i never made a guest post

 

[LenSMM]

What if like they did on YouTube recently, they are givin more space to small and new sites, to give them more chance and diversify search results, that on some niche are dominated by the same domains over and over again? Maybe domain authority and blog stats are less relevant on a single article ranking now

 

[SEOREAPER]

You really can't understand this algorithm. This is beyond google understanding. They probably test AI.

 

[NotReallyAcc]

We really have to wait a bit to be sure about changes in this update, I wouldn't be suprised if in some time some part of it going to be rolled back... As for me:
Medical niche sites - 1 site dropped by about 50% in traffic, 2 other sites stayed more less on the same places
Automotive sites - Local business 2 sites not affected that much, small gains
E-commerce sites - 1 site dropped by about 15% in traffic, didn't notice loss in sales.

 

[Escehas]

If anyone cares, I will give you the profile of one of my websites that got hit: also in tech niche, no guest posts, no web 2.0, articles are all 1500+ words with unique and (I say) quality content, no sponsored posts, there are affiliate links, it has Adsense. It's whitehat in its purest form - lost about 50% of traffic.

 

[Mr Positive]

There’s not much you can do except build more content and more backlinks that’s the only way to beat them

 

[bassebuu]

A lot of very big white hat sites got hit, ymyl sites seems stable

 

[mrgee]

My Niche Affiliate site has had a massive increase in traffic.

EMD domain is about 3.5 years old with a mix of PBN and Guest Post Links.

Content is OK .. I wrote it so it's not great technical writing. But not spun crap.

The increase in traffic occurred on the 4th of May

I am not really tracking keywords closely but I now have a number of keywords on the first page with most in the 6,7and 8th positions.

This website has been neglected for some time. But with an increase in traffic and more importantly, earnings, I am now motivated to spend some time on it.

I have no idea of course if this traffic spike will be maintained, but am hopeful.

 

[Kaine]

You really can't understand this algorithm. This is beyond google understanding. They probably test AI.

It is indeed quite possible Google, multiplies patents in this direction. Sooner or later only content will count.
Very sincerely they must have fun working on their algorithms and then come to a forum like BHW to get feedback.
In all cases the most desperate will go on Adsense, so it is beneficial for them.

 

[PureHustle]

im scratching my head too as my sites are super whitehat. I lost 50% of traffic overnight.

Someone posted on another thread that there are similarities between the state of many sites now and how the same site performed around march of 2020.

My gut tells me things will even out over the next few weeks. Imma just keep my head down low and grinding, not worrying about the day-to-day changes (for the next few weeks).

 

[MoneyMagnet2015]

Their new search/recommendation algorithm also broke the Play Store, many apps no more shows Similar apps section or some of the other sections.

https://i.redd.it/s39z98yl5ox41.png

A similar thing happened back in July/August 2018. That time it was a combination of suddenly dropping in keyword rankings and being removed off all of the 'similar games' recommendation panels. I wasn't able to figure out anything to do to 'fix it' back then and it took almost a year before my numbers started to really recover.

 

[fb3003]

My Niche Affiliate site has had a massive increase in traffic.

EMD domain is about 3.5 years old with a mix of PBN and Guest Post Links.

Content is OK .. I wrote it so it's not great technical writing. But not spun crap.

The increase in traffic occurred on the 4th of May

I am not really tracking keywords closely but I now have a number of keywords on the first page with most in the 6,7and 8th positions.

This website has been neglected for some time. But with an increase in traffic and more importantly, earnings, I am now motivated to spend some time on it.

I have no idea of course if this traffic spike will be maintained, but am hopeful.

how is your backlink ratio for your exact match keyword?