Google releasing a large update today

[Robertas]

One of the keywords I was working on. Total algo hit. Site is in gaming niche, trying to rank category page. Most of competition is ranking fine. Any ideas?

 

[Zontir]

Check

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Almost 95% of the traffic since the last updates.

 

[iki]

In my opinion this update focus mostly on domain authority and stronger domains get snippets and higher ranks. Maybe not in all niches and keywords I read there are spammy
sites ranking too with bad content, but in my niche authority sites are on top. And to answer some previous posts I think law suit can’t help anything, remember when Google changed flight snd booking search results big companies sued them and Google payed some penalty but in the long term its their search engine they do what they want with it. Companies like Google, Amazon, FB should never be allowed such monopoly and dominance of market. Dont bother changing things on website it probably wont help, all we can is to wait for some new update and continue working as usual, but how to get motivated now when you lost 70% traffic after 2-3 years of hard work.

 

[Gazza78]

The biggest problem right now is motivation, you know you have done it all perfect, you have worked your ass off to beat your competitors, you have done things "as you are supposed", paid lots for content, strong backlinks, proper setup.....and then, over night, you loose it all:

Your ranking
Your incomce
Your deals
Your clicks
Your traffic

And shitty pages gets top ranked who shouldn't even be on top 10 first pages!
But, there is only one way...do what you are doing and what you were doing and wait for Google who messed it up, fix it again!
There is no magical formula if you know you were doing it correct before.

 

[twinreal]

Hope so man. I'm the same boat as you.

 

[Leadman1]

May Update destroyed my website. In March, we reached 12 million visitors. April 10 million. May 6 million. And now, totally gone. Maybe we can reach 1 million in June. How could it be possible? It's not just a case that normal traffic drop, but devastation.

My Google News registration is still alive and well. My indexing speed is still fast, in just 2 minutes, Google is indexing my fresh articles on Search and News. But there's a massive traffic drop from Discover section and search.

There were two important dates. On May 5, my traffic dropped %50. On May 27, almost totally gone. For the last 8 months, we always reached 8+ million page views every month, now it's gone. And the most tragic part of the incident that there's no one to contact to learn what we did wrong.

I feel broken. It's not fair. I don't know what to say.

 

[Gazza78]

May Update destroyed my website. In March, we reached 12 million visitors. April 10 million. May 6 million. And now, totally gone. Maybe we can reach 1 million in June. How could it be possible? It's not just a case that normal traffic drop, but devastation.

My Google News registration is still alive and well. My indexing speed is still fast, in just 2 minutes, Google is indexing my fresh articles on Search and News. But there's a massive traffic drop from Discover section and search.

There were two important dates. On May 5, my traffic dropped %50. On May 27, almost totally gone. For the last 8 months, we always reached 8+ million page views every month, now it's gone. And the most tragic part of the incident that there's no one to contact to learn what we did wrong.

I feel broken. It's not fair. I don't know what to say.

Sad to hear buddy! Really sad and hope you guys recover fast too!
Hopefully sooner than next Google update!

 

[wolf3000]

May Update destroyed my website. In March, we reached 12 million visitors. April 10 million. May 6 million. And now, totally gone. Maybe we can reach 1 million in June. How could it be possible? It's not just a case that normal traffic drop, but devastation.

My Google News registration is still alive and well. My indexing speed is still fast, in just 2 minutes, Google is indexing my fresh articles on Search and News. But there's a massive traffic drop from Discover section and search.

There were two important dates. On May 5, my traffic dropped %50. On May 27, almost totally gone. For the last 8 months, we always reached 8+ million page views every month, now it's gone. And the most tragic part of the incident that there's no one to contact to learn what we did wrong.

I feel broken. It's not fair. I don't know what to say.

I'm sorry to hear about your loss.

I too suffered around a 75% drop in organic traffic from this fucking update.

But it has taught me a very important lesson and that is to always have control over your visitors.

Since then it has forced me to learn more about email marketing and developing an email list and now I'm focusing on my email list and creating digital products to sell to them.

I've learned a tonne of new skills since this may 4th update.

Once I get out of this stump and recover, I believe my website will be stronger than ever before.

 

[Leadman1]

Thanks for your support and messages.

I don't know if there's a chance to get back my traffic. The May Update hit me badly, on the other hand, I'm considering that it would be a manual penalty; if so, there's no hope for me. But, Google is indexing my fresh content fastly and showing my content on Search's Top Stories section. What is your opinion? Is there any possibility of a manual penalty?

Now, a new feeling inside me is growing and saying that 'move on and start a new project.' So, I guess, that's what I'm gonna do. The current situation is like losing your little baby. I did it once, I will do it once again. I have no doubt about it. But, it's not fair Google. It's just not fair.

PS: Sorry for my poor English. It's not my first language.

 

[gwarftron]

I'm sorry to hear about your loss.

I too suffered around a 75% drop in organic traffic from this fucking update.

But it has taught me a very important lesson and that is to always have control over your visitors.

Since then it has forced me to learn more about email marketing and developing an email list and now I'm focusing on my email list and creating digital products to sell to them.

I've learned a tonne of new skills since this may 4th update.

Once I get out of this stump and recover, I believe my website will be stronger than ever before.

I agree. Every hard fall or failure forces you to react and try new things out. And I'm not talking about changing the content or SEO parts in any radical manner, rather like you mentioned looking into new ways of getting traffic and revenue.

I've dropped about 65% since this update and as with previous falls from Google updates, it's impossible to pinpoint what went wrong. I've worked hard on content, on-page SEO, white SEO work in general but never much from that.

And like the rest, I can see that top Google results are Pinterest, YouTube videos, and shitty PBN sites. So it's more than frustrating when you've worked hard on following the rules and focused on UX and quality content.

 

[gwarftron]

Thanks for your support and messages.

I don't know if there's a chance to get back my traffic. The May Update hit me badly, on the other hand, I'm considering that it would be a manual penalty; if so, there's no hope for me. But, Google is indexing my fresh content fastly and showing my content on Search's Top Stories section. What is your opinion? Is there any possibility of a manual penalty?

Now, a new feeling inside me is growing and saying that 'move on and start a new project.' So, I guess, that's what I'm gonna do. The current situation is like losing your little baby. I did it once, I will do it once again. I have no doubt about it. But, it's not fair Google. It's just not fair.

PS: Sorry for my poor English. It's not my first language.

For manual penalties, they would be found in Google Search Console. For algorithmic penalties, or filters they can't be found in GSC. And it's a guessing game to figure out if you got one or not. If you obviously bought links, etc then it might be the case.

 

[Leadman1]

For manual penalties, they would be found in Google Search Console. For algorithmic penalties, or filters they can't be found in GSC. And it's a guessing game to figure out if you got one or not. If you obviously bought links, etc then it might be the case.

Never bought any link or etc. For the last five years, I was working to write new and unique content; my competitors are writing 8-10 articles every day, but we 20+. I never tried to boost my website with some SEO tricks or anything.

 

[Zontir]

wait for some new update and continue working as usual

wait for Google who messed it up, fix it again!

You say almost the same thing. You say it from experience?

This is my traffic, I lost about 90% of all traffic.

 

[Preon]

What I don't understand is the inconsistency of it all.

I run several website, all with the exact same theme, layout, writers, and despite being in different niches, the content is put together in the same way using the same sort of keyword research. No active linkbuilding is performed.

2 websites have seen a decline, 1 has remain unchanged another 2 have seen a growth in traffic.

There's barely anything different about the sites apart from the niche.

 

[RAP]

May Update destroyed my website. In March, we reached 12 million visitors. April 10 million. May 6 million. And now, totally gone. Maybe we can reach 1 million in June. How could it be possible? It's not just a case that normal traffic drop, but devastation.

My Google News registration is still alive and well. My indexing speed is still fast, in just 2 minutes, Google is indexing my fresh articles on Search and News. But there's a massive traffic drop from Discover section and search.

There were two important dates. On May 5, my traffic dropped %50. On May 27, almost totally gone. For the last 8 months, we always reached 8+ million page views every month, now it's gone. And the most tragic part of the incident that there's no one to contact to learn what we did wrong.

I feel broken. It's not fair. I don't know what to say.

Unfortunately this is the SEO game.
I am on the same boat, ALL my sites have been destroyed.
If you want to play with google keep in mind that sooner or later your (our) sites will be destroyed.
No one is immune and this can happen ANYTIME.
You wake up one morning and puff.... All your work is done.
Don't exist any similar scenario in any other business.
Trying to live and make money with google is for masochists.
I am seriously thinking of abandoning this game to massacre.
My mental health is at stake.

 

[luzius]

After this google update, what do you think is the most important factor for ranking in SEO right now? Would you say is speed?

I'm looking to start a business which will be very SEO intensive and I'm doubting between going JAMstack with headless CMS vs Wordpress.

 

[YujinTan]

Unfortunately this is the SEO game.
I am on the same boat, ALL my sites have been destroyed.
If you want to play with google keep in mind that sooner or later your (our) sites will be destroyed.
No one is immune and this can happen ANYTIME.
You wake up one morning and puff.... All your work is done.
Don't exist any similar scenario in any other business.
Trying to live and make money with google is for masochists.
I am seriously thinking of abandoning this game to massacre.
My mental health is at stake.

end up still a lot depend on Google come make money online than , Unless you prefer do a Simple Capture page to get leads and auto responder back your offers

Sometimes I wonder too, spend so much time on the website , check this and that, bugs, flaws , contents, DMCA stuff, SEO , next is hosting expensive , if your site is heavy need more GB etc

a Capture page just get the cheapest host package will do , no need to mantain just spam the capture page all over , get leads

 

[YujinTan]

So this Google update for this round ended? or still dancing??? I cannot monitor as just migrate the site to better host. just last friday , the traffic somehow not like previously back in old crap host while Google update , I see traffic still there at least but drop
now go new host totally traffic is even lower , perhaps need one week to settle?

 

[fb3003]

May Update destroyed my website. In March, we reached 12 million visitors. April 10 million. May 6 million. And now, totally gone. Maybe we can reach 1 million in June. How could it be possible? It's not just a case that normal traffic drop, but devastation.

My Google News registration is still alive and well. My indexing speed is still fast, in just 2 minutes, Google is indexing my fresh articles on Search and News. But there's a massive traffic drop from Discover section and search.

There were two important dates. On May 5, my traffic dropped %50. On May 27, almost totally gone. For the last 8 months, we always reached 8+ million page views every month, now it's gone. And the most tragic part of the incident that there's no one to contact to learn what we did wrong.

I feel broken. It's not fair. I don't know what to say.

out of curiosity, what is the correlation of your income per each 1 million visit? assuming we are talking about monthly visits? please confirm.

 

[fb3003]

What I don't understand is the inconsistency of it all.

I run several website, all with the exact same theme, layout, writers, and despite being in different niches, the content is put together in the same way using the same sort of keyword research. No active linkbuilding is performed.

2 websites have seen a decline, 1 has remain unchanged another 2 have seen a growth in traffic.

There's barely anything different about the sites apart from the niche.

google uses different algorithms for different niches. that is why it is getting more difficult to do single variable testing these days.