Technical Analysis Needed. Continue with domain or just move on?

[spectrejoe]

This is an Amazon Affiliate website that I've had for a year and half, it has been consistently growing every single month, however, since the 21st of March it's been in a constant downtrend, now getting about -50% less visitors/clicks since March.

I am not sure what's the reason for this to be happening but I've tried a lot of things to see if it fixes the issue but no results so far. The keywords are in a constant downtrend in terms of rankings.

What I've tried so far:
- Update main articles
- Add extra information to products
- Delete any possible duplicate content pages
- Removed Ads from pages (thought Google might not like having Amazon + Ads in same page, however, no results so I simply added them back)
- Got a few more PBN links

GSC:


21st of March it got 830 clicks, last update(May 16th) it only had 456 clicks :l

A lot fo keywords are simply dissapearing or not ranking at all for whatever reason...


Left side is current position, right side is the best position it reached. As you can see a lot of keywords are just gone. And the trend seems to suggest that it'll continue that way.

I also noticed that any new posts I create have a hard time ranking now, before when I published, as soon as they got indexed they'd usually go at least to 2nd page since I only target easy keywords, now I can't even find them in 5th page after a week, sometimes they do rank in top 20 but only after a long time, it's a lot worse than it was before.

If anyone has any experience with overcoming similar situations & would like to have a look at my website I'll gladly send you a link, however, only serious & experienced requests please, not looking to make my website public.

 

[tiiberius]

Looks like the website is not longer considered an authority on the topic. Adding multiple relevant pieces of content should improve it.

There were multiple updates targeting review and best types of content. You should check if your money pages are up to date with latest practices.

What also helps is to change the ratio of informational to commercial content. Informational should dominate.

 

[spectrejoe]

Looks like the website is not longer considered an authority on the topic. Adding multiple relevant pieces of content should improve it.

There were multiple updates targeting review and best types of content. You should check if your money pages are up to date with latest practices.

What also helps is to change the ratio of informational to commercial content. Informational should dominate.

About 80% of my posts are in 1 category not sure how much more I need, currently at 230 posts.

Yea I'm not sure what are the correct "latest practices", but I assume I'm doing everything right.

As for informational content, I do have A LOT of informational content. (About 60-65%?) of all my posts are informational & increasing with time, in fact, I think I've added maybe 5 posts in the past 6 months that were Amazon affiliated while I added at least 40 that were purely informational.

 

[spectrejoe]

Anyone else got any more input or would like to have a look?

 

[spectrejoe]

Difference between yesterday and today sheesh something is definitely wrong

 

[Ebaydotmax]

I have a site where I'm experiencing the same. I've not been able to find a solution and the downward trend continues. Thinking about redirecting and moving on with another domain.

 

[Ozzyzig]

@spectrejoe is that the same website we had a discussion about a while ago? If so I'm perplexed because it really is a great site.

I've noticed as well that new pages on my site aren't automatically ranking high and it's taking about a month for it to crack into page 3 or 4 of the serps. Adding a link or two has bumped these pages right onto page one.

Are there any manual actions against the site? And is the PBN of high quality?

 

[spectrejoe]

@spectrejoe is that the same website we had a discussion about a while ago? If so I'm perplexed because it really is a great site.

I've noticed as well that new pages on my site aren't automatically ranking high and it's taking about a month for it to crack into page 3 or 4 of the serps. Adding a link or two has bumped these pages right onto page one.

Are there any manual actions against the site? And is the PBN of high quality?

Yep same site.

No manual actions and yea the PBNs were alright I think, but then again, hard to know if any of them got penalized

 

[tiiberius]

About 80% of my posts are in 1 category not sure how much more I need, currently at 230 posts.

Yea I'm not sure what are the correct "latest practices", but I assume I'm doing everything right.

I would not assume anything.

April guidelines:
https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2021/04/product-reviews-update

December ones:
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/ecommerce/write-high-quality-product-reviews

Might come in handy:
April :

December:

As for informational content, I do have A LOT of informational content. (About 60-65%?) of all my posts are informational & increasing with time, in fact, I think I've added maybe 5 posts in the past 6 months that were Amazon affiliated while I added at least 40 that were purely informational.

That's a lot of content.

Maybe it's the opposite of topical authority and actually they are cannibalizing each other.

A good opportunity to mess up are interlinks. For example, if majority of your pages link to the same money pages with keyword rich anchors over and over it might lead to over-optimization.

 

[Ozzyzig]

Yep same site.

No manual actions and yea the PBNs were alright I think, but then again, hard to know if any of them got penalized

This is true. And I doubt the vendor would come across and say as well if the PBN had been hit. The only other thing I could suggest to check that would be to read through the BST you bought it from to see if anyone else has had a similar issue.

as @tiiberius has said though, there could be canibilaztion going on as well.
I've sent you a PM about the site.

 

[spectrejoe]

I would not assume anything.

April guidelines:
https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2021/04/product-reviews-update

December ones:
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/ecommerce/write-high-quality-product-reviews

Might come in handy:
April :

December:

That's a lot of content.

Maybe it's the opposite of topical authority and actually they are cannibalizing each other.

A good opportunity to mess up are interlinks. For example, if majority of your pages link to the same money pages with keyword rich anchors over and over it might lead to over-optimization.

Thanks for the links! I added some more info to the main articles & added a PROS/CONS table to a bunch of different ones as well, as well as share my opinions on what makes each individual product stand out etc.
Hopefully, it'll help.

I don't think they're cannibalizing tbh, the keywords are quite different.

Interlinks could be an issue but 90% of my interlinking is just a side bar showing the latest posts + a "Related Posts" at the bottom of the article showing only articles from the same category at random.

Sometimes I do some interlinking as well using Link whisper but nothing special & never using exact match anchors.

 

[DeadJoe]

I doubt it has to do with the links. @spectrejoe It probably has more to do with the quality of the content. Are you addressing the search intent properly? Most people who said their sites got hit in March (that I have seen) have two things in common 1) very little link building 2) bad content. If you want to PM me the site I can give you a better analysis.

 

[spectrejoe]

I doubt it has to do with the links. @spectrejoe It probably has more to do with the quality of the content. Are you addressing the search intent properly? Most people who said their sites got hit in March (that I have seen) have two things in common 1) very little link building 2) bad content. If you want to PM me the site I can give you a better analysis.

I think the content is fine honestly but I'll send!

 

[tiiberius]

Thanks for the links! I added some more info to the main articles & added a PROS/CONS table to a bunch of different ones as well, as well as share my opinions on what makes each individual product stand out etc.
Hopefully, it'll help.

I don't think they're cannibalizing tbh, the keywords are quite different.

Interlinks could be an issue but 90% of my interlinking is just a side bar showing the latest posts + a "Related Posts" at the bottom of the article showing only articles from the same category at random.

Sometimes I do some interlinking as well using Link whisper but nothing special & never using exact match anchors.

I see.

I have to repeat myself but you need to review your content. Past year updates have been all about it and search engines just don’l like yours.

Switch from keyword based optimization to entity one.

Check categorization and keyword clusters, how they grouped and connected.

Check top competitors for the above, how they interlink. Download their sitemaps and analyze them.

Then there is of course E-A-T. If authors are not credible and competitors are, they will have upper hand.

 

[spectrejoe]

I see.

I have to repeat myself but you need to review your content. Past year updates have been all about it and search engines just don’l like yours.

Switch from keyword based optimization to entity one.

Check categorization and keyword clusters, how they grouped and connected.

Check top competitors for the above, how they interlink. Download their sitemaps and analyze them.

Then there is of course E-A-T. If authors are not credible and competitors are, they will have upper hand.

Yea issue is going through like 70-90 review/best types of posts and editing them all manually to make sure that they aren't the ones dragging the whole website down >.<
I'm going through the main ones and adding a lot of important stuff now. (Adding ratings to each product, adding unique image, pros cons, extra info)

 

[DeadJoe]

I just saw his website, he is not addressing the search intent properly with the informational articles. content includes random topics and is partially AI generated, the remaning parts are poorly written and provide little to no value. The buying guides are just repeating the features, they are just lists that add no value to the reader. The entire site needs a content rehaul.

 

[fb3003]

@spectrejoe - how are the web vital scores?

i know you are saying that number of visitors are going down, but how are actual commissions? they are going down as well?

do you 100% trust what GSC was showing you over the last year?

 

[tiiberius]

I just saw his website, he is not addressing the search intent properly with the informational articles. content includes random topics and is partially AI generated, the remaning parts are poorly written and provide little to no value. The buying guides are just repeating the features, they are just lists that add no value to the reader. The entire site needs a content rehaul.

Burn!

I would love to see the case study of this @spectrejoe if you go for the overhaul.