Google targeted cryptocurrency sites

In the June update thread I posted a graphic that showed steep losses for a big site. I mentioned that they were targeting financial sites.

One of my client sites is cryptocurrency and finance related and lost 90%. I thought it was a penalty but it's not.

Now the news is official. Most crypto sites were targeted and the one I mentioned there, without citing its name, is shutting down.

Right when Facebook is coming out with their own cryptocurrency. Hmm.

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/tiny/ccn-is-closing-and-says-google-is-to-blame/

Well that's good to know. Currently working on a project that combines crypto & fashion so it looks like I'll be aiming the website content towards the fashion side.

bartosimpsonio said:

Right when Facebook is coming out with their own cryptocurrency. Hmm.

Click to expand...

Good. CCN was full of pure misinformation and fear-mongering, and its articles would reach heavily into financial news for the stock market. It's site was becoming so powerful that it would consistently rank higher in Google News for relevant financial terms than actual financial news counterparts. It was the difference between "S&P 500 rises 1.5% on promise Fed will assist in economic downturns resulting from tariffs - WSJ.com" and "S&P 500 experiences highly inflated rise after week of downturn, skeptical announcement from Powell, Bitcoin boom continues - CCN.com" when Googling "S&P 500".

This is likely less an effect of the Google update and more an effect on crypto's unpredictability. If you look in Ahrefs, "cryptocoinnews.com" purchased CCN.com and started moving things over in January 2018ish and things took off from there. With a purchase of an LLL.com occurring around the same time as cryptocurrency's all time high, they likely did a massive wave of hiring in that same timeframe. If you check their estimated organic traffic, it did not grow on average after that time period, save for a few spikes, when a pump occurred.

If you bet on things only rising in popularity (which crypto arguably has done nothing but drop and stay at those low levels for 18 months now) and they don't, and you spent a good amount of money on marketing, hiring and more betting that it will, I have a strong feeling that they were bleeding money and are conveniently failing to mention this. Nobody cares about crypto any more, save for some holdouts in this bubble we call the Internet. Look here: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=cryptocurrency. Sure, that data comes from Google, but it's their trend data and the information behind it is pretty transparent.

Everything crypto touches is nothing but a gamble. Everything is all talk and no walk, and when something goes belly-up, "founders" will always look for someone else to blame besides themselves and their lack of insight. Especially if it's "the man", in this case Google. Sites like CCN have been digging their own grave and building their own coffins for 18 months now. Google just provided the mechanism needed to lower the coffin into the hole. And now they go running for people like you to throw your handful of dirt into the hole.

A lot of people have mixed feelings about ccn.

I too run crypto site and see no drop in serp

blackh4t said:

I too run crypto site and see no drop in serp

Click to expand...

Is your site news too?

Also has news section yes

thats messed up. ccn was a good site

Bye bye fake news, am I right? :'D
Big fish ate some plankton
edit: it is ccn not cnn, my bad lmao

bartosimpsonio said:

In the June update thread I posted a graphic that showed steep losses for a big site. I mentioned that they were targeting financial sites.

One of my client sites is cryptocurrency and finance related and lost 90%. I thought it was a penalty but it's not.

Now the news is official. Most crypto sites were targeted and the one I mentioned there, without citing its name, is shutting down.

Right when Facebook is coming out with their own cryptocurrency. Hmm.

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/tiny/ccn-is-closing-and-says-google-is-to-blame/

Click to expand...

People's years or months of hard work has been thrown into the gutter really sad , hope they have other source of income

Thanks for this info. I never knew about this but actually noticed a steep loss of traffic on my crypto site too. :/

The Big G strikes again.

Sherb said:

Good. CCN was full of pure misinformation and fear-mongering, and its articles would reach heavily into financial news for the stock market. It's site was becoming so powerful that it would consistently rank higher in Google News for relevant financial terms than actual financial news counterparts. It was the difference between "S&P 500 rises 1.5% on promise Fed will assist in economic downturns resulting from tariffs - WSJ.com" and "S&P 500 experiences highly inflated rise after week of downturn, skeptical announcement from Powell, Bitcoin boom continues - CCN.com" when Googling "S&P 500".

This is likely less an effect of the Google update and more an effect on crypto's unpredictability. If you look in Ahrefs, "cryptocoinnews.com" purchased CCN.com and started moving things over in January 2018ish and things took off from there. With a purchase of an LLL.com occurring around the same time as cryptocurrency's all time high, they likely did a massive wave of hiring in that same timeframe. If you check their estimated organic traffic, it did not grow on average after that time period, save for a few spikes, when a pump occurred.

If you bet on things only rising in popularity (which crypto arguably has done nothing but drop and stay at those low levels for 18 months now) and they don't, and you spent a good amount of money on marketing, hiring and more betting that it will, I have a strong feeling that they were bleeding money and are conveniently failing to mention this. Nobody cares about crypto any more, save for some holdouts in this bubble we call the Internet. Look here: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today 5-y&q=cryptocurrency. Sure, that data comes from Google, but it's their trend data and the information behind it is pretty transparent.

Everything crypto touches is nothing but a gamble. Everything is all talk and no walk, and when something goes belly-up, "founders" will always look for someone else to blame besides themselves and their lack of insight. Especially if it's "the man", in this case Google. Sites like CCN have been digging their own grave and building their own coffins for 18 months now. Google just provided the mechanism needed to lower the coffin into the hole. And now they go running for people like you to throw your handful of dirt into the hole.

Click to expand...

But if that were the case then why did it fall 90% after this specific update? If crypto was getting forgotten and nobody searches for it, then their traffic would have collapsed before, not exactly on the update. On the contrary, their traffic was growing constantly as per ahrefs and semrush estimates.

Google took action against several large crypto sites, not just CCN. Which shows it wasn't targetted at that site, but at that niche instead.

I suspect Google is getting into the crypto game. We'll find out soon.

hibr3d said:

Bye bye fake news, am I right? :'D
Big fish ate some plankton
edit: it is ccn not cnn, my bad lmao

Click to expand...

And CNN is not fake news either.

bartosimpsonio said:

And CNN is not fake news either.

Click to expand...

If US president declared it, it should be.

bartosimpsonio said:

But if that were the case then why did it fall 90% after this specific update? If crypto was getting forgotten and nobody searches for it, then their traffic would have collapsed before, not exactly on the update. On the contrary, their traffic was growing constantly as per ahrefs and semrush estimates.

Google took action against several large crypto sites, not just CCN. Which shows it wasn't targetted at that site, but at that niche instead.

I suspect Google is getting into the crypto game. We'll find out soon.



And CNN is not fake news either.

Click to expand...

It wasn't fake it presented a one sided argument. Through the beginning of the bear market they would have headlines clipping the news about a turn around or what people who invest in in 2010-2013 thought about the future. “Bitcoins path to 1,000,000...” “Funstrat says 100,000 by the end of the year” as crypto fell from the sky.

hibr3d said:

If US president declared it, it should be.

Click to expand...

Nope. That's not how it works.

on1 said:

It wasn't fake it presented a one sided argument. Through the beginning of the bear market they would have headlines clipping the news about a turn around or what people who invest in in 2010-2013 thought about the future. “Bitcoins path to 1,000,000...” “Funstrat says 100,000 by the end of the year” as crypto fell from the sky.

Click to expand...

They simply covered what some were saying, no? It wasn't CCN making things up, they were reporting that personalities like McAfee were predicting a million dollar Bitcoin.