Helpful Content Update -- What are you doing

kyuuk

kyuuk

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I lost like 70-80% of my traffic after years of top rankings and >100k pv/month...

I feel like all my content was pretty good -- there was a bit of thin articles that I've removed but traffic has just kept declining.

I'm personally pivoting to aff marketing w/ paid ads and just kinda waiting for a future algorithm update that might bring my site back to even half of its old life.


Anybody else hit by the HCU what are you doing?
 
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I am doing noting as it didn't hit me. Key is not to stop and keep adding content.
 
kyuuk said:
I lost like 70-80% of my traffic after years of top rankings and >100k pv/month...

I feel like all my content was pretty good -- there was a bit of thin articles that I've removed but traffic has just kept declining.

I'm personally pivoting to aff marketing w/ paid ads and just kinda waiting for a future algorithm update that might bring my site back to even half of its old life.


Anybody else hit by the HCU what are you doing?
Click to expand...
Removing the pages with thin content and publishing new content is recommended. I also tried to minimize it through resolving indexing issues that I found in GSC because there were lots of pages under "crawled but not indexed" which I think were mostly because of less amount of unique content in them.
Though the traffic has not recovered to even 50% yet, following this thread to get more tips...
 
Never stop try different options, while waiting for potential changes in Google's algorithm to bring back some of your site's old traffic.
 
kyuuk said:
I lost like 70-80% of my traffic after years of top rankings and >100k pv/month...

I feel like all my content was pretty good -- there was a bit of thin articles that I've removed but traffic has just kept declining.

I'm personally pivoting to aff marketing w/ paid ads and just kinda waiting for a future algorithm update that might bring my site back to even half of its old life.


Anybody else hit by the HCU what are you doing?
Click to expand...
How long are your articles normally and what's the website's category and geo?

I'm seeing an uptick in traffic now, even to the point where I'm actually surprised that I'm getting pages indexed in minutes.
 
malayan said:
How long are your articles normally and what's the website's category and geo?

I'm seeing an uptick in traffic now, even to the point where I'm actually surprised that I'm getting pages indexed in minutes.
Click to expand...
2000+ words

90% US traffic

Don't want to say category but it was a very high RPM category. Not YMYL.


I'm seeing reports of other people saying they're seeing traffic bumps just yesterday and today -- i'm patiently waiting. Will report back if I see anything.
 
brettsteven84 said:
Removing the pages with thin content and publishing new content is recommended. I also tried to minimize it through resolving indexing issues that I found in GSC because there were lots of pages under "crawled but not indexed" which I think were mostly because of less amount of unique content in them.
Though the traffic has not recovered to even 50% yet, following this thread to get more tips...
Click to expand...
Yeah I removed all the thin content. Pretty much everything is/was indexed but even my super thin pages that I only intended for people on my email list to click were being indexed... so i can see how that content was not helpful in google's eyes...

but still, it's been like 2 months and it's just kept going down. I'm hoping these fixes will get noticed soon (if that's even my issue)
 
I'm exploring stuff like pinterest but it's a long uphill battle for me when i've had years of AMAZING rankings... makes me want to just jump to paid aff.
BlackShield said:
Never stop try different options, while waiting for potential changes in Google's algorithm to bring back some of your site's old traffic.
Click to expand...
 
IM Dude said:
I am doing noting as it didn't hit me. Key is not to stop and keep adding content.
Click to expand...
Would you mind sharing what is your top priority in content addition? And specific things you like to focus on? I'm not strictly talking about blog post structure, but also about website structure.
 
Alex_1729 said:
Would you mind sharing what is your top priority in content addition? And specific things you like to focus on? I'm not strictly talking about blog post structure, but also about website structure.
Click to expand...
Wondering the same here. Are links a big focus?

I've been one of those "just focus on content and you'll get links"

but i'm now getting beat out by HUGE sites...

Everybody else in my niche has been DESTROYED (>90% traffic gone)... this is not a niche that only large sites should be able to rank for.... it's pretty "personable" and the type of thing that you'd want to read from "someone with experience" which all my competitors (and me) clearly had.... can't say the same for the large sites (who are just writing for SEO clearly and have the same post format)
 
Alex_1729 said:
Would you mind sharing what is your top priority in content addition? And specific things you like to focus on? I'm not strictly talking about blog post structure, but also about website structure.
Click to expand...
Noting doing anything specific to pages but I should to gain more authority. I focus on keywords research everything else is downstream.
 
What is your content strategy for new articles now on the site ? Have you also moved to AI now ?
 
As the name of this update suggests, you have to improve the content on the site. In some niches like health, if you are not a professional, you cannot rank at any cost now.
 
Instead of removing, try adding in depth content and try to build links for your site. Patience is the key.
 
kyuuk said:
I lost like 70-80% of my traffic after years of top rankings and >100k pv/month...

I feel like all my content was pretty good -- there was a bit of thin articles that I've removed but traffic has just kept declining.

I'm personally pivoting to aff marketing w/ paid ads and just kinda waiting for a future algorithm update that might bring my site back to even half of its old life.


Anybody else hit by the HCU what are you doing?
Click to expand...
Did you own multiple websites and have they all got affected ? If yes, was the content quality same on all websites.
 
achiever2011 said:
Did you own multiple websites and have they all got affected ? If yes, was the content quality same on all websites.
Click to expand...
one site.

the worst part is what has worked for many of us for YEARS is now what we're NOT supposed to do...

rewriting my entire site seems pretty unreasonable... HCU classifier seems site-wide so even when I improve my top posts, i dont see any changes
 
Consider revamping your content strategy to focus on EAT. Experimenting with affiliate marketing is a smart move; it’s less dependent on search traffic volume and more about targeted, high-intent traffic.
 
maxmayer said:
Consider revamping your content strategy to focus on EAT. Experimenting with affiliate marketing is a smart move; it’s less dependent on search traffic volume and more about targeted, high-intent traffic.
Click to expand...
Yeah on one hand I think EEAT is bullshit and links are really the main factor... but it definitely can't hurt.
 
kyuuk said:
I lost like 70-80% of my traffic after years of top rankings and >100k pv/month...

I feel like all my content was pretty good -- there was a bit of thin articles that I've removed but traffic has just kept declining.

I'm personally pivoting to aff marketing w/ paid ads and just kinda waiting for a future algorithm update that might bring my site back to even half of its old life.


Anybody else hit by the HCU what are you doing?
Click to expand...
I have a suggestion for you when creating content, target users instead of bots, it will highlight the content of the pass to others.
 
Peter Crouch said:
I have a suggestion for you when creating content, target users instead of bots, it will highlight the content of the pass to others.
Click to expand...
it does target users and is written in plain conversational english

it is "seo optimized" but that was what you needed to do to rank for the past YEARS

the content isn't just bs spam
 
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