How to Recover if you were hit by the 2024 March HCU : A Strategy I haven't seen discussed anywhere

I thought I'd replace some of the old sticky threads across the forum with new ones that were featured in the newsletter, so I stickied this thread.

Thank you for sharing with the community. :)
 
The only way to recover is to replace a domain name with a new one and 301 every page.
 
people's takeaway from this helpful guide: buy business site to migrate your banned content to, because only business sites are ranking / will rank soon...

my takeaway 1: google's on a mission to blacklist all domains on the internet unless they're real businesses
my takeaway 2: parasites in suits (businessmen) that never produce anything only understand, like and reward their own kin

PS: really good guide, though! Well done OP! Regardless of what I think of google (which is very obvious) these tips are great
What is a business site?
i'm new to blogging
 
Do i have to remove/deindex old site from google and other search engines? If yes how can i do it?
 
What is a business site?
i'm new to blogging
in this context, I was probably referring to sites that belong to businesses (ie. companies that sell something). If your site is about colouring books (just an example) and you just want to teach kids how to colour books you're not selling anything from your site google doesn't like you because google have been nursed to $$$ so they only like, understand and prefer people with money to rank in their SERPs, and businesses / companies do have money, therefore google will like them and favor them in their SE.

In less words, have an ecom site...
 
in this context, I was probably referring to sites that belong to businesses (ie. companies that sell something). If your site is about colouring books (just an example) and you just want to teach kids how to colour books you're not selling anything from your site google doesn't like you because google have been nursed to $$$ so they only like, understand and prefer people with money to rank in their SERPs, and businesses / companies do have money, therefore google will like them and favor them in their SE.

In less words, have an ecom site...
Oh i see
But then, wouldn't this business site sell for outragious prices or not be willing to sell at all?
 
Oh i see
But then, wouldn't this business site sell for outragious prices or not be willing to sell at all?
I don't know, it depends on the negotiations between buyer and seller I guess... But if the value is there I'm pretty sure it would sell because there are still people with truckloads of money :)
 
I don't know, it depends on the negotiations between buyer and seller I guess... But if the value is there I'm pretty sure it would sell because there are still people with truckloads of money :)
You're correct
Are you a blogger?
 
You're correct
Are you a blogger?
I was a blogger until 2021, right not I'm not involved in SEO anymore (yay, freedom!)... well, besides the fact that I keep up with the updates cause I have to in order to be able to provide accurate replies on the forum, but otherwise I don't care about SEO for the next 2-3 years.

But when google disappears (as a search engine I mean, otherwise I don't care too much about them), I will probably be back because old habits don't go away easily :)
 
I did some research to see if anyone has successfully recovered from HCU (Helpful Content Update) and found some surprising insights.

Currently, a successful strategy involves buying a site that represents a real business and front-loading it with the content from the domain that was hit. According to a Google SEO leak, there appears to be a classifier for small publishers, making it futile to attempt traditional SEO tactics for recovery if your domain has been blacklisted.

I wanted to share this information as I’ve learned a lot from the forum.

Example:

Petkeen.com was severely impacted, dropping from a peak of 8 million visitors to just 2,000. Their recovery strategy? They bought an existing website of a real business in their niche, preferably one that is over 12 years old, and transferred all their content to the new site. For instance, they acquired Pangovet.com, added all the content from Petkeen.com, and on June 29, 2024, had zero traffic. However, within 12 days, according to SEMrush, their traffic surged to nearly 500,000.

You can see the details here: https://www.semrush.com/analytics/overview/?searchType=domain&q=https%3A%2F%2Fpangovet.com%2F.

They've employed the same strategy with other domains like Dogster.com, and it seems to be the only way to recover. I plan to try this with a domain of mine that was hit.
The site got hit again. It went up to 3.5m traffic, and then all the way down to 1m per month. There are a ton of issues with their SEO, and that's why they lose. Usually, the culprit is their content, but they just wanted to migrate it.
 
I was a blogger until 2021, right not I'm not involved in SEO anymore (yay, freedom!)... well, besides the fact that I keep up with the updates cause I have to in order to be able to provide accurate replies on the forum, but otherwise I don't care about SEO for the next 2-3 years.

But when google disappears (as a search engine I mean, otherwise I don't care too much about them), I will probably be back because old habits don't go away easily :)
Oh wow, i'm new to the whole blogging thing, i gave up for some time but i'm back fully
why did you stop blogging/
 
Oh wow, i'm new to the whole blogging thing, i gave up for some time but i'm back fully
why did you stop blogging/
many reasons...

1) I was born with lower energy levels than most people, so I get tired / exhausted faster than others, and SEO was consuming every little bit of energy that I had, so I had to stop, especially since I was a one man army doing everything for very little in return because SEO has become too hard and too expensive for non-tech savvy people like me. I had to do niche + keyword research, site planning and building, content research and writing, link building.... I had to do everything myself and I couldn't keep up

To put things into perspective, when writing content a 600-700 words article (on topics that at least I had some interest in, you can imagine how much it would take me to make content on topics that I had no interest in) would take me 5-6 hours to research, plan out, write, and edit. And - given my low energy levels - after 5 hours I would already be burnt out and sick of research / writing to the point that I'd need a 1 week long break to recover and get back on track (and English is not my main language either, which would make things even worse for me if I wanted to rank in English speaking markets, which is where I've always focused my efforts)...

2) as I already mentioned, SEO has become too expensive and too techy for people like me (not friends with technology). Nowadays you gotta know a lot of technical stuff ("thanks to" google who pushes everyone into becoming retarded robots like their retarded algorithm) in order to rank. Back in 2010 when I used to rank it was easy: slam PLR content (unedited too, mind you) on your site and submit 10 articles to EZA = get rankings, traffic and money. But since then everything's gone downhill (except for the costs involved with SEO which have gone uphill), so I had to quit as I couldn't keep up, both mentally and financially.

3) some years ago I undertook a project that I gotta finish next year, and that project is already consuming big part of my time and mental energy, so I had to give up one of these 2 (SEO or this project) in order to have enough time and energy for the other one. So, I chose to quit SEO...

4) I saw the direction in which SEO is heading (more time spent to please google just for google to steal your content and show you the middle finger + more google updates than you can adapt to + more technical knowledge that you have to master and get comfortable with before google makes the next jump in technology, thus forcing everyone to adapt again) under google's monopoly, so I didn't see much sense in slaving my life away for a retarded american company that dictates foreign governments what to do with their own people, which is outrageous and infuriating for someone like me (naturally born righteous and kind person, I can't stand crooks, thieves, money worshippers, and scumbags in general, and these traits are very frequent in "successful" "people" of our society that would have no success in a normal society). So, once again, I can't adapt (nor do I want to) to google's behaviour-manipulation machine. These fuckers are more perverse than most people know and notice, they work hand in hand with the governments and the american MIC to re-shape everyone's mentality and behaviours.... maybe their influence has diminished a little, but the effects of their psychological attacks are still present and will continue to linger for years even after google disappears (if they ever will)...

Anyway, TL:DR.... I can't keep up mentally and financially with google's de-humanizing machine, and I also have a bigger priority in life...
 
many reasons...

1) I was born with lower energy levels than most people, so I get tired / exhausted faster than others, and SEO was consuming every little bit of energy that I had, so I had to stop, especially since I was a one man army doing everything for very little in return because SEO has become too hard and too expensive for non-tech savvy people like me. I had to do niche + keyword research, site planning and building, content research and writing, link building.... I had to do everything myself and I couldn't keep up

To put things into perspective, when writing content a 600-700 words article (on topics that at least I had some interest in, you can imagine how much it would take me to make content on topics that I had no interest in) would take me 5-6 hours to research, plan out, write, and edit. And - given my low energy levels - after 5 hours I would already be burnt out and sick of research / writing to the point that I'd need a 1 week long break to recover and get back on track (and English is not my main language either, which would make things even worse for me if I wanted to rank in English speaking markets, which is where I've always focused my efforts)...

2) as I already mentioned, SEO has become too expensive and too techy for people like me (not friends with technology). Nowadays you gotta know a lot of technical stuff ("thanks to" google who pushes everyone into becoming retarded robots like their retarded algorithm) in order to rank. Back in 2010 when I used to rank it was easy: slam PLR content (unedited too, mind you) on your site and submit 10 articles to EZA = get rankings, traffic and money. But since then everything's gone downhill (except for the costs involved with SEO which have gone uphill), so I had to quit as I couldn't keep up, both mentally and financially.

3) some years ago I undertook a project that I gotta finish next year, and that project is already consuming big part of my time and mental energy, so I had to give up one of these 2 (SEO or this project) in order to have enough time and energy for the other one. So, I chose to quit SEO...

4) I saw the direction in which SEO is heading (more time spent to please google just for google to steal your content and show you the middle finger + more google updates than you can adapt to + more technical knowledge that you have to master and get comfortable with before google makes the next jump in technology, thus forcing everyone to adapt again) under google's monopoly, so I didn't see much sense in slaving my life away for a retarded american company that dictates foreign governments what to do with their own people, which is outrageous and infuriating for someone like me (naturally born righteous and kind person, I can't stand crooks, thieves, money worshippers, and scumbags in general, and these traits are very frequent in "successful" "people" of our society that would have no success in a normal society). So, once again, I can't adapt (nor do I want to) to google's behaviour-manipulation machine. These fuckers are more perverse than most people know and notice, they work hand in hand with the governments and the american MIC to re-shape everyone's mentality and behaviours.... maybe their influence has diminished a little, but the effects of their psychological attacks are still present and will continue to linger for years even after google disappears (if they ever will)...

Anyway, TL:DR.... I can't keep up mentally and financially with google's de-humanizing machine, and I also have a bigger priority in life...
oh wow, I see, quite an epistle you wrote here man. Thank you for sharing.
 
The site got hit again. It went up to 3.5m traffic, and then all the way down to 1m per month. There are a ton of issues with their SEO, and that's why they lose. Usually, the culprit is their content, but they just wanted to migrate it.
To avoid questions, and unwanted attention from somebody, here's a newbie explanation of how to actually handle such scenarios:
  1. Get a new domain (not an aged one), which has 0 in all metrics.
  2. Hide the old website with a banner (coming soon or we have closed doors) - doesn't matter.
  3. Review the content and create a topical map - For example, topical clusters are a great way to link content.
  4. Check the keywords you are competing for - For a new site it's best to follow something like the Avalanche SEO
  5. Rewrite your content - Of course, search engines can see content, that was taken from another site, especially, deleted sites, and they don't like it (doesn't seem original)
    5.1 Rewriting the content should happen by checking the top 3,5, or even 10 ranked competitors. Make your content similar to theirs, but also add information, which was useful before (add it at the bottom, just to show what worked before, which sometimes is helpful). For example, fixing issues with Microsoft Outlook. Some old issue fixes still work nowadays (even the dumb ones).
  6. Publish 10-15 blog posts, which are semantically relevant to 1 topic only.
  7. Now start pushing 1-2 articles per week
  8. Closely monitor the statistics of the site, and wait for a core update. They come every season so you should have a slow and steady built site.
  9. If Search Engines like what you are doing - great now you can go to the next level and double the content production.
  10. The next update comes > double that as well.
  11. After the 3rd update, start working on refreshing the content, which has lost positions, and impressions. Perfect for positions 5-20.

    Got posts, that rank well, but don't get that many impressions? No problems
    Got posts that don't rank well, but get many impressions? I'd rather delete them, rather than rewrite, them because I need quick rankings. Maybe my authority is low.

    During this period I do links btw:

    The links I would recommend doing are foundational + niche edits + some parasites like LinkedIn, Outlook India, and Medium.

    You can do more from here: https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/guides-hot-unpopular-parasites-part-two.1240859/

    My ratio is per 500 visitors, because if you get 0 visitors, how do people who want to link to you find you?

    For foundational links, you don't need visitors. Just get the profile, forum, and listing links.

    For niche edits, I build 1-2 per 500 people.

    For parasites I publish 1-2 parasites per month for the first 6 months, then go up to 4 parasites per month if I get 5,000 visitors per month.
 
To avoid questions, and unwanted attention from somebody, here's a newbie explanation of how to actually handle such scenarios:
  1. Get a new domain (not an aged one), which has 0 in all metrics.
  2. Hide the old website with a banner (coming soon or we have closed doors) - doesn't matter.
  3. Review the content and create a topical map - For example, topical clusters are a great way to link content.
  4. Check the keywords you are competing for - For a new site it's best to follow something like the Avalanche SEO
  5. Rewrite your content - Of course, search engines can see content, that was taken from another site, especially, deleted sites, and they don't like it (doesn't seem original)
    5.1 Rewriting the content should happen by checking the top 3,5, or even 10 ranked competitors. Make your content similar to theirs, but also add information, which was useful before (add it at the bottom, just to show what worked before, which sometimes is helpful). For example, fixing issues with Microsoft Outlook. Some old issue fixes still work nowadays (even the dumb ones).
  6. Publish 10-15 blog posts, which are semantically relevant to 1 topic only.
  7. Now start pushing 1-2 articles per week
  8. Closely monitor the statistics of the site, and wait for a core update. They come every season so you should have a slow and steady built site.
  9. If Search Engines like what you are doing - great now you can go to the next level and double the content production.
  10. The next update comes > double that as well.
  11. After the 3rd update, start working on refreshing the content, which has lost positions, and impressions. Perfect for positions 5-20.

    Got posts, that rank well, but don't get that many impressions? No problems
    Got posts that don't rank well, but get many impressions? I'd rather delete them, rather than rewrite, them because I need quick rankings. Maybe my authority is low.

    During this period I do links btw:

    The links I would recommend doing are foundational + niche edits + some parasites like LinkedIn, Outlook India, and Medium.

    You can do more from here: https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/guides-hot-unpopular-parasites-part-two.1240859/

    My ratio is per 500 visitors, because if you get 0 visitors, how do people who want to link to you find you?

    For foundational links, you don't need visitors. Just get the profile, forum, and listing links.

    For niche edits, I build 1-2 per 500 people.

    For parasites I publish 1-2 parasites per month for the first 6 months, then go up to 4 parasites per month if I get 5,000 visitors per month.
Hi friend, I think this is great, I saw the parasite post you shared was from 2020, is it still appropriate to use now? Will I be penalized by Google?
 
Hi friend, I think this is great, I saw the parasite post you shared was from 2020, is it still appropriate to use now? Will I be penalized by Google?
Of course! Google can't even fight parasites, and it's a great way to get yourself started, after building and indexing your site.
 
I was a blogger until 2021, right not I'm not involved in SEO anymore (yay, freedom!)... well, besides the fact that I keep up with the updates cause I have to in order to be able to provide accurate replies on the forum, but otherwise I don't care about SEO for the next 2-3 years.

But when google disappears (as a search engine I mean, otherwise I don't care too much about them), I will probably be back because old habits don't go away easily :)
Nice one, but do you know what will happen when (if) Google Disappears?

I believe you know what happens when the Italian Mafia loses its Gang Leader. They fight for the top spot. The same is true when a position is open at a work spot, the same for finding a $1 bill on the ground, and the list goes on.

Back in the day, it was Yahoo, AOL, and others. After these leaders, the big G came with its tyranny.
 
Nice one, but do you know what will happen when (if) Google Disappears?
yes, I know: other scumbags will try to take their place

I believe you know what happens when the Italian Mafia loses its Gang Leader. They fight for the top spot. The same is true when a position is open at a work spot, the same for finding a $1 bill on the ground, and the list goes on.

Back in the day, it was Yahoo, AOL, and others. After these leaders, the big G came with its tyranny.
correct
 
my takeaway 1: google's on a mission to blacklist all domains on the internet unless they're real businesses

How they gonna check if it is a real business? You can use fake details. Google has no power to confirm if the actual business is "real".
They are displaying scam e-commerce websites from shopify in their shopping listings... they can't even control that.
 
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