Sites with Generatepress penalized by Google?

my sites are using generatepress, and ezoic,
Will turn off ezoic and use google auto ads this month, lets see if ezoic is dragging the site down

I've noticed GeneratePress reacts strangely with certain SEO plugins.

pepeneo said:

my sites are using generatepress, and ezoic,
Will turn off ezoic and use google auto ads this month, lets see if ezoic is dragging the site down

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Good luck. Let me know.

dandan594594 said:

I've noticed GeneratePress reacts strangely with certain SEO plugins.

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Like Yoast?

Never used Yoast, too bloated. I know The SEO Framework is one that I had trouble with.

All in One SEO seems fine. Other plugins could also conflict.

Everyone rushed to accommodate Elementor and other page builders, and maybe this is the root cause.

I am not big advocate for Google and their BS, but I really don't think they'd penalize websites who just simply use some specific framework, or some ad network.

What you are having is a classic symptom of correlation, not causation. You are seeing many websites who use that framework losing traffic, so you are assuming that must be why. But just because there's a correlation between those things, doesn't mean there's causation.

Most niche websites have lost traffic over the last few months, and that's simply the case because Google is looking to promote these sites less and less, and try to steer in a different direction (towards UGC)

The obvious correlation we can make is that: many of punished websites are made by a template (like GeneratePress), especially the cheaper ones, and those also tend to lack in authority, such as quality backlinks etc. Sites that have lack of authority have lost a ton of traffic, often a lot more than those that do have some. Also, such websites tend to use the worst ad networks - such as Ezoic because they can't get accepted into better ones. Plus, they put too many ads as they likely have less traffic/less potential and want to maximize earnings with a single click, leading to a worse UX. Again, these are all indicators of low quality websites, which are the websites that Google is obviously after.

I don't think it is because of a specific theme or ad network. Of course ads can negatively affect the UX.

Maybe it seems like it but it is probably just because the website types all use e.g. generatepress and ezoic.

By website types i mean BLOGS with no brand, no services and no products. Google clearly moves towards a brand entity.

Of course, now Google searches for brands and I understood that. Although I do think Ezoic can be a big culprit.

Alf85 said:

Since the core update in September, I have been looking for patterns of why my sites with authority and organic traffic lost almost 80% of the traffic. The sites have authors, date, author box, breadcrumbs, categories, authority, retention, etc. Almost all the traffic was from Google.

The only thing that I think may have been responsible is:

Generatepress
Ezoic

Reviewing many similar sites that use Generatepress I saw that they lost traffic, but other sites with other templates did not lose or maintain.

Does anyone use Generatepress and saw the same thing?

Ezoic is another topic because it's complete crap and I'll go away but for now it's better than nothing.

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Thanks for sharing , I heard from lot of clients the same using generated press they have lost traffic

I use generatepress

I don't think there is any link between GeneratePress and the recent update. Ezoic's aggressive advertising can lead to slower website loading times, negatively impacting user experience and potentially triggering penalties in the recent update.

I use GP for a magazine, it got hit, but now its improving and getting back as well.

So keep your site simple and not too many plugins or ads..

Hey guys. You on this forum should know this best. Nothing is certain in SEO: some websites go down, others go up. To the topic creator: get better links. As long as the main Google doesn't link to you, there's still something else you can do Merry Christmas.

goldin.pl said:

Hey guys. You on this forum should know this best. Nothing is certain in SEO: some websites go down, others go up. To the topic creator: get better links. As long as the main Google doesn't link to you, there's still something else you can do Merry Christmas.

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Ah I see another self proclaimed SEO expert has joined the discussion.
I have been doing SEO for more than 15 years, this is not a side gig for me, its a business.
The past few updates are hammering certain sites, and reddit quora and similar sites are taking their place. Since forever user generated content was the bottom of the barrel in the eyes of google, but in these updates, google made a 180 and decided that these sites should rank.

It is not normal for an entire category of websites to be penalized, when in fact they are the actual experts and not bob from reddit with his hentai avatar and EEAT established with "trust me bro"

"To the topic creator: get better links" these updates or penalties have nothing to do with links.

"As long as the main Google doesn't link to you" wtf does that even mean?

I have 4 sites in the same niche..only different content..different hostings for each site.. 2 of them had generatepress theme and both got f*cked up. The other 2 are fine .

In some way I was thinking the same...but there is no justification for the theme to be the cause..it doesnt have any wrong code on it....

Hmm that's an interesting theory. I agree that I don't think the theme has any issues code wise and is solid. But I wonder if more in more as AI comes into use if it's using that theme as one factor or rating quality. It's hard to say with such little data but maybe using generate press + your niche is used by a lot of low quality sites and so other sites are getting caught up in that judgement even though there is nothing wrong with the theme. You also are using Ezoic though which from my experience working on a lot of sites has it's own SEO/page speed issues. It also does that funky Proxy so maybe that plays in as well?

@Alf85 +1 !
I have many websites with generatepress, but most of my revenues come from only 1 website (also with GP theme), that on the last 10 years was always on top 3 positions of the Serp. It's partially black hat, but it survived to all the algo updates of the last 10 years. But... unfortunately from the update of last december 2022 (helpful content update) it crashed and it's always dancing from #20 to #30 position. I tried to fix all the possible reasons, now that you are talking of the WP Theme I will try to change theme, just to see if it matters. Maybe not, but it doesn't cost anything to try.
Thanks for the hint

Alf85 said:

Since the core update in September, I have been looking for patterns of why my sites with authority and organic traffic lost almost 80% of the traffic. The sites have authors, date, author box, breadcrumbs, categories, authority, retention, etc. Almost all the traffic was from Google.

The only thing that I think may have been responsible is:

Generatepress
Ezoic

Reviewing many similar sites that use Generatepress I saw that they lost traffic, but other sites with other templates did not lose or maintain.

Does anyone use Generatepress and saw the same thing?

Ezoic is another topic because it's complete crap and I'll go away but for now it's better than nothing.

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Quite a lot of websites were affected by the update. Since generate press is a very popular and widely used framework, the chances that a sizable portion of those penalized were using GP is very high. So, it may just be correlation that isn't causation.

HenryObi said:

Quite a lot of websites were affected by the update. Since generate press is a very popular and widely used framework, the chances that a sizable portion of those penalized were using GP is very high. So, it may just be correlation that isn't causation.

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I think so, the friend does not tell us if his content is artificial intelligence. unfortunately ezoic throws the performance of the site on mobile phones, this might be a factor.

Ezoic is the main issue. Traffic was steadily increasing until I joined Ezoic. Since then, it has been on a downward curve.

Has anyone here used ezoic ( using ezoic nameservers) for a few months (during which time traffic dropped considerably) and then reverted back to the original hosting nameservers and seen any improvement in traffic? Or who switched from ezoic to adsense and felt a recovery of lost traffic?

Alf85 said:

Since the core update in September, I have been looking for patterns of why my sites with authority and organic traffic lost almost 80% of the traffic. The sites have authors, date, author box, breadcrumbs, categories, authority, retention, etc. Almost all the traffic was from Google.

The only thing that I think may have been responsible is:

Generatepress
Ezoic

Reviewing many similar sites that use Generatepress I saw that they lost traffic, but other sites with other templates did not lose or maintain.

Does anyone use Generatepress and saw the same thing?

Ezoic is another topic because it's complete crap and I'll go away but for now it's better than nothing.

Click to expand...

I've analyzed my sites extensively since the September core update, trying to identify the pattern behind the massive 80% drop in traffic to my high-authority, organically driven websites. Despite adding key elements like authors, dates, author boxes, breadcrumbs, and categories, Google's major source of traffic has been significantly reduced. In particular, I've seen a similar decline in sites using GeneratePress, raising concerns about its impact on traffic. Additionally, dissatisfaction with Ezoic is prompting me to seek alternatives despite its current use."