The Hardest Hit Website From The Last Update

HenryObi

HenryObi

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I used to know a guy that worked with the guys behind this site he was their graphics designer but he's no longer with them. I checked earlier when the update was beginning to roll out, the site was down from 1.2 million to 130k but right now it is at 13k organic traffic according to semrush.

The site basically went from 1.2 million to 13k+.

I would go look for another job if I were the owner.
Screenshot 2022-06-11 at 08.01.46.png

Do you know anysite worse hit?
 
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I got hit too. Many sites totally wiped out. 2 remaining but with only 50% of keywords ranking remaining. Some warned me that Google will make the remaining disappear soon... It is just a matter of time.

Anyway, I've been following Google's twitter accounts and their forum thread... You get to read many sad stories there.

Tweets:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1529488907502505984
https://twitter.com/x/status/1534803662802935809

Google forum:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/thread/164906639
Or just check out SERoundTable's comment section:
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-may-2022-core-update-33482.htmlhttps://www.seroundtable.com/google-may-2022-core-update-done-rolling-out-33562.html
Some even said they worked hard on their site for 3-4 years but lost everything in just a few nights of the update.

Another said they've been in this SEO game for nearly 15 years with tons of content and have survived many updates, but just this update wiped out nearly everything.

It is really unbelievable, really.

Even my years in the SEO game, I've never seen such a crazy core update ever. As I try to analyze my sites, I can't seem to find the exact cause or the reason why all of them got hit. Then again, I am still waiting for the update to settle first before I get into some real analysis.

All I know is, people who used PBN backlinks survived or even thrived during and after the update. Kinda makes you think twice about your approach in SEO now.
 
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while I feel bad I saw a post here which said Semrush showed traffic down but the site was infact getting traffic so i hope site owner situation is same
 
HenryObi said:
I used to know a guy that worked with the guys behind this site he was their graphics designer but he's no longer with them. I checked earlier when the update was beginning to roll out, the site was down from 1.2 million to 130k but right now it is at 13k organic traffic according to semrush.

The site basically went from 1.2 million to 13k+.

I would go look for another job if I were the owner.
View attachment 214016

Do you know anysite worse hit?
Click to expand...
Damn! I would love to study their backlink profile.

I'm assuming their target market is the US - how much organic traffic did they lose from just the US?
 
I'd be more interested to see which sites replaced the penalized ones? Are they big brands, or some other affiliate sites / blogs?
 
Project Limitless said:
2.6m backlinks? Makes me wonder if they were bought on fiverr or from lady gaga?!
Click to expand...
Lots of site have such backlinks and they rank good. If your site starts to rank high, you automatically begin to gain lots of backlinks both high quality and useless. So, it's nothing special why would you think it's because of those backlinks?


This owner of the website has lots of staff producing content for this site and other websites they have. I knew someone working with them in the past before he left.

Do you know any site worse hit?

This website lost about 99% of it's traffic.
 
Mr Positive said:
while I feel bad I saw a post here which said Semrush showed traffic down but the site was infact getting traffic so i hope site owner situation is same
Click to expand...
I doubt It's the case. All sites I have access to, have data conforming to what Semrush is showing. Only slightly off. So I believe same with this.
 
rankpowerhouse said:
Damn! I would love to study their backlink profile.

I'm assuming their target market is the US - how much organic traffic did they lose from just the US?
Click to expand...
Yes, their number 1 target is the US and weirdly Germany. They went from 420k total keywords to 17k keywords for the US, of this 420k 10k were in the top 3 while 35k were between position 4 to 10. Right now it is just 192 in the top 3 and 800+ in position 4 to 10.



For Germany, they went from 35k total keywords down to 1.7k.


Unfortunately, I can't provide the URL of the site due to obvious reasons.
 
tazarbm said:
I'd be more interested to see which sites replaced the penalized ones? Are they big brands, or some other affiliate sites / blogs?
Click to expand...
Screenshot 2022-06-11 at 11.15.25.png

The above are some of the keywords it lost.

The sites replacing it are all big and well known and big sites. But sometimes they are just forums like reddit, quora, news website.
 
AliceInSEOLand said:
Another said they've been in this SEO game for nearly 15 years with tons of content and have survived many updates, but just this update wiped out nearly everything.
Click to expand...
This update is the first update to hit me, mildly but it's still painful. 8 year old site.
OK... I know I need to improve some things (working on them atm) and add more content (work in progress).
But it's still painful.
 
HenryObi said:
Lots of site have such backlinks and they rank good. If your site starts to rank high, you automatically begin to gain lots of backlinks both high quality and useless. So, it's nothing special why would you think it's because of those backlinks?
Click to expand...
That's exactly the reason I ask people about their backlinks.
People love saying that they have the best content and yet 0 links... it's impossible.
Once you rank, people will link to you as an authority on that topic and that's why I get forum links and links from guest posts for free... just because I rank.

PS: if you're a designer or theme programmer... it's natural to have shitload of links... just look at BHW footer.
 
AliceInSEOLand said:
I got hit too. Many sites totally wiped out. 2 remaining but with only 50% of keywords ranking remaining. Some warned me that Google will make the remaining disappear soon... It is just a matter of time.

Anyway, I've been following Google's twitter accounts and their forum thread... You get to read many sad stories there.

Tweets:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1529488907502505984
https://twitter.com/x/status/1534803662802935809

Google forum:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/thread/164906639
Or just check out SERoundTable's comment section:
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-may-2022-core-update-33482.htmlhttps://www.seroundtable.com/google-may-2022-core-update-done-rolling-out-33562.html
Some even said they worked hard on their site for 3-4 years but lost everything in just a few nights of the update.

Another said they've been in this SEO game for nearly 15 years with tons of content and have survived many updates, but just this update wiped out nearly everything.

It is really unbelievable, really.

Even my years in the SEO game, I've never seen such a crazy core update ever. As I try to analyze my sites, I can't seem to find the exact cause or the reason why all of them got hit. Then again, I am still waiting for the update to settle first before I get into some real analysis.

All I know is, people who used PBN backlinks survived or even thrived during and after the update. Kinda makes you think twice about your approach in SEO now.
Click to expand...
I'm still chocked by this update aswell, and the worst part is I see lot of pbn and expired domain with trash content doing very well
 
HenryObi said:
I used to know a guy that worked with the guys behind this site he was their graphics designer but he's no longer with them. I checked earlier when the update was beginning to roll out, the site was down from 1.2 million to 130k but right now it is at 13k organic traffic according to semrush.

The site basically went from 1.2 million to 13k+.

I would go look for another job if I were the owner.
View attachment 214016

Do you know anysite worse hit?
Click to expand...


what is their primary niche?
 
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