Another Google algo update rolling out

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   PaulGoodman67posted 20 months ago

   There's a Google core update rolling out. In recent times, these have been generally hitting us negatively. Link below to SE Roundtable for those interested:
   
   http://www.seroundtable.com/google-augu … 35927.html

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      eugbugposted 20 months agoin reply to this

      I think we might be at rock bottom so maybe things can't get any worse (Fingers and toes crossed and touch wood and three Hail Marys). Meanwhile my traffic is improving a bit as kids return to school.

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         PaulGoodman67posted 20 months agoin reply to this

         Yes, things have been improving a little with people returning to work, college, and school after the Summer.
         
         I saw a few unexpected drops, though, not explicable by the normal end-of-the-week fall and that sent me scuttling over to SERoundtable.
         
         Early days, I guess we'll see what happens.
         
         In the past I thought we were at rock bottom but I didn't appreciate how far this site could fall.

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         Bills Placeposted 20 months agoin reply to this

         Out of 52 articles, 98% of my traffic comes from just one article, and it has been that way for a couple of years. I've tried updating, reformating, adding/removing keywords, and changing images in other articles same end results. I got a little excited when several made it to a network site, thinking it would help... It did not.
         
         I've started being more active with publishing a few new Hubs per week to see if that helps any. I got a surge in traffic in the past week, but after investigating, sure enough, it's that same article (and 75% of traffic to it comes from Pintrest).
         
         If only I could replicate the attention on Pinterest across all my Hubs. Ha!

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   eugbugposted 20 months ago

   Actually maybe traffic is dropping. It was high at the beginning of the week. Although when the kids are back, my weekly trend is somewhat different, with a climb up to a peak on Wednesday and a drop off towards the end of the week as they get lazy.
   
   
   

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      PaulGoodman67posted 20 months agoin reply to this

      Traffic's lower than last weekend, that's not explicable by seasonal factors for me. The update is still rolling out, though, so difficult to draw firm conclusions.
      
      My Dengarden stuff, which used to be my best earners, continue to decline. Certain other niches are relatively unscathed.

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         eugbugposted 20 months agoin reply to this

         My Dengarden stuff starts to decline anyway at this time if year to some extent, especially the gardening articles.

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            PaulGoodman67posted 20 months agoin reply to this

            I was meaning more the "den" than the "garden" element. I have articles that used to get over a thousand views/day at one time, now getting well under fifty. Delishably and Owlcation are the same. In fact, most niches are bad.
            
            That's why I've more or less stopped writing here, apart from the article on Hydra, Greece. I maintain and update but don't feel inspired to do much new.
            
            HP editors are still beavering away, which I appreciate, but it doesn't seem to improve traffic in the way that's happened in the past.

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      PaulGoodman67posted 20 months agoin reply to this

      I think I've definitely lost some traffic since last week when it seemed like it was rising.

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         eugbugposted 20 months agoin reply to this

         Looking back, mine seems to be down 25% on several articles. It's currently at 45% the level of what it was last year. So with the low CPMs, I'm earning about 33% of what I did last year. What's frustrating is that I checked one of the DIY articles that has lost rank and there's a similar one on Medium, but the grammar is awful and written by a non-English speaker or generated by AI, proving again that the Google search algorithm can't rank articles by quality. Anyway I gave feedback to Google on it.

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   eugbugposted 20 months ago

   I haven't been writing either because it's just like slinging mud at a wall and most doesn't stick. Anything I've written in the last three years hasn't taken off.

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   jansharesposted 20 months ago

   Ugh! Thanks for the heads up, Paul. Now I really don't know what to do with an article I'm working on. Should I publish it here or on Medium? I'm not earning anything there. At least I still get a few dollars here. It's actually a re-vamp of an article published here (2013) with some editing and additional content. I thought about deleting the HP version and posting a whole new article on Medium. Or should I just edit the existing article here? FYI, it never made it to a niche site, so I don't feel like I'd be losing anything if I deleted it. Or keep it here and post it on Medium? It's still on Hubpages, has a total of 763 views, 5 in the last 30 days. Eugene, I know you just went through something similar. Thoughts? Advice?

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      eugbugposted 20 months agoin reply to this

      Can't you publish it on both platforms and just use a canonical link on Medium? Loss of organic traffic traffic if it loses rank on Medium due to the canonical link won't make as much difference unless those who find it in a search are Medium members.

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         theraggededgeposted 20 months agoin reply to this

         If you do go that way, publish at HP first. Wait till it's featured before publishing at Medium.

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      PaulGoodman67posted 20 months agoin reply to this

      Medium and HP are very different and in my view, each requires a different approach. It generally requires a "horses for courses" approach, IMHO. There isn't much overlap.
      
      I don't think that the canonical link thing generally works out well for that reason. It's more likely to earn you cents rather than dollars.
      
      I've had a few copied articles in the past that worked out and I even experimented with writing stuff that was designed to work at both sites but my overall assessment was that it was a waste of time.
      
      The bigger picture is that both sites aren't good for earnings right now. I don't know what the future is. A lot of people have moved to Substack but I'm not convinced myself.
      
      The good thing with HP is that at least you do continue to earn something, even when the site's doing badly.

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   jansharesposted 20 months ago

   Thanks to all for your advice. I'll publish it here. Then decide about Medium. What I need to do is post something new on Medium to stay active.

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   Kenna McHughposted 20 months ago

   Great thread! My top articles are on Bellatory, Owlcation, Dengarden, Discover, and Deliciously. The revenue dived in August, but July was way up. Now it's picking up again.
   
   Of late, I have the time to write new articles for HP because my clients are dormant. I think it's because of the AI evolution/revolution. That should change soon. Meanwhile, I grab stuff from my files, finish or edit each, then post. That might be the reason for the uptick.
   
   Amazon is better, too. I have changed some of my links to capsules, so that might be a factor.

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      jansharesposted 20 months agoin reply to this

      That's great, Kenna. Hope it's a positive sign of better things to come, albeit temporary.

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   Thomas Swanposted 20 months ago

   Seen a drop overall of 15% this week. Not good. I've decided to stop writing for Owlcation altogether until something is changed (too many ads for an educational website, the spammy "Owlcation news," the grouping of too many niches together). It doesn't look like a site whose primary mission is to educate. It's doing everything wrong. I think most of the drop this week is on HowTheyPlay (sports), however, which was doing well up until now.

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   eugbugposted 20 months ago

   I haven't written anything either for a couple of months. It seems pointless until we can get answers. I have one physics educational article on Owlcation though that has increasing traffic and is doing much better than last year. That's probably because it has its title image in a thumbnail group in the right "About" sidebar. And this image has overlayed text so it stands out, something we're not allowed to do anymore. Hubpages say that title images aren't guaranteed to be selected as the first image that appears in an image search or featured snippet, but my experience is that they are, rather than the ones further down. And possibly also because Google like the text on them and can read and understand it.

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      Sherry Hposted 20 months agoin reply to this

      I think most of the hubbers who once created quality articles regularly have stopped writing here. It makes a bunch of us. This could be affecting the websites all together.
      If we all decide to write an article a week or two weeks perhaps I believe we'll be able to improve the standings of network sites. I know people who pay bills through their hubpages earnings. It'll mean a lot to those people.

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   PaulGoodman67posted 20 months ago

   I was seeing traffic creeping up with the drift back to school/college/work following the summer but that was pretty much neutralized by the algo update. That's effectively a loss of traffic.

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      eugbugposted 20 months agoin reply to this

      Same here. These are the stats for my triangle guide that was my best traffic article. These are 2023 versus 2022 stats. It used to pull in 2500 views per day and now that's down to 250. I split it up into two guides with elementary stuff in another article, but that hasn't taken off, so I might put the two articles back together again.
      
      
      
      

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         PaulGoodman67posted 20 months agoin reply to this

         While it's certainly good to improve individual articles, I do think that the authority of the site(s) as a whole is what's generally dragging things down.
         
         A lot of hard work has gone into improving a few of my own hubs by editors. In the past, that often led to big increases in traffic but I don't see that happening nowadays.
         
         Maybe eventually a tipping point will be reached whereby the editing improvements cause a rise in the niche's authority. I'm assuming that's what the intention is.
         
         However, the recent Google algo-induced falls suggest that we're not there right now and things might get even get worse.

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            eugbugposted 20 months agoin reply to this

            What's frustrating is the way Google still won't or can't rank content based on quality. It just ranks by site. That Medium article I mentioned previously is a good example. It's like something that wouldn't get past Discover here, but just because it's on Medium, it's high in the SERPs. I did an experiment once, putting a teaser for an article on a Hubpages network site on Medium and erecting a roadworks detour sign, rerouting traffic to the network site (It was a roadworks detour photo and I told readers there was site construction work in progress) I got lots of traffic. Unfortunately such behavior is prohibited and against their TOS, so potentially could result in a ban.

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               PaulGoodman67posted 20 months agoin reply to this

               I believe the algo does take into account the quality of the individual article, but since Panda, the authority of the site seems to always trump it.
               
               Remember when they introduced subdomains for everyone? I believe that the idea was that each of us would be treated by Google as individual websites but it didn't work.
               
               I'm seriously considering deleting all the material I have at Medium that was originally published here. I think the canonical link thing is a terrible idea as an article can often rank higher at Medium, where there's little to no benefit from search engine views.
               
               I stopped doing it some time ago but there is historic material there that's still stealing traffic for no good reason. I will likely do that soon, now that Medium are gauging earnings according to "engagement".

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                  eugbugposted 20 months agoin reply to this

                  I'm thinking of doing the same thing because I don't think the canonical link always works properly or may dilute traffic or have other unforseen consequences. I only get about 20 views per day on Medium so the 100 articles or so aren't stealing traffic as such, but it may be affecting the ranking of traffic here or confusing Google.

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                     PaulGoodman67posted 20 months agoin reply to this

                     Yeah, there are virtually no gains and lots of potential problems. It makes no sense.

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                        eugbugposted 20 months agoin reply to this

                        It's just that I setup a home and garden publication there that hasn't taken off yet. I don't really want to give up on it. I know Medium isn't the platform for such content, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be.

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                           PaulGoodman67posted 20 months agoin reply to this

                           Generally speaking, if an article isn't successful at Medium within a couple of weeks or so, it's not going to happen.
                           
                           Medium treats articles like newspaper stories, they're read when they're current (if at all) and then they just become fish and chips wrappers.
                           
                           That's how the internal traffic works, anyway.

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                              eugbugposted 20 months agoin reply to this

                              I have tried promoting articles and the publication on some Facebook groups for Medium members. I'm not sure how many of those there are.

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                                 PaulGoodman67posted 20 months agoin reply to this

                                 There's no unpublish option with Medium, so it's either delete or nothing as far as articles go!

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                                    eugbugposted 20 months agoin reply to this

                                    Medium support told me that articles can be made "unlisted", but I don't know whether that makes them invisible to search engines. I can check because I did that with several articles a few months back.
                                    
                                    Edit: Just checked one of them and it doesn't come up in SERPs.

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                                       PaulGoodman67posted 20 months agoin reply to this

                                       I will maybe try that, at least initially. Just to be on the safe side.
                                       
                                       In other news, my traffic here has reached a new low.

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                                          eugbugposted 20 months agoin reply to this

                                          Mine too. It's as though the algorithm cumulatively punishes sites to make them extinct.

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    PaulGoodman67posted 20 months ago

    PetHelpful is still doing relatively okay, both in authority and views. There are no doubt reasons why the Google algo likes that niche but doesn't care for Owlcation, Delishably, Dengarden, etc...
    
    It's easier for HP to understand why that is, they have all the stats and can get the big picture. Even with ten accounts, my view is still somewhat myopic.

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    eugbugposted 20 months ago

    I'm glad to see title images with text haven't all been changed. If that happens, traffic will likely drop further. I haven't changed many of mine.

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       PaulGoodman67posted 19 months agoin reply to this

       FYI: Further to our conversation earlier in this thread, I unlisted 41 Medium articles at the weekend.
       
       I don't expect it to make a huge difference, most of the articles weren't getting any traffic, but it should make some.

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    PaulGoodman67posted 19 months ago

    According to SE Roundtable today (6th Sept):
    
    "We are expecting Google to announce that the Google August 2023 core update has been completed any minute now. But yesterday, I believe we saw another wave of volatility, maybe the final wave of fluctuations before Google calls this update as being done."

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       Daughter Of Maatposted 19 months agoin reply to this

       That's interesting, because this am I woke up to find traffic on my most popular articles slashed in half. So think HP got hit hard with this one. It's infuriating because I have done a lot of updating, rewriting etc, and actually saw a decent bump in traffic, but now I'm down to levels below what I was getting before I started editing. Aside from launching my own website and moving all my articles there, I'm not sure what to do. I'd hate to do that though because I know Google likes "aged" but updated articles.
       
       It's getting harder and harder to make any income writing online nowadays.

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    eugbugposted 19 months ago

    So is it the lack of authority of the sites rather than ads that's affecting us negatively? Will the "experts" be seen as adding authority to the sites? Will their names and profiles be published on the "Ask an Expert" pages so Google can use them as a ranking factor?

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       PaulGoodman67posted 19 months agoin reply to this

       "So is it the lack of authority of the sites rather than ads that's affecting us negatively?"
       
       I believe that's a major factor in many cases. Some niches don't do badly with authority but most do and they are the ones that have lost a lot of views.
       
       I don't know the answer to the other questions as they're HP issues.
       
       I suspect that it's notable that asking an expert was tried first with Pethelpful, which is a niche with better authority.
       
       Of course, HP's main aim may be to generate more "quality" articles on topics that are regularly searched for and improve "quality" that way.
       
       I put "quality" in quotes because it's the Google algo concept of quality, which isn't the same as the everyday usage.
       
       There's also more than one thing going on. Amazon revenue has been devasted, for instance, which I'm guessing is why we were told to switch to capsules.
       
       The ads theory is appealing because it's fairly simple to understand and everyone likes to believe that they understand ads. I think from an SEO perspective that the ads are relatively straightforward to do, though. It's some of the other stuff that's hard.

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       chef-de-jourposted 19 months agoin reply to this

       Some months ago I read through quite a bit of the Google EEAT pages for my sins and the word 'TRUSTWORTHINESS' struck a chord. When Google assesses our articles it's looking for useful information, quality writing, some SEO all within the context of the whole page and the site. The algorithm crawls and evaluates but if I recall correctly there are humans involved in evaluation sometimes too.
       
       So, if the article, say an educational piece analysing Eliot's The Waste Land, on Owlcation, is overloaded with ads and other stuff full of ridiculous nonsense completely off piste then how can that page be trusted?
       
       Google tolerates ads to a limit, it has to for commercial reasons, but currently TAG is going too far with its blank white spaces and too many repeated ads. Trustworthiness is undermined over time and leads to lack of authority as far as I can see. Each niche site has its own identity and will perform differently but overall we know what's happening to traffic and earnings.
       
       Mitigating factors are HP's longevity, quality and pursuit of excellence through the niche sites, sustained over the years through astute editing and communication with the creators, us, the writers.
       
       I've asked for more information about the "Ask an Expert" feature which looks as if it might be a small step in the right direction.

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          PaulGoodman67posted 19 months agoin reply to this

          If your claims were true, we would expect Pethelpful to be in the same boat as Owlcation, etc. which is not the case.

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             chef-de-jourposted 19 months agoin reply to this

             I did some selective light reading of this:
             
             https://static.googleusercontent.com/me … elines.pdf
             
             So much information! Too much information.
             
             I guess each niche site will respond differently as I said - Google's algorithm works in mysterious ways - we can only keep the faith, keep churning out good new stuff.

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    PaulGoodman67posted 19 months ago

    More ranking volatility from Google over the last couple of days. SE Roundtable are portraying it as after-tremors relating to the recent core update.
    
    As usual, it's not looking good. I think I've forgotten what a good algo update looks like!

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       eugbugposted 19 months agoin reply to this

       Yes, more traffic loss. The intention is to make websites they don't approve of extinct.

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          PaulGoodman67posted 19 months agoin reply to this

          If that's the case then they're two-thirds of the way there!

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    PaulGoodman67posted 19 months ago

    Here comes the Helpful Content Update to add a further blow...

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       eugbugposted 19 months agoin reply to this

       They don't appreciate our helpful content and we all get penalised if the site suffers.

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          PaulGoodman67posted 19 months agoin reply to this

          Despite its name, the update's apparently built to look for and weed out unhelpful content.
          
          The summary on SERoundtable says:
          
          What To Do - Self Assess:Google also added these lines, "If you're producing helpful content, then you don't need to do anything; in fact this system may be good for your site, as it is designed to reward helpful content." And this one too, "If you've noticed a change in traffic you suspect may be related to this system (such as after a publicly-posted ranking update to the system), then you should self-assess your content and fix or remove any that seems unhelpful." This self-assess advice was from earlier this week, as an FYI.
          
          Reviewed by Expert: Google updated the creating helpful content document to add "or reviewed" to this line of text "Is this content written or reviewed by an expert or enthusiast who demonstrably knows the topic well?" under the experise questions section.
          
          Changing Dates: Google added this line "Are you changing the date of pages to make them seem fresh when the content has not substantially changed?" under the avoid creating search engine-first content section.
          
          Adding/Removing: Google also added this line to that section "Are you adding a lot of new content or removing a lot of older content primarily because you believe it will help your search rankings overall by somehow making your site seem "fresh?" (No, it won't)"
          
          Search Quality Raters Note: Google added this note for clarification purposes to the page, "Search raters have no control over how pages rank. Rater data is not used directly in our ranking algorithms. Rather, we use them as a restaurant might get feedback cards from diners. The feedback helps us know if our systems seem to be working."

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             jansharesposted 19 months agoin reply to this

             Yikes! I'm so guilty of this one, every time I update.
             
             "Changing Dates: Google added this line "Are you changing the date of pages to make them seem fresh when the content has not substantially changed?" under the avoid creating search engine-first content section."

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             jansharesposted 19 months agoin reply to this

             It looks like the death of evergreen articles. Or do we need to re-define the term "evergreen?" Google only wants new, "fresh," content, the emphasis on 'new.' I guess I can understand that. Readers see an old date and associate that date with out-of-date content. Or is it the Google algorithm that sees an old date/original URL and associates it with old content? Maybe a little of both? Either way, as paradigm used to say, "we're doomed."

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                PaulGoodman67posted 19 months agoin reply to this

                I think evergreen's best in most cases. You just have to maintain and update.
                
                Algorithms tend to work in tendencies rather than absolutes, one should be wary of overextrapulating.
                
                As usual, Google are trying to stop people gaming the system.
                
                Sometimes Google's bark is worse than its bite, though, and they say they're clamping down on something but their weapons are less effective than they make out.
                
                I'm sure that there's all sorts of things they'd like to wipe out but can't for technical reasons. People still find ways to generate backlinks, for instance.
                
                The bit on "experts" interested me. I guess that relates to what HP is doing.

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                   eugbugposted 19 months agoin reply to this

                   Some evergreen articles just can't be updated with fresh content without degrading them.

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                      PaulGoodman67posted 19 months agoin reply to this

                      I can always see better ways to word something but maybe I'm an exception.
                      
                      I find writing really hard. Sentence structure, rhythm, and flow are always tricky for me to get exactly right. The good side is that I gradually improve.

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                         eugbugposted 19 months agoin reply to this

                         I only get it half right first time. Then I edit loads of times to improve how I express myself. The process is asymptotic really. I notice Google mentioning something in the press release for the most recent update something about changing things just to get a more recent publishing date. Maybe that's what causes a drop in rank if we keep editing our articles?
                         
                         Edit: Here it is from Google Search Central:
                         
                         
                         

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                            PaulGoodman67posted 19 months agoin reply to this

                            I posted about that above.
                            
                            I wouldn't be surprised if there are folks with programs that update their pages multiple times/day to try and game the system.
                            
                            Clearly, one should take a sensible approach to the frequency of updating and follow HP guidelines. I think several times a year is a good amount but I may be wrong.
                            
                            Obviously, if your writing has no flaws and will only get worse if you change it, then it's difficult. I've never had that problem so I can't really say much about that.
                            
                            It would be good to get a comment from HP on editing at some point.
                            
                            That said, at the moment, it's not clear what the effects of the latest update are, it probably hasn't done its thing yet. It's better to judge Google on actions rather than words, in my experience.
                            
                            I pray the algo change is positive but they've nearly all been negative over the past two years.

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