Here's a screenshot from a video from another of my fave SEOs, Chris Tzitzis (Sir Links A Lot)
You just know soemone's gonna say they can't read the image - CLICK ON IT!!!
This is a section from the blog post from the person who kicked off all the trouble, Rand Fishkin, another great SEO and also the co-founder of MOZ (for all your DA users and checkers, although since he left, Moz has gone seriously downhill).
Read the above and REALLY try to understand it (especially if you still think "chasing the longtail and adding 2-3 articles a week" is the way to success, IT'S NOT!!!!)
Much in line with what I said on Lizzy's post yesterday, if you're creating content on a blog or website, be prepared to not really get any REAL traffic FROM GOOGLE until your DOMAIN gains more authority (I DO NOT consider 1,000, 2,000, 5,000 visitors per month to be "getting any REAL traffic", sorry to be harsh, but "little wins" will only get you so far until you actually understand the BIGGER PICTURE), plus, if you're monetizing through affiliate marketing or ad revenue, this should only form a smaller percentage of what your overall website is about IF..
Yes, there is a big IF
The above is only true if YOUR MAIN AIM IS TO RANK IN GOOGLE (you can still make a ton of money through affiliate marketing and ad revenue, just DON'T attempt to have Google as your main source of traffic, and YES, I know "other traffic" isn't as good as "google traffic", so if you want Google traffic you had better start gaining some authority on that domain of yours - luckily this is soemthing I know well... and if you're following or learning from "anyone" who never discusses "authority", well, Houston, you HAVE A PROBLEM!!! 🤣🤣🤣).
Anyway, here's Rand's full article>>>
He is really pointing the finger at Barry at the end there.
A lot of what is said in the document is very evident if you look at how the SERPS changed and how niche sites have been hit if you have any, especially with the last two updates. That sidewide classifier has truly been brutal.
But behind every dark cloud, there is a silver lining. It has forced a lot of us out of our comfort zones and people are taking other platforms a lot more serious than when you could comfortably do the Google thing.
And here is a macabre analogy - when you treat microbes with medicine but only manage to kill say 99%, the 1% that remains can often mutate and become even stronger than the initial strain.
I think that is what has happened to a lot who were just concerned with "Creating good content" and seeing blackhat as taboo.
SEO is now a game of survival. You either do what it takes to survive or die out.
SEO is now a game of survival. You either do what it takes to survive or die out.
Yep ... it really does seem the gravy train is over for small publishers. For those who want to survive, turning to the grey/black hat is where it's at. Uncle G has certainly forced me back to the dark side.
In all honesty, I love it!
If G wants to play these games then expect a ton of AI parasite content and 10's' of 1000's of dodgy backlinks. Many people don't want to go down that road and that just creates more opportunity for those of us who do.
@rohanm Another option, without going completely blackhat, is to look at niches that Google does not monetize aggressively or at all. I thought it was hard to find niches before but after being forced to scramble they way I was with the last update, I have been able to identify a few, some of which I mentioned in another post... and a lot of them have to do with things people will rather ignore.
For hypothetical example, take the term "sewage". Nobody is interested in literally s*** as a niche (I know I am not). But check Ahrefs and look at the traffic volume vs the keyword difficulty for the keywords surrounding the products and services related to the keyword.
That's just an example, but if you can find niches like this that aren't dominated by all the big publishers, you can make the whitehat method work, especially if you pose the website as a brick and mortar business.
@partha hey mate, I missed this when you first posted but I've had a skim through both Rand's and Mike King's article ... this stuff actually blows me away. The recent leaks we've had from Google really lay it bare.
The rumours are all true folks ... Uncle G couldn't give a flying fish about your little long-tail niche site.
... and CTR seems to figure more highly than anyone suspected!
The gloves are off ... I'm renting the VPS today ... mwahh ha ha ha ha
@keydah_keys can't hurt (as long as you don't direct a million links at your money site 😉 )
@rohanm I've gotta be honest, and say, this "google leaks" thing has got me really thinking.
Firstly, everything that has been mentioned we kinda already knew (or as experienced SEOs who aren't trying to mislead people, we KNEW this stuff, LOL).
But, there's been something that's been nagging away at me since all this came out..
IT'S VERY CONVENIENT
That we are suddenly party to a "leak" about Google and SEO, just off the back of 2 months of the longest alrgorithm updates in history.
How do we not know that Google hasn't released this information themselves, and then sat back and said, "Right, watch everyone, the SEOs who start making immediate changes to their website in line with the "leak", we hit them with Manual Penalties, as they've just basically told us they are trying to manipulate ranking based on our "leak""
Additionally, something that many of us watch is "SERP volatility" in tools like semrush, which is hard to explain, but basically on days and weeks where you see a huge amount of volatility it can often mean "something is happening in Google".
All I'll say is, through tracking tools, SERP volatility has been off the page for the last two weekends.
Okay, previous weekend was a holiday Monday, Bank holiday in the UK, and memorial day on the other side of the Atlantic, but this past weekend, there was nothing "special", and once more, SERP volatility is going mad!!
Plus, I'm tracking a number of keywords (which is included in my Parasite SEO course), one "product review" keyword has seen changes EVERY SINGLE DAY for the past 10 days... I've never seen that before.
Sure, the number one ranking article has remained the same, but the other 9 positions on page one have almost changed daily...
Is something about to happen again?
Or is this the "aftershocks" from the "Site Reputation Abuse" update from May 5th?
Saying that, parasite SEO seems to have gotten BETTER since May 5th, even though this is something they specifically targeted.
I'm starting to think that SEO in 2024 is "Listen to what Google says, and then do the exact opposite, and you'll be fine! Hahahahhahaha!!
@partha y'know I had a similar thought when I was reading those leaks and watching the vid of the 'leaker' ... I forget his name.
It briefly reminded me of something else I've been into lately which is the ufo/uap thing! Information, disinformation and outright lies.
I honestly wonder whether it's time to try and disengage from the big G as much as is humanly possible!
@rohanm I have already done that. Yesterday I was researching Stripes payment processor new terms of agreements when I google it, nothing came up for stripe at all. Like no information on the company or anything at all. I heard this is because of a bug. So, I am using Bing for my searches now. That was the straw for me and google.
you can make the whitehat method work, especially if you pose the website as a brick and mortar business.
Interesting ... especially the brick and mortar thing. My brother has a wedding guitar music site and he's sailed through all these updates untouched. He offers a real service, generating leads and providing quotes and has a real address / phone number etc on the site so clearly a B&M business. His rankings have improved if anything.
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