Did Google just now target recent SEO successes?

Let's see what the data says

Author

Ian H
May 13, 2024

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I’ve shared many “winning” sites lately.

One of my recent tweets went kinda viral (at least in the SEO world), receiving over 150K views.

It was basically this email but in Twitter thread format:

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Last night, Ahrefs CMO Tim Soulo suggested that perhaps Google recently targeted sites that were widely-shared as SEO successes.

His full tweet:

Ooops.. This "trend" doesn't really look good 😬.

It almost feels as if whenever some website gets known on social media for it's SEO success, Google will push a few knobs and rein it in.

But to be fair..

The original tweet thread was posted on 5th of May, while the "fall" started on 3rd of May.

Let's see what happens to it next 👀

Here’s my response and the rest of the exchange:

I spent some time digging into the data today. As expected, the data does not suggest sites highlighted as SEO successes were specifically targeted.

It DOES suggest that traffic continues to plunge for HCU and March Core-affected sites, and is dropping off for many sites that saw huge increases during those updates.

Google is continuing to squeeze the life out of indepenedent content sites, funneling it to Reddit and massive corporations. And it’s gotten considerably worse in the last two weeks.

I ran the numbers for about 20,000 sites I’ve been keeping track of since the start of the March Core update.

By April 19th (the day the update concluded), only 22% of the sites had remained steady or saw traffic increases.

But since April 19th, 49% of those winning or steady sites have lost traffic!

So no, this is is not Google targeting widely-shared SEO "succceses”.

This is Google doubling down on destroying content sites monetized by ads (all 20K sites I’m tracking are monetized with either Mediavine or Raptive ads).

If you want access to the raw data to see the recent winning and losing sites for yourself, it’s available in Website Growth Mastermind in the Research section.

It’s dreadfully clear that the SEO-reliant content site model is dead.

Of course, a scarce few slip through the cracks unscathed. But those are rare. And evidently, many are starting to get hit.

A content publishing business that’s reliant on SEO (and therefore Google) is dangerously fragile.

Content sites themselves can still be incredibly successful on other platforms. And SEO still works great for sites whose business models are more robust than simply publishing written content.

If you’re a niche site publisher, don’t despair. Just stop relying on Google. Pretend it doesn’t exist. Build an audience on Facebook, Pinterest, Flipboard, etc. And aggressivly grow an email list, as it’s the only audience that can’t be taken away from you by any platform.

I’m curious to know what % of my readers have made an effort to diversify traffic sources.

If you have a content site, please answer the following poll. If you answer yes, I’d also love to hear how it’s been going so far! There’s an option to add a comment after voting.

Niche site owners: have you diversified your traffic sources?

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

Thanks for reading,

Ian

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