Google Screwed You - 27 Talking Points

SEO
21

@nat Hey Nat,

Yep, 100%.

I've mentioned somewhere in this thread about one of my sites.

I managed to get it up to 131,000 visitors (202,000 page views) per month, this was about 95% Google traffic.

It got "hit" by HCU and the Spam Update in August/September 2022.

The traffic kept falling for a couple of months, my motivation went to zero for that site, and I didn't really do much on it at all for a few months.

Then I started trying to "please Google" by rewriting and updating all my articles.

I saw an upsurge in GOOGLE traffic during the September 2023 HCU, so I assumed that all my hard work had paid off.

However, I also started being a LOT more active on social media from around July 2023.

Then the site got "hit" again in December 2023, and then again in the March 2024 update.

For April 2024 the site received just 700ish visitors from Google for the 30 days of April, BUT, my overall traffic for April 2024 was 90,000+ visitors.

In other words, out of 90,000 visitors LESS THAN 1,000 came from Google!

This kinda proves that if you go really hard at social media (i managed this in around 9-10 months, but saw massive improvements from around month 5) you don't need to worry about Google.

Ask @andy to have a look over your Pinterest account for you, and he should be able to give you some tips on keyword research, types of pins, and even things like colours, font text, etc.

The main thing is, and I know because I felt the same, you need to get that motivation back for working on THAT site.

As I say, it took me months, but once I decided I was going to work on it, I went HARD!!

Over 3,000 pins in that time, over 200 articles placed on Medium, and daily posting and comments on Reddit.

The traffic and income are definitely there, you just have to go "hard" at it.

22

@petedr93 Funnily enough, Pete, there are ways to completely automate the process, but as with all things, it costs money.

There are coders who create what are known as "python scripts" with an attached Reddit bot.

These scripts are created to scrape Reddit for relevant questions for your niche, and then the bot will simply write 1-2 sentence comments, and this will carry on working while you keep the script running.

However, you'll need to start a Reddit account manually first and get to a stage where your account is looked upon less suspiciously and more favourably (typically around 1,000 post and 1,000 comment "karma points"<--- in my write up about Reddit, I'll show everyone how to do this within a month)

But, you can still be extremely successful with Reddit just doing everything manually, it just takes longer.

23

@petedr93 Funnily enough, Pete, there are ways to completely automate the process, but as with all things, it costs money.

There are coders who create what are known as "python scripts" with an attached Reddit bot.

These scripts are created to scrape Reddit for relevant questions for your niche, and then the bot will simply write 1-2 sentence comments, and this will carry on working while you keep the script running.

However, you'll need to start a Reddit account manually first and get to a stage where your account is looked upon less suspiciously and more favourably (typically around 1,000 post and 1,000 comment "karma points"<--- in my write up about Reddit, I'll show everyone how to do this within a month)

But, you can still be extremely successful with Reddit just doing everything manually, it just takes longer.

24

@lebogang22 Yes Lebogang, you da man!!

I was going to ask if you'd be willing to do a write-up about your recent "local SEO" stuff, but in much the same way as local doesn't appear to have been impacted by all these Google updates, so too have various "outside of the box" niches that most people don't think about.

I think what it is, many people who approach this business tend to go for "popular" niches, and while there is obviously a lot of traffic and money from these niches, there is equally a LOT of VERY GOOD competition (branded sites, high authority sites, etc.), so often coming into a "common" niche means you're going up against websites that have been online for 20+ years and who have over 10,000 articles on their sites, etc.

While, it was fairly easy to rank for most things in any niche for many years, this isn;t so much the case nowadays, and if you are going after a broad niche, be prepared to work really hard for years to make a big breakthrough.

Realistically, as you've said, it's really about finding those golden niches with little competition, or finding niches (as you've done) that go against the norm!

Great job! :)

25

@jenny Hey Jenny,

1) Okay, here's a way around the "date thing" on Medium - update your articles to show the current date.

There are plugins that automatically republish at the latest date, some just republish without doing anything else (a good chance of getting slapped by Google), others will republish to the latest date and will also share to Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin automatically, and there are even plugins that require your OpenAI licence key, and will then rewrite the first paragraph of your article and publish to today's date.

However, if you want to do it for free and manually, here's what you do:

Go to Google Gemini and put in the following prompt

"Give me 3 different meta titles and meta descriptions for the keyword [add keyword]"

You can then choose your favourite combination of meta title and meta description and change these on your article/SEO plugin.

Next, also Google Gemini use this prompt:

(this is the prompt I use on my exercise site, so change it to fit in with your niche)

"can you give me a list of real quotes and sayings by well-known bodybuilders, fitness experts, and trainers about [subject]. Please ensure the quotes are real and not fabricated."

Then get about 2-3 of these quotes and go to your article and look for the block known as "Pullquote", paste in the quote and then the person who said it underneath.

Finally, using ChatGPT (you can try Gemini too, or any other AI tool), choose 2-3 paragraphs from your article and put in the following prompt:

"Please could you rewrite the following paragraph. Ensure the paragraph you provide me with is unique, but says the same thing, and if possible, with a similar word count. Also, ensure that you avoid exaggeration and superfluous language, plus avoid using the words Unleashing, Unlocking, Unearthing, Unveiling, Mastering, Cracking, Crafting, Creating, Embracing, Delving, Dive or Diving, Nuance or Nuanced anywhere in the text. Here is the paragraph I would like you to rewrite [insert paragraph]"

Once you've done the above, make sure you change the publish date to "immediately/now" and then publish at today's date, should take you about 5-10 minutes per article.

(And for those who say you shouldn't change the date, or that you need a more major update to change the date, NOPE!! Not true, the above process works fine).

Now, you have a "new article" on your website published at today's date, so go and do your Medium import thing!

Job done! :)

2) My bad, old habits die hard.

Linkedin Pulse was a separate platform, but has now been integrated into Linkedin.

On your profile page when you click on "Write article" this is Linkedin pulse.

But, we can just called it plain old "Linkedin" now!! Hahahaha!!

26

@jonathan I'll do a write-up on Reddit very soon.

Basically, just be a "normal human being" on Reddit, hahahahahaha!!

It's the same for any platform.

If you think about it, act in the same way as I did at WA.

Be knowledgeable, provide help whenever you can, provide comments and encouragement for others, write really helpful posts, above all, DON'T go into this thinking "How can I get traffic, how can I make money, etc."

More often that not, if you act like a "normal human being" and are extremely helpful, things will start to happen, and then you can subtly promote (as I say, I will do a write-up soon).

Going back to my example of me @WA, imagine if I now said I have a product that I have created for $50 (I haven't btw, hahahaha!!), how many people at WA do you think would buy it?????

That is marketing, be the most knowledgeable and helpful person you can and you'll never need to "sell" anything, people will come to you and literally "ask you" to sell them something!

Act online in the same way you would in the real world! That's it!

27

@ohnoo_not_her I never knew you were such a troublemaker, Lizzy!!!

Hahahahahahahhahahahhahahahhaha!!

I always thought you were just a lovely, nice and sweet person (you ARE btw), but you've got this other side to you too!!

Who knew???

Hahahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahaha!!

And I LOVE the "other side"

I think we're going to have to start calling you

Lairy Lizzy

(and yes, I know that you've just gone to Google "lairy" to see what it means 🤣🤣🤣🤣)

28

@partha I will definitely write one up.

I am still building and expecting the websites to rank for more keywords. Once that is done and the websites have reached some sort of equilibrium, I will write a comprehensive guide based on how I approached it all, and also provide key information like what content/keywords I put on the landing page, how long it took to rank, and what kind of traffic the website yields.

29

@noteboom Hey Johann,

1) I think the main point I'm trying to get across is "STOP TRYING TO RECOVER"

If you think about it, EVERYONE has done everything to "rank in Google".

Your site then gets "hit" and you lose all traffic, so what does everyone do, try to fix their content, again just to "rank in Google" (even I did this too).

What I'm saying is, you put all this hard work into trying to "fix" everything JUST to "PLEASE GOOGLE & TO RANK IN GOOGLE".

So, what do you do if you spend 12 months trying to "fix your website" JUST to "rank in Google", but after 12 months you haven't improved at all?

OR

You spend all this time "fixing everything" to "rank in Google", it works, you're traffic goes up again, and then when one of the updates, let's say in December 2024 comes, Google HITS YOUR SITE AGAIN and you lose all your traffic AGAIN!

At the moment, you are simply trying to PLEASE ONE MASTER!

Sure, I understand that Google often provides the "best" traffic and the "most" traffic, but you work harder than ever before and still you get nothing from Google, or you do improve, and then Google hits you again.

Personally, I would say, if you have 400 articles on your website this is more than enough to work with.

So, aim to improve the traffic to your website from "other channels", as you've mentioned, Facebook.

If you think about it, every article on your website is getting ZERO traffic (after March 2024) from Google.

So, every NEW article you add to your website will ALSO get zero traffic from Google.

So, you can do one of two things.

Try and fix every article on your website (by adhering to Google's "helpful content" and "spam" guidelines and then cross your fingers and hope for the best.

OR

Use other platforms to get traffic to your website (you have loads of content, i.e. 400 articles to send people to).

Sure, you can still add articles to your website to keep it "fresh", but for now, focus on getting traffic to your website from other sources.

By the way, getting traffic from EXTERNAL sources can actually IMPROVE your ranking in Google.

Google will see people coming to your website, and interacting on your articles, they will then your brand and website name all over the internet, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Medium, etc.

This is a "sign" to Google that you are "popular", so often they improve the rankings on your most "popular" articles.

So, sometimes, just ignoring Google and working on other things can actually improve your ranking in Google.

2) No. Algorithmic penalties are usually either content or link related.

In most cases, it will be content (unless you're regularly purchasing spammy backlinks).

A MANUAL ACTION (which you can see in Google Search Console) means that a HUMAN BEING has MANUALLY looked at your website, and then placed a "penalty" upon, as I say, this can be seen in GSC.

BUT

An "algorithmic penalty", there is NOWHERE you can actually "see" this, but it is obvious, i.e. you lost traffic DURING an algorithm update, and the traffic DID NOT RETURN once the algorithm update finished.

I will say that the last 18 months of algorithm, helpful content, and spam updates have been very different from anything we've had in about 7 years (since the YMYL aka "Medic Update" of 2017)

I don't want to make false accusations or predictions, but it really does seem like Google planned this.

It's almost like Google are saying, "If you're a big brand, especially one that pays for ads, we won;t touch you, If you're website is based around a real business, we won't touch you, BUT, if you have created a website with the sole purpose to "make money online", we're going to kill your traffic completely"

So, the "real recovery" is to make your website look like a real business, a real brand, and increase your authority (all of this can be accomplished OFF your website, i.e. putting content on external websites and linking back to your website, getting involved on a daily basis on social medai, thinking about creating your own product or tool, e.g. a 100-page ebook of "My 20 most helpful articles" is a PRODUCT! You can create tools with the help of ChatGPT, although some coding knowledge will also help, you can perhaps add an e-commerce platform, such as Shopify, to your website, etc.)

But, as I've said above, perhaps it's time to NOT focus on "recovering", but rather seeing where else you can get traffic from.

2) No, okay, avoid Reddit for now, it does take some "skill" to market on Reddit, and I will teach that over the course of about 10-15 post here, but Reddit is so easy to get banned from, so don't do anything there yet.

Linkedin, NO, slightly rewrite your articles before placing them on Linkedin (again, in the future I'll create some posts about that, but Linkedin is doing great at the moment, so if you can slightly rewrite your articles, perhaps may just summarize your articles (about 750+ words on Linkedin is fine), and then post them there.

3) I'm not sure what the issue you're having with Medium, the only possible thing I can think of is, Medium absolutely hates AI.

I'm not sure how they detect it, but they seem to be very good at it, and anyone using AI will usually get warned, and then banned.

So, if it's obvious that your website articles have been written with AI (can I just say that EVERY SINGLE ARTICLE I have seen written by ANYONE at WA using the AI Writer, it is OBVIOUS that it is AI, and the quality is NOT that good).

So, if you want to use Medium, DO NOT use AI in your articles.

If you're 100% sure that the articles on your website HAVEN'T been written with AI, then you can simply use Medium's import tool

https://medium.com/p/import

Wth Medium, you DON'T NEED TO REWRITE

If you use the link above when you add your website url, Medium will automatically have HTML code inside the article that states that your website article is the ORIGINAL.

So, Medium is definitely the easiest way to get backlinks, ranking, and traffic, just make sure that YOU ARE NOT USING AI ON MEDIUM!!

30

@partha I have to get more involved in Reddit as I have seen some results from a tiny bit of work, a few months back i signed up for Reddit just to start getting an idea of what it was about. I joined a couple of sub reddits and despite the group rules saying not to do it I posted a couple of links to my site juts to see what would happen. The admins never mentioned it but i did receive a few visitors to my site and even now i randomly seem to get a few visitors from Reddit even though I have only commented 3 or 4 times and have a karma or llama of 1 and 2 😆 😆 .

I was thinking about how much traffic I could generate if I took Reddit seriously

Pete

31

@lebogang22 Cool, let me see the "guide" before you publish.

Because, we are going to eventually have a Services & Products sub-forum, so members can actually advertise their own products or any services they offer (plus, we're going to build the forum on-page and off-page, so my hope is that we can actually do some decent "parasite SEO" from the forum, i.e. rank these posts in Google within about 3-6 months).

So, it could be a case that you do a quick "free" guide/tutorial for everyone here, but eventually if you want to expand on it, turn it into an ebook and videos, etc. you can "advertise" it on the platform (once we've gained some authority on the forum over the rest of 2024, I can start throwing backlinks at specific posts and threads to help them rank in the search engines), and you've then got your "own product" to sell. :)

32

@partha Sounds great. :blush::ok_hand:

Will give you a shout when it’s done.

33

@petedr93 Don't you start with the Llamas 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Yep, as I say, I'll do a write up.

Admittedly, Reddit are really clamping down at the moment, but you will get some subreddits that are strictly moderated, whereas others aren't.

It really depends on the size of the subreddit, as to how well it's moderated.

Additionally, Reddit has internal spam filters, and these have been incredibly "touchy" (LOL) over the last 3-4 weeks.

You can even end up getting your account banned (hence why I have 50+ 🤣🤣🤣🤣) simply for mentioning a fairly innocuous word which simply set off the spam filters.

But, if what you've done so far has produced some traffic, then carry on. One way to look at it is comment far more than you post, say 80/20, and only ever "promote" in the same way when posting, i.e. 80/20

As for Reddit traffic, I think I've mentioned it here (probably in reply to you, don't know now as I've spent the last 90 minutes replying to [people, LOL), but yeah, I've had over 4,000 visitors in one day, and regularly get a few thousand visitors every month (sometimes for a popular post with link you get a massive spike in internal Reddit traffic which continues (although decreasing slightly every day) for about 3-5 day before it dies down, but the "regular traffic" comes from posts ranking in the search engines

34

@partha Thank you so much Partha. At least one good news 😀

Will work hard on it.

35

[quote data-userid="3" data-postid="509"]

Then pay for DA/DR manipulation (between $100-$250 for DA 50 - DA70), then sell backlinks (guest posts or niche edits) for your site via somewhere like Fiverr or Upwork (not very ethical, but as an example, a niche edit on a DA50 website, especially a RELEAVNT website to your niche could easily cost around $75-$150. You sell them for half that price, one sale a day and I’m sure you’ll feel a lot better (once more, as dirty as this is, speak to me, and I can help you do this).

[/quote]

Pay for DA and then sell backlinks? This seems like an easy way to make money. Are there a lot of people who do this?

How is your DA manipulated, and does it actually boost your rankings and make backlinks from your site more beneficial?

I'd appreciate it if you can tell me more about it — at your own time of course, I know you've been replying to people for hours now.

36

@partha euhm, I went to look up "lairy", but I'm not sure if that is a compliment, depending on which dictionary you go look hahahahaha!

37

@partha about Reddit banning accounts easily,wouldn’t that also depend on if you get reported a lot by others? I think the ‘spam’ thing only went off in my case,because I got reported for the AI picture and that triggered Reddit to go take a look at my ‘spam’ in my subreddit?

38

@petedr93 that is EXACTLY what happened in my case to, I had only a few things on my subreddit, yet these were ranking above my actual blog posts in Google and that got me thinking: why not do more with Reddit then, if you can't 'beat them', 'join them'!

Lizzy

39

@partha Thanks, I’ll have to read this a couple times to get it.

I’m really surprised that Google Gemini works in Canada, as Bard wasn’t available here.

Appreciate you sharing the prompts you use.

With LinkedIn, I find that I had more engagement on my personal profile as compared to my business page when sharing my content.

40

@rohanm Hey Rohan,

This is EXACTLY what I've spoken about above.

It may be a DA14 website, but it's a REAL Business.

They have an e-commerce section on the website, you can book appointments to see a physiotherapist, etc.

So, regardless of authority, a real brick-and-mortar business, a real online business, Local SEO, and International SEO have been left untouched for the last 9 months (Let's see what happens in August/September and November/December though, LOL).

Plus, if you put that site through https://ahrefs.com/backlink-checker

You'll see some pretty decent RELEVANT HIGH AUTHORITY sites linking to it.

Keep an eye on the site, that's jumping to a DA30+ after the next series of updates (August/ September)