Google is Slowly Killing Blogging
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 31 พ.ค. 2024
- Is Google trying to kill blogging?
Get $15 off Link Whisper with coupon code "Blogging" at checkout: www.linkwhisper.com
Today I share what I've seen happening in the SEO community lately, Google reactions, and more.
I jump into a tweetstorm I started on the subject of Google slowly killing blogging. In fact, my tweet got the attention from the official Google Search Liason team and things got...interesting!
My original tweet that started it all: / 1716857658920280151
Danny Sullivan from Twitter had a big back and forth with the SEO community, and lots of "grievances" were aired.
I also dive into 5 metrics of my websites to analyze which site got hit by the Helpful Content Update and which one didn't.
I look at things like:
1. Time on page.
2. Returning Visitors
3. Brand Searches
4. Building a larger brand
5. % of articles that are keyword focused
Want to hear more from me? Be sure to join my newsletter where I share the latest SEO updates, success stories, and my own experiments with business: www.nichepursuits.com
Timestamps:
00:00 - Blogging is broken
01:38 - Salty Tweet
3:30 - Google Responds
6:15 - More Time on Page
6:57 - Returning Visitors
7:32 - Brand Searches
8:28 - Internal Links
9:31 - Build a Real Brand
10:41 - Percent of Articles are Keyword Focused
12:23 - Is Google Killing Blogging?
So, what do you think? Is Google slowly trying to kill blogging?
What do you think?
Watch my video for all my thoughts, haha.@@viralknockout
Why are you asking us? Isn't that what you are saying with your video title?
Those guys at Google saying "write for people not Google" never had a blog themselves. If they did, they would immediately understand how ridiculous it is to say that you should not write for Google. Not writing for Google simply means no traffic, period. You are so incredibly right by saying that like dogs bloggers were trained to optimize their articles a certain way. Now, the Google hand that fed you, in some cases for for years has turned into a fist punching you right in the mouth, punishing you in an almost unrecoverable way by taking away huge chunks of traffic.
To be fair, Danny Sullivan (google search liason) started Search Engine Watch in 1997, and has started other blogs as well.
@@niche-pursuitsHe knows how ridiculous it sounds. I think he is completely disingenuous.
They have too much power. It’s surprisingly to me small businesses aren’t in an uproar.
Feel sorry for anybody strating a new blog, no traffic and no branding catch 22 situation. Also a lot of people who make sites do so because they are introverted, the last thing they want to do is splash themselves all over social media, LBH Reddit and some of these other social media platforms can be very toxic places, and that's before people's politics come into play. If I have a site on cars, I don't want to spend half of my time sifting through posts about Trump and Biden, I just want to write about the latest mod for my Ford Mustang.
Reddit can indeed by toxic.
That Sean guy sounds pretty smart. LOL.
Thanks for the shout out, Spencer. You started a good conversation and hopefully something useful comes out of it for average people.
That Sean guy IS a very smart guy! You Twitter insights have been on FIRE lately!
What annoys me is these stupid comments from Danny about "if it's helpful it's fine". No, Google does not know what is helpful. It cannot read and understand content. It relies on proxies like backlinks and clicks and engagement. If a post that three people a year read and it makes them smile then I'd like to keep it.
They're basically lying.
Yeah, google can't understand the content of a page.
Google wants more money. ITs like a no ending hole.
This was one of the best put together videos I’ve watched! I think it was like investigative journalism and you had Google respond, that made all the difference. Great job man! I’ve subscribed.
I think you hit the nail right on the head. Build a *real business* and a community, that's how you build actual traction, SEO and otherwise. Just chasing affiliate income is just going to get harder and harder.
Spencer, Great video! My site survived both updates, even though I have barely blogged in the past year. This insightful video help me understand why - thank you!
I’ve always written more for people than for search engines - I never really got the hang of keyword research. Instead, I just write about topics that I know my audience wants to read about and it seems to be working for me. And I have a really active comments section that seems to help as well. Thank goodness.
Great job...and love your site! Super niche!
Great video and I 100% agree. Brand building is the name of the game here. Simply writing good content at scale just won't cut it anymore :(
Yep, you nailed it. Its time to build a brand.
Hey Spencer, good to see you giving it to Google. Half the time they are contradicting what they say
They definitely can be very contradictory.
Excellent video in so many ways - super impressive editing too! Can’t wait for more
Thanks Jesse...lots of great one's in the works!
I think a lot of things google does is to make search better.
However onething that is extremely unfair is that they allow mass media sites to write about everything and rank that is completely unrelated to their niche, but if smaller websites do it, it doesn't rank.
But I do understand that these large media site are own by corporations, because of that they may have heavy influence on googles updates to not impact their website.
If anyone recognize most of google updates between 2015-2021 were specifically beneficial to big media websites.
Very true, mass media sites ranking for everything needs to be addressed by Google.
question: if you add noindex meta tag to unhelpful content/articles, will it then not penalize the entire site?
That's correct. If you feel like you know which articles to noindex, that will remove them from the Google index.
Good question
Talking about branding, I love to see Spencer's face and Jared's face and after watching regularly, I feel like they are my friends - so I start to trust them. This is how life is nowadays. People are living thru social media and online more than ever. I also love Brenda G. in the cooking space, Laura C. in the reselling space, and Jess S. in the homesteading space. These personalities are their brands. It makes me want to support them so I do what I can by sharing, commenting, signing up for newsletters, buying them cups of coffee, hiring them or whatever... I don't know if living like this with "one-sided" friendships will be good for the human race or not, but it is happening for sure. I guess it will keep us from going crazy from lonliness if nothing else.
Thank you!
Spencer! Your videos are SO GOOD. Who is your video editor? I'd love to make more videos but hatteeeeee the editing process.
Thank you! I found a great editor on Upwork. Lots of great editors out there.
Im so glad google is killing the blogging scheme. Blogging has become a "quick way" to make money for most people starting blogs and they put out terrible content written not by the creators themselves but by outsourcing content. With the advent of AI and chatgpt I think it will accelerate the demise of 90% of bloggers which in my opinion is a great thing.
Blogging has always been one of the slowest ways to make money, not sure where the "quick" part comes in.
I have a client with a well-established 10year+ brand and used to rank for hundreds of keywords in his industry and he got hit hard - very hard. It boggles the mind that Google would do this to businesses providing great content and helpful information. Now, we're trying to move things around, take out things, shuffle the deck to try and get back that hard-won traffic. This is financially painful for the business and as a result might be the team gets laid off. Not happy.
Definitely painful.
Just took on a client with s#it for content and site, zero blogs. Site is 4+ years old, with zero updates since launch. In August, suddenly they started to get traffic & ranking. G has changed the game for sure, thank you for your helpful content update!
Defintely seems like alot of changes recently.
How can I get the time on page metrics?
Someone sent me this exchange between your followers and Google and it was really good. I still feel like they could not justify why some big brand sites were beating out some niche sites for keywords they had no business ranking for.
It was quite the twitter exchange!
I loved the honking-the-horn clip! "Can you hear me now" lol
Haha, thank you! Maybe I should do more of that???
Absolutely. This new format is awesome!@@niche-pursuits
Brand, Brand Brand. Thanks for the reminder! I'm glad you didn't hit the sideview mirror trying to record that backing out!
Exactly! Did my best not to crash :)
Great video. To be honest, I think it was time for a shake-up. There is so much content being created for search engines and I understand why Google is targeting them. I think in the short term, a lot of content creators are going to stop blogging. I am already seeing a lot of sites go for sale. Then the ones that stay and going to have to relearn some things. With that said, the recent changes do not make much sense so it will be interesting to see where Google is at in 6 months from now.
Exactly. I think those that stick it out and adapt will thrive. Sounds like you are ready to go on this "blogging ride" with me! :)
@@niche-pursuits I’m like the kid that is unsure about the rollercoaster they are getting on with a nervous grin.
Exactly My thoughts!. A suggestions (on some section background music is a bit high than your voice)
Glad you enjoyed it! In what part did you feel like the music was too loud? I have lots of new videos in the works and want to make sure I get it right!
Great stuff! You had me looking for how to find my average engagement time in GA. Simple but valuable data. Any tips on how to increase Brand searches?
Glad you enjoyed the video! Increasing brand searches takes time. Its all about building an audience that want to find what you are publishing. Interacting with your community, being on social, and other brand building activities can help.
I think there is conflicting information on time on page. Sometimes it's because users are engaged, others it might signal it's tough to find an answer. I've been focusing on giving the reader the answer they are looking for quickly. In theory if they don't do another search, Google would see that as a good thing. Query asked and answered = helpful
100%.
Has anyone performed an extensive audit of websites that have been hit by the HCU?
Recovery from the Helpful Content Update is an easy fix. But easy to miss. You can make a few changes and still do keyword focus.
very nice video format!
Thank you, put a lot of effort into this one!
So sad... people who have a "community" of direct queries are return visitors are the biggest fish. But I do agree with you, I did some snooping on people who i know who were hit by HCU and all have low direct searches per keysearch. And then I know someone who by Google's guidelines should have been hit but wasn't, but their domain name is similar to a popular service and got tons of direct queries due to that by accident.
Yeah, I'm not saying its right...but it does appear this is playing into who does well on google.
@@niche-pursuits I took an SEO class with a FB group, looking into the sites of people who were hit vs weren't hit (using the same techniques) - I'm seeing some sites that were spared have Domain Names similar to large websites and received some spillover from their search intent. One person's URL is coincidentally similar to "World Packers". All of the ones that were hit, again from my small sample size, according to key search have almost 0 domain name search hits.
Great video! What's the best way to increase time on page? Is embedding your own TH-cam videos good for increasing time on the page and SEO?
Anything you can do to make it more engaging, video can definitely help.
Strange how you didn't mention backlinks, which is primarily what makes authority sites what they are.
And how this is not a major factor.
There are some articles I discovered that are clearly unhelpful basic general information and some returned a 404 error, but due to their high domain authority they rank no 1. And that's sad and frustrating 😑
Totally, I agree!
Well i own 100+ blogs, all are operated using my own custom build ai tool using open ai api.... I make more than $20,000 per month by selling digital products, backlinks, and ads on these 100 blogs.
I don't care for any HCU, core updates, if one of my blogs lose traffic others will go up and it average out.
Happy and stress free life 😊
What do you recommend to start this out? Can you name a few resources that you found useful?
but I'm guessing you don't get much traffic? Are you making money on selling links based on authority of the sites (link profile). This is not what most bloggers want to do.
@@niche-pursuits Yeah my top site gets around 25,000 visits a month.....
And selling links brings just 20-30% of my revenue.... The majority of my revenue comes from selling low ticket digital products like ebooks, svg file bundles, small courses, etc.
And yes nobody wants to earn money this way by owning 100 AI sites but what else can we do? I had a 5 yr old blog, 600+ handwritten posts, 4 full time writers, amazing backlink profile but still lost 80% traffic during September hcu 😤.
Also check Adamenfroy blog, he got massive links from giant websites, Amazing content, solid EEAT but still his site got tanked from 1 million to 20k 🥺
20'000 $ from 100 blogs is not much, you are making 200$ per each, Looks like you are heavy working.
Remember when Google dropped Google Reader, that was basically the nail in the coffin for subscribing to actual blog posts for the majority of people
I loved Google reader!
@@niche-pursuits me too, I think I had your rss feed loaded in mine 10 years ago lol. I've been at this game for a minute 😆
Will you continue to work on the site that went down in traffic?
Yes, I'll keep it and continue tweaking it. it was always a smaller project of mine, so it doesn't get my full attention.
But a typical person would actually go to google for “20 fun things to do today” rather than hearing about 20 things that blogger did that day. So I don’t understand the google response it doesn’t make sense
Totally doesn't make sense.
I was very human focused blog writer and after last update I lost all of my traffic. I spent years to make this web site but in one nigth all gone. This made me feeling I would never trust to google in bussiness sense. So now writing with AI content and focusing to fun site just as hobby. Thank to google what they do just killing real helpfull content creators. So G.F.Y google.
Yeah, Google definitely killed off some blogs.
I think that Google knows if you are writing about search queries with traffic, and mark that as search engine manipulation. You should mix between content with searches and content without searches.
There definitely appears to be some evidence to support that.
The best video about the topic. Thanks
Glad you think so!
Great insights thanks
Glad you enjoyed it!
you are 100% right man
Well, none of my Google searches in the last few years produced any links to blogs at least on the first 5 pages. Sometimes none at all on any pages. So go figure.
Google is killing small time bloggers. They are facilitating the big fish eat the small fish (that's us).
Yeah, its hard to go "small" with your blog anymore. More time, attention, and energy are required.
Very helpful insights. Its challenging to keep all bloggers on their knees . People who love challenges will definitely stay here and fly by night operators will be shown the door . That's a great way of google to keep the place clean 😂😂
Glad it was helpful!
Great insights. Right now I'm more curious about what was wrong with your son's car. Cheers!
Alot!
@@niche-pursuits😂
No i dont think blogging is being killed off, just lowered in importance. There are too many spammy blogs out there especially on the free sites. I've seen an uptick in traffic and rankings in the last month on several of my blogs while others have declined. And just to be clear some of my blackhat spammy sites have done very well in the rankings which should piss some serious content creators off. Name of the game is diversify across as many sites and with as many strategies as possible that you can scale out and manage because nothing is guaranteed. Its the only way to protect yourself but putting out top notch highest quality content possible, building a fanbase that trusts you and building an email list i dont see ever going out of style anytime soon. You can still do that just fine with blogging or on YT or really on any platform. Paid ads will always work as long as you know how to make it work
I disagree that creating many sites to "diversify" is the way to go. You'll do much better building one site with a real brand.
For the most part, this is somewhat true. However, uploading gratuitous selfies (usually done by insecure women) on social media sites for mass instant praise helped cause the downfall of blogging.
Google is a double-edged sword. It helps generate traffic. Although, you must have meta tags, backlink blogs, especially previous blogs on your own website, and/or website, and PICTURES.
For the last decade or so, everybody has been obsessed with selfies, gifs, memes, and pictures in general. They don't even have to spend time reading what you published.
As long as there's an interesting picture, they will disingenuously click the Like button on Facebook and other social media sites.
As for Reddit, it has way too many trolls on it, and some of those same trolls use sites like 4Chan for their juvenile delinquent and delinquent antics.
They’re literally killing blogging. You know this because chatgpt creates a better article than what 80% of people ranked with 2 years ago. Magically deeming that unuseful is nuts
Lots of changes, for sure.
I find the term “blogging” quite general, it depends on what you blog about. Previously when I had a blog about random stuff about things I did, what ranked and give me views were my posts about my niche collections, 2 in-depth game walkthroughs and one about a chart for army commands. It helps if the posts are deemed useful or helpful to people looking for info.
Mmm, not sure I agree. I have good content on my site that I’ve written becuse I thought it was interesting. Since I don’t have tons of supporting articles in the same domina it doesn’t rank. So eeat have priority it seams.
For sure, you have to have both
I loved your videi, thank you.
Glad you enjoyed it!
They are killing bloggers. Both HCU and generative AI. TH-cam is more viable these days - they actual reward creators and don't give us BS algo updates that crush us overnight.
TH-cam is hard. And so is blogging. No easy path. but both can still be very rewarding.
@@niche-pursuitsTH-cam is easier now on search based channels. Blogging you don’t even know from month to month. I think what makes YT easier now is engagement is easy even with search based terms while you don’t get that from blogging
If there are holes in the search results for terms that HUMANS are searching for, and you identify that, then create the information the HUMANS are searching for specifically - that is by definition writing for HUMANS
I don't disagree.
“Brands are the solution, not the problem. Brands are how you sort out the cesspool.” - Eric Schmidt
Wow, great quote!
That's always been the case though ... nothing new
I agree with your video headliner. Blogging is dying a slow death. I definitely don't recommend anyone who's even thinking about it to get into it. You will be incredibly disappointed that all of your thousands of hours you pour into it will amount to nothing........Sure you may get lucky and make a couple of bucks here and there, but that's probably about it....There are far better ways to spend your time.
It all depends...
Now that the car is fixed, lets repaint the bonnet :)
haha, totally!
Google is killing content marketing (well, for some)
You're wrong. Google is just doing it's maintenance getting rid of the crap content out there.
Seeing what Google have done to Discover is disgusting.
What do you mean?
@@niche-pursuitsso many people's traffic has dropped to zero overnight. People that have worked so hard are completely ruined.
How much is reddit paying google to remain in the top search pages?
Reddit and Google are the subject of my next video...stay tuned. I've never heard of any Reddit payments to Google...but who knows.
०
@@niche-pursuits One possibility I have been looking at is, is it possible for a site not to be hit with HCU but lose traffic and rankings solely on the fact that Google is amplifying Reddit and similar user generated content sites?
Google seems happy to intermediate content, especially that content containing facts, and then present them as their own (knowledge panels, Generative AI etc.) while letting the large corporate social sites own the "water cooler" conversations. Google is the Internet's largest marketing engine. If one's content doesn't surface on Google, then they are most likely not going to have much of an audience. Having no audience obviates the need to write for one's audience, no? If the GAI is any indicator, soon the first two folds worth of information for many searches are going to be links to Google's affiliate programs, Google's ads, Google Maps, and content that Google swiped from other websites. Google is quickly becoming irrelevant as an open search engine. And The Google rep's replies in your Twitter feed are like patting one on the head and saying anything that doesn't pay them for exposure is just someone's hobby. "Write about what ever you want, little Johnny. Now run along."
Maybe we can use AI to read Google's mind as to what it will do/want next?
Google wants this, Google likes that, Google Google GOOGLE!. I just don't get why almost everyone spends soooo much time & effort kissing Google's a**!. They are not
The only search engine.
thinking outside the SEO community, remember that people do not read as much as they did in the past. That is hurting bloggers more than Google updates. People are spending more time watching videos. I think bloggers are going to have to incorporate video into their pages and start TH-cam channels to keep up with public habits (if looking to build a brand, it is a must to post video content regularly and often). Please remember, Google and other search engines are free to use. They make money with ads but people are slowly learning to ignore display ads. I don't even see them anymore, do you? Google can probably foresee the day when display ads are no longer profitable... and they are smart enough to find ways to replace those funds. I would love to know what their financial planners are up to.
People's habits have changed...but I don't think blogs will ever go away (just to clarify).
Killing? or filtering all the junk out there, especially with junk content that people use AI to create.
If you use AI to improve or help write your content, it's great. But if you use it to recycle or create junk content, it's a different story.
The majority of people don't understand and just want to make a profit by creating junk content, non-authoritative content, and low quality.
Google needs to delete 70% of the websites, the AI in a few years will do it.
Will monitor all the junk that people write.
The Chat GPT is strong in this one..
What do you mean?
@@niche-pursuits It sounds like you are reading a script that Chat GPT wrote. Usually you sound more off-the-cuff
Surely with that boost in traffic you’re seeing with niche pursuits and the increased revenue you can afford to upgrade your sons car 👍 ( I’m trying for you son of Mr Haws ) 😂
haha, good point! However, he bought his own car...and I'm going to keep it that way.
@@niche-pursuits good parenting 😉 just kidding.
It's time to leave Google.
I wouldn't go that far.
Unless we pay for it, Google owes us nothing.
Also true. But they make a ton of money off our content...so it just feels like they should be more open.
Google is using the content created by people. Both on Google Search and on TH-cam. Google makes billions from people's content.
True, but they also give us free rankings which bring in $$$ to us. @@jollyjames30
I think Google is killing blogs that have nothing to do with Google. I think the incident depends entirely on monetary, that is, economic reasons. Think of it this way. You have a business model and those who benefit from this business model do not add economic value to you. Would you continue to work with them?
Interesting thought.
Naaa, most idiotic think you ever say. Hdow bloggers does not add any value to google`s economy? Bloggers sends millions of traffics to google ads via ad companies.
That's what I was thinking. Wasn't it said that e-commerce websites are on the rise?
It's not a brand!
Exactly!
Seniors in this industry made their money already. Is Google killing blogging? This channel alone had this exact question recycled at least 7 times ... I think Google will hurt bloggers and blogging in the next 5 years. Hey ..
Time will tell...
Its just not true though. Think about semantic SEO and crawl budgets and you'll understand it's all about Google making money or not. You gotta give Google cookies constantly, and they give you crumbles of their huge cake back as a thank you.
Link whisper is not a good tool, just being real. All vets know it
It barely works. Especially the auto linking, which is why many went for it. Also it doesn’t offer any actual good suggestions. Useless man, just criticism you already know
Link Whisper is an excellent tool. Did you get all your settings right? Are you synced up with Google Search Console? Do you have link whisper synced with any SEO tools (rank math, Yoast, etc) that you use? If you have it set up properly, Link Whisper is exceptional. Be sure to follow the starter guide: linkwhisper.com/knowledge-base/link-whisper-starter-guide/
@@niche-pursuits 😂
Link Whisper is awesome for real websites. Using it successfully depends on understanding your content and your reader. Knowing the natural connections between your articles. This helps search engines gather more context about your content. Proper internal linking depends on your niche, your reader, your content type and even how you write content. I found that if you don't know your content, or your target audience....you won't know what to connect. But if you understand the search intent and have great topical authority- using Link Whisper is incredibly helpful and works super fast. It has taken two of my sites from not getting indexed to ranking on the first page and getting great traffic. And it's a WAY overdone and over saturated niche too! But I had an older site that I started a year ago....so I didn't remember what I wrote or why I wrote it- and it was difficult for me to remember. Link Whisper helped me put the old blog posts in categories and then it suggested all the right links. It saves so much time and that old site has now doubled in traffic!
@@candiceakers9957 i cant stop loling here
Blogging is my very last priority these days. All that work for very little return or waiting YEARS. It's all about video these days anyways I've made more money social media marketing and built my email list faster!!! This is after spending $997 on a blogging course Looool
Hmmm, that doesn't sound fun.
Adam Enfroy?
@@momohomeiza2000 lol no, Elite Blogging Academy. Wish I knew about Adam's course before I bought this one 5 yrs ago.
Lost 80% 😢
Ouch :(
-40% off(Sept. vs. Oct.).
Ouch.
please separate this kind of videos from podcasts and feed us with more of these :)
You have touched very serious aspects of blogging and no one is talking about it, but some out of context, random and totally irrelevent insertion of funny video clips made me quit the video after 4 minutes. That was unbearable.
You should try watching it again. haha
But copy and paste is OK with Google, The amount of videos that teach how, 😂
hmmm
No, blogs is google, google is blogs.
haha
I think Google is killing "me-too" content. "10 Things to do in Paris". AI can answer real quick or "Who is George Washington". Easy. Creating databases and information that cannot be summarized easily should be the key but it is obvious it is not easy money anymore. You cannot just sit down and try to write stuff that is not extremely unique or relevant. It is not like you create a travel blog about your city.
One little feedback: Please do not use too many cuts and small jokes to interrupt your content.. Your content is good enough. Those cuts are boring and too frequent.
Good points. And glad you liked the content (even though you don't like the editing :)). Feedback received!
@@niche-pursuits One more thing. The edit has audio louder than your voice. So make sure get your upwork guy make the whole audio consistent. : )
kill off blogging and bring back forums
Whoa.. Lets make another click bait tittle like this and I'm UNfollowing
Bro this is way too fast of cuts to B roll for an informational video. Makes it way too hard to focus on what you're saying. Mr. Beast's style does not work for this kind of video
Nope, Doesn’t make sense anymore to blog. No need anymore to create static content when you have constantly new trained language models. Blogging (static pages) will disappear like phonebooks from the 80ies. Stop blogging and train your own AI model. 🥂
I don't think so. Blogging has historically been about opinions and insights and interacting with your readers. That won't go away.