still not down guys, my google search traffic,fun times! (I'm happy when it's not down again these days,not even thinking about full recovery hahahaha, imagine that)
Lizzy
So, I am planning my Facebook page agenda for a whole month, and while I'm doing this, I'm checking each post in GSC to see if maybe I still need to delete or redirect some of them and forget about them, but so far, every post is still on the rise (checked about 40 posts so far), so I'm kind of carefully hopeful. Although far from 'full' recovery though.
Maybe I should still slowly start updating some of them, would it be worth my time? Or just go on with what I'm doing? thanks!
Lizzy
@ohnoo_not_her I'd say for now, there is still a lot of SERP volatility.
The reason I haven't said anything about "recoveries" is because (ass I stated to you previously, it's NOT a recovery if you're not getting the same, or more, traffic than the ORIGINAL HCU in September 2023... so many people were getting, hhmmmm..... say, 500 visitors per day BEFORE September 2023, then lost 50% of that traffic, then the MArch 2024 Core Update, saw many people go down to about 1-3 visitors per day, so a LOT of people who are celebrating "recoveries" are now getting about 100 visitors per day... SURE, great improvement since MArch, but it's NOT a recovery when comared to pre-September 2023).
I'm actually surprised by how many "Big Names" in the industry are talking about "recoveries" without viewing it as above... Plus, many of them are eating their words now, as those who have "slightly recovered" are now starting to lose traffic again...
WHY?
Because they haven't done anything different from pre-September 2023 (Yours may well be a slow recovery... Why? Because you have increased branding, you are getting lots of foundational backlinks by having content on multiple platforms, your website now has a UGC part to it, i.e. forum, and you're mainly concentrated on promoting your content EVERYWHERE).
Anyway, sure, updating old or outdated content is ALWAYS a good idea, regardless of what's going on.
However, if you're still seeing "slow recovery" DON'T do anything until the end of October... WAIT.
For now, go through your Google Analytics (there's a really long article I wrote on WA around September/October 2022 about how to use GA to check specific articles, and Diane wrote an addendum to it about how to use GA4 to do the same thing) and look for articles that are basically DEAD over the last 16 months.
Then send me the urls and I'll do an Semrush report for each article, which will show you how to improve/update, that to focus on, and any parts that need to be removed, as well as new sections you can add (I would send the WA article myself, but even my sneaky free accounts are all banned now... so basically, I am NEVER going there again, even though there's a huge amount of my content still there)
@partha thanks!
Yeah, I remember that article, because if its the one that I think it is, I applied it to my site before the September 2023 update and after March 24 update,if I remember correctly.
Oeps, I already deleted 2 articles, but I'm not worried, they were dead for long lol, not even on socials.
( I can also tell now on Journey which ones not to ever delete, because they get lots of traffic through Pinterest)
Can anyone confirm if it is this article? https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/parthab/blog/i-would-charge-you-1000-for-doing-this-heres-how-to-do-it-for-free-basic-site-audit
thanks
@ohnoo_not_her Yep, that's the one... Diane also wrote a WA blog post, probably within 1-2 days of my one, which provided a tutorial of how to do this with GA4.
The easiest thing to do is to take one article at a time, do the checks in GA4 for the last SIXTEEN MONTHS, this way you can obviously check on how articles were doing prior to September 2023 HCU, were they affected by HCU, and how they've done since.
If an article wasn't getting traffic or ranking BEFORE HCU then it's "useless" in GOOGLE'S EYES.
BUT
Something I have kinda changed my mind on over the last couple of years (things change in SEO, therefore so does how I view things) is whether to delete an article simply because it isn't getting any "Google Love".
Obviously, as SEOs we have been heavily focused on Google for over two decades now, but realistically, if you think an article is well-written and helpful in YOUR MIND, and you think that your audience would benefit from it, then is it really worth deleting?
Perhaps it isn't getting any "Google Love", but you can still promote it to your audience, build foundational backlinks to it, perhaps even find broken links on competitors sites that can potentially backlink to it (this is covered in one of my tutorials in the "Private Coaching Group" I will be starting), or even performing outreach to competitors to see if they would like to link to the article based on some of the content you have found on their site (again, covered in a different tutorial for the "Private Coaching Group").
However, if you feel that the article was written "solely to rank in Google", and that you have other content that kinda covers some of the same factors, then you can delete it.
Furthermore, if an article is not getting any "Google Love", you can actually update it and potentially target a slightly different keyword or topic (yep, you've guessed it, covered in another "Private Coaching Group" tutorial, hahahaha!! Can you tell I've been busy over the last month or so, LOL)
All I'm saying is, don;t simply delete an article because Google appears to "hate it", think about the above first!!
@ohnoo_not_her Yep, that's the one... Diane also wrote a WA blog post, probably within 1-2 days of my one, which provided a tutorial of how to do this with GA4.
The easiest thing to do is to take one article at a time, do the checks in GA4 for the last SIXTEEN MONTHS, this way you can obviously check on how articles were doing prior to September 2023 HCU, were they affected by HCU, and how they've done since.
If an article wasn't getting traffic or ranking BEFORE HCU then it's "useless" in GOOGLE'S EYES.
BUT
Something I have kinda changed my mind on over the last couple of years (things change in SEO, therefore so does how I view things) is whether to delete an article simply because it isn't getting any "Google Love".
Obviously, as SEOs we have been heavily focused on Google for over two decades now, but realistically, if you think an article is well-written and helpful in YOUR MIND, and you think that your audience would benefit from it, then is it really worth deleting?
Perhaps it isn't getting any "Google Love", but you can still promote it to your audience, build foundational backlinks to it, perhaps even find broken links on competitors sites that can potentially backlink to it (this is covered in one of my tutorials in the "Private Coaching Group" I will be starting), or even performing outreach to competitors to see if they would like to link to the article based on some of the content you have found on their site (again, covered in a different tutorial for the "Private Coaching Group").
However, if you feel that the article was written "solely to rank in Google", and that you have other content that kinda covers some of the same factors, then you can delete it.
Furthermore, if an article is not getting any "Google Love", you can actually update it and potentially target a slightly different keyword or topic (yep, you've guessed it, covered in another "Private Coaching Group" tutorial, hahahaha!! Can you tell I've been busy over the last month or so, LOL)
All I'm saying is, don;t simply delete an article because Google appears to "hate it", think about the above first!!
I seemed to have missed this answer, decided in the meantime to not delete anything, unless a post has been way off-topic and no one will read it anyway, even on my socials. Thanks! Looking forward to the new tutorials 🙂
Yep, I think that's the article Lizzy.
Google is just acting crazy again on my end 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣
(it seems there's another core update for November)
Lizzy
@ohnoo_not_her Yes, the new Core Update was released yesterday and will take 2 weeks.
Google hasn't been very specific about what they are looking for other than
- “This update is designed to continue our work to improve the quality of our search results by showing more content that people find genuinely useful and less content that feels like it was made just to perform well on Search.”
@ohnoo_not_her Yes, the new Core Update was released yesterday and will take 2 weeks.
Google hasn't been very specific about what they are looking for other than
- “This update is designed to continue our work to improve the quality of our search results by showing more content that people find genuinely useful and less content that feels like it was made just to perform well on Search.”
I'm holding my breath, but stressed out lol, still rising a bit. Can be seasonal! I think I need a drink lol
Anyway, will keep on doing what I'm doing lol
I'm back, b**ches! Or, maybe not and google is just drunk again. hah
ahahahaha!
Lizzy
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