How Google algorithm updates are ruining my life

[@JB12-s5g]

Good luck! Enjoying the videos.

[@JimMakosCom]

Thanks Jake, glad to hear that and thank you for the feedback!

[@CBitt1]

Jim, I feel this. My site was the best in my niche, bringing in 100k pageviews a month. I write the absolute best content and was rewarded handsomely for it. On top of two salaries in the house, I was bringing in 3k-5k extra per month. It was a beautiful couple of years…until September 2023. My blog has lost 80% of my previous traffic, and with that, around 80% of my income from my blog. Horrible how Google prioritizes Reddit and other forum sites over actual helpful content. Wish you luck with a recovery.

[@JimMakosCom]

Those are about the same figures with mine. 80% is devasting, especially since it directly corresponds to revenue and income. I may not be affected that hard and Reddit isn’t competing with my website (yet), but with only one salary in the house, I might be more stressed. Did your site drop rankings in general, or was it Reddit/Quora/AI stealing your traffic? Best of luck to you, as well! ✌️

[@CBitt1]

@@JimMakosCom I’m sorry to hear that about your site and household income. You guys may have to start hustling to bring in some money until you can get your site back. I was looking at going full time into blogging until mine tanked. As for my site, I was page 1 on almost every keyword I was looking to rank for, with many posts ranked top 1, 2, or 3. Then literally within a month of the update, almost everything I wrote - I’m talking lengthy, detailed content that gave tons of helpful information - dropped off the radar and didn’t even rank on any of the first few pages. Almost every keyword I used to rank for has Reddit in one of the top 3 spots. Really sad that 6 years of work, with everything written personally by me has fallen, all because Google is prioritizing forums and big campanies.

[@CarlBroadbent]

My blogging conference just finished and there were plenty of people there whose sites ( including my own ) were destroyed by Google. However, there were also some incredible successes. I wish you all the best of luck with yours.

[@JimMakosCom]

Thanks for sharing that, sounds equally disheartening and encouraging at the same time! Let’s stay positive and get working. ✌️

[@tryoskar]

You're killing it Jim, keep working hard!

[@JimMakosCom]

Thanks Thomas! I am and I will! 👊

[@daka6887]

A lot of us have been greatly affected by this. I just about to quit my job running my website full time, just about to build another revenue stream and now I feel all my hard work has been for nothing.

[@JimMakosCom]

I know it's hard to think positively right now, but let's say it's a temporary setback before achieving our dreams. They just moved the goalpost a bit. Let's stay focused. The ONLY time our hard word would have been for nothing will be if we quit. 😉

[@dallassegno]

Try talking to humans in real life

[@charlesgriffiths4901]

Google have become greedy. Spondored ads, AI replacements. They've got what they needed out of a lot of people and basically chewed them up and spat them out.

[@JimMakosCom]

Well, they are a business and they care for their bottom line and revenues. I can’t blame them and I won’t tell them how to run their business. The point is how to adapt under the new circumstances. And whether AI is entitled to scrap our content. 🤔

[@peli1635]

too bad for small bloggers

[@JimMakosCom]

I'm hearing even big ones are in trouble, I'm afraid.

[@SeaCretinAction]

Google too is ruining my life. I hate what they've become and what its turning me into.

[@AarshBakliwal]

My blog also hits by march core update, and now iam doing full time seo specialist job. Now thinking of creating a new blog and leaving the old one.

[@JimMakosCom]

I've heard that's the ultimate solution when everything else doesn't work: Copy the content to a new domain and start from scratch. Eventually it will rank at the same places the old domain used to rank. Nothing says that a future update won't take that down as well, though.🙄

[@JoeMac1983]

Yep. I'm down 90% in traffic from a calendar year ago. It's been brutal.

[@JimMakosCom]

Was the decline gradual or sudden?

[@JoeMac1983]

@@JimMakosCom Got hit last March and went from 2,000 visits per day to 1,000. Then HCU knocked me down to 250 per day in September. The March update this year has me down to 150. I'm actually updating my content and switching themes as we speak. Not sure if it will help, but it's all I can do.

[@YiannisNisyrios]

To my untrained eye, I see the same story repeating again and again: A technology company builds a product to satisfy a market (or society) need, entrepreneurs try to crack it in order to exploit it, people get fussed about the fact that the product doesn't exactly do what it used to, and the technology company moves the goalposts taking advantage of the advances in technology. That's why Facebook and Instagram are losing users, after having evolved from sharing platforms into time-wasting advertising wastelands (and they'll carry on doing so, unless they'll heavily favour genuine user content again) - but again, I'm not the average user, as I prefer to live basically off-line and use the internet in the same way that I used to 20 years ago. I think that what you do is right, but it also underlines the fact that being an entrepreneur means that you have to be on your toes all the time, as it has always been.

[@JimMakosCom]

Amen to that! Very well said. At times like this, self-doubt sets in, and questioning life choices becomes overwhelming. But it's all the other times that make this 'entrepreneurship' thing all worth it. As a matter of fact, there are moments when even this soul-crushing, livelihood-threatening challenge feels exciting, believe it or not! Gauls would say: These entrepreneurs are crazy!

[@YiannisNisyrios]

I guess that people split into two broad categories in that matter: People that enjoy the thrill of not having a safety net (and a ceiling!) and people that enjoy making money for someone else in exchange for being able to switch off when they leave work!

[@pocket83squared]

​@@YiannisNisyrios It's hard to accept either of those categories. It would be nice to have a safety net and be able to enjoy switching off every day, but the whole making money for somebody else thing is a curse. Unfortunately, progressively more and more, we all seem to be making money for Google without getting a safety net-and none of us are able to switch off! Just once, I'd like to see a company steer away from this flowchart: _Product optimization→good product→successful business→business optimization→reduced product expenses→profit optimization→poor product→terrible business→PR/marketing optimization._ It's as though all the services I've loved end the same way.

[@housesofnl]

Making KZbin content and KZbin SEO is where it's at now. Google search is dead for small publishers.

[@JimMakosCom]

That's where I'd bet my money on as well 🎯

[@ShinilPayamal]

Thanks Jim for explaining HCU in such a simple way.😊🙏

[@JimMakosCom]

So glad to hear that! Thank you for your feedback, will make sure to keep things simple 👍

[@GlobalSuccessNarratives]

Sorry tp hear that What was your niche or are you willing to share your site?

[@JimMakosCom]

The niche is education.

[@henrythomas7112]

Thanks for the new video! I’m looking forward to seeing what other content you post! Always good to learn as much as you can!

[@JimMakosCom]

Awesome, thank you for the feedback Henry!

[@robv.1503]

There are a lot of us in the same boat (myself included), but you seem to have the same persistent attitude that I do. Best of luck, Jim. “Failure is only the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” - Henry Ford

[@JimMakosCom]

Such a motivating quote! We only lose if we quit. Good luck with your websites!

[@aronuchukwuezugo615]

I am now diversifying my website traffic to other platforms. I learnt the hard way

[@JimMakosCom]

True, we turn a mistake into a lesson by acting upon that. Best of luck ✌️

[@Von199X]

Isn't sports betting content banned in Adsense

[@JimMakosCom]

It's surely a "naughty" niche, but the website I'm referring to isn't my personal blog, in case you assumed so.

[@mithun-naik]

We can't blame Google... That's absolutely right. But we need not depend on Google, if we make content for people. We must nurture more people and loyal audience and not search engines and AI bots. Most of us (including me) realized it late only after getting hammered by Google.

[@JimMakosCom]

There's a saying in finance and gambling: The market has a funny way of humbling the best of us whenever you feel like you are leveling up. Well, it was time to experience it in web publishing! Adapt, persist and we can come out stronger from this. I truly believe it.✌️

[@crealizecoaching]

See it as an opportunity to make better content, rely less on tricks more on quality. I think its a good thing Google manages the tricks, not good that big companies get a heads-up and seem unaffected by last update until today. I think there also the great hammer has hit.

[@JimMakosCom]

In all honesty, the content was subpar for sure, so updating it is surely leads to better content. Google does manage the tricks, but we as small publishers would appreciate if the field was level.

[@MarchMeadow]

Great video, Jim! I also enjoyed your sports trading videos back in the day.

[@JimMakosCom]

Ah, those were the days, my friend! 📈

[@MarchMeadow]

@@JimMakosCom Keep your spirits up, my friend! Things will get better :-)

[@GregDolan]

Great video 👍

[@JimMakosCom]

Thank you 👊

[@atanu2531]

If I can do the jobs , humans need to do better jobs right?

[@AlexHawker761]

It sucks but you shouldn't have relied on Google as your main traffic source. The only constant in business is change. It was inevitable. Compaining about it won't change anything.

[@JimMakosCom]

If I came across as complaining, that was honestly not my intention.

[@sonicblaster2236]

Dude, you're wasting your time. The sites slapped by the HCU are not ABLE to recover. It's not about helpful content. The goal of Google was to show less relevant information and increase queries and thus ad impressions and thus revenue. You're wasting your time working on that site. Working on the Channel is fine.

[@JimMakosCom]

Well, I'll give it a shot nonetheless while working on my personal brand here. 🤞 Still the SEO subreddit includes a few success stories of recoveries so it's too soon to throw the towel.

[@sonicblaster2236]

@@JimMakosCom what success stories lol? there are no documented recoveries; otherwise I agree to focus on your brand; that's smart; build the channel up; but don't talk to me about recoveries

[@nosuchperson775]

@@JimMakosCom There is zero evidence of any recoveries.

[@GabriellaSannino]

Chapeau

[@alexisdemoulin5514]

So you wouldn't even check your website for weeks and you're crying because you lost your Google traffic? What were you thinking? It's a job man, you just got yourself fired, for a good reason.

[@JimMakosCom]

I said it was my own fault, that I was to blame, and that I was guilty of neglecting the website. The good thing about entrepreneurship is that you don't get fired, though. You just adapt and turn threats into opportunities.

[@motorcyclesdream6921]

If you check and write your website every minutes or seconds, HCU will still destroy your blog..

[@ChristodoulosYpodimatopoulos]

Your vlogs are unreal!

[@JimMakosCom]

Thanks! I try my best, but there's huge room for improvement!

[@Γιώργος-π6κ]

Γεια σου φίλε δημήτρη μόλις το είδα πολύ καλό έχουν ανεβή και η ακόλουθη στους χίλιους 93 συνέχισε καλά ταπας

[@JimMakosCom]

Παλεύω σε χίλια δύο μέτωπα αλλά ευτυχώς που είναι και το KZbin και ξεφεύγω. Ακόμα καλύτερα που αρέσουν στον κόσμο, ειδικά σε αυτή τη δύσκολη περίοδο που περνάω.

[@Γιώργος-π6κ]

@@JimMakosCom ναι ναι έτσι είναι και στα ελληνικά να κάνεις και όταν βρεθούμε σκύρο να κάνεις εκεί συνέχεια βίντεο.

[@JimMakosCom]

@@Γιώργος-π6κ μακάρι να είχα το χρόνο να έκανα μόνο βίντεο! Όταν τον είχα, όλο έβρισκα δικαιολογίες για να το αποφύγω! Τελικά πρέπει να μπει το αυγό στον... ποπό, για να πάρω μπρος. Όσο για τη Σκύρο, ανυπομονώ και το ξέρεις!

[@strzelba8254]

Easy then. All You have to do is to crack SEO code and job is done :)

[@JimMakosCom]

Easier said than done! Any tips for an SEO dinosaur?

[@strzelba8254]

@@JimMakosCom you be better asking AI about it than me (and perhaps 4.0v instead of 3.5 widely-available) . On the other side, whats stopping you from entering Betfair again? Is it illegal in Greece now?

[@JimMakosCom]

Gambling is rarely the solution to recovering from a financial disaster. Scared money never made money. And Betfair is not operating in Greece. At least we have access to 4.0 AI.

[@strzelba8254]

You rigth, gambling is no solution, trading with edge could be different, but like you said its not time for that. I suppose you will have to learn all about seo. Meantime, you can try making videos on youtube. You have some great skills and quality is top

[@JimMakosCom]

@@strzelba8254 That's exactly my plan. 70% focus on web publishing and 30% on KZbin. If only I had stuck to my KZbin plan I had back in 2019. I wouldn't be in this mess now, and I would get to do what I like the most: making videos 100% of my time! Oh, well, live and learn. Thank you for the support, it feels good to hear that you're enjoying the videos.

[@terrygorry]

If you get a job you won't have to worry about Google updates. It is your choice. You have been/are a gambler and you have bet the farm on Google and it has tanked. This is like going to a casino and putting it all on red or black and then complaining that "casinos are ruining my life". I wish you well but feeling sorry for yourself is not a good strategy 👍

[@JimMakosCom]

Hey Terry, it's so nice to hear from you! Getting a job is definitely the biggest motivation factor for making this work. I wouldn't consider betting on Google a bad bet. It surely paid off for years. Now, it's time to adapt or die. Once again. Thank you for your wishes!

[@terrygorry]

@@JimMakosCom Good luck anyway, I bet on Google myself, by buying their shares. And they have performed tremendously well over the last few years. But banking on Google search results ...Anyway, I hope you get back into a good place. I'm sure you can and you need to for your partner and little girl 👍

[@TheColossalBlanket]

Yeah, getting a job is definitely a more secure option. No company in history have ever laid off workers with a few hours notice or creamed off worker's salaries and pensions to line the pockets of bosses.

[@CBitt1]

Terry, it’s easy to say for someone who probably doesn’t have a website. And if you do, most likely hasn’t put in the work to build a site over many years. My site was the best on the internet and I put 6 years of work into it. Then, one day, Google flipped a switch and decided that good content wasn’t what they were looking for instead, forum results and big businesses. Google decided to cut my blog income down from 5k a month to less than 500. I’ve got a full time job, but this income was needed and now I just don’t have it anymore. So try to have empathy for those that have built something and now are watching it completely implode before their eyes.

[@mjt1517]

Jobs are for sheep who can’t cut it.

[@einatblackrose]

If you want to make money from content creation, you have to familiarize yourself with SEO. I won't lie, this is a very extensive subject to learn, and has quite a steep learning curve, but it's a good idea to at least start with some tips from experts, there are plenty of them on KZbin and across the web. But the first step I would advise you to take is to look at what your competitors do. This alone can give you an idea of what they do better than you, and what you can do better than them. Good luck.

[@JimMakosCom]

Great advice and that's what I'm doing among a myriad other things. Researching what the top 3 results are writing about and coming up with an even better version of them. Thanks for the support! ✌️

[@nosuchperson775]

@@JimMakosCom You seem to be stuck in this idea that the quality of the content matters. It doesn't anymore. Google has changed the game. Trying to create better versions of what's currently ranking is missing the point of what has happened.

[@JimMakosCom]

So what has happened?

[@einatblackrose]

@JimMakosCom I don't think it's the latest Google updates that are damaging your rank. The update was meant to combat websites that generate loads of AI-made content only made for SEO purposes and offer no value for users. This doesn't seem like your case though, if so, it's actually the opposite. I'm not familiar with your blog or the subjects you cover in it, but from what you said in the video it sounds like you write genuine content about topics that really matter to you and you are knowledgable of. That also refers to the EEAT factor, which is not a ranking factor in Google, but even if it were - you pass the test. There are many factors involved in ranking in Google, but the name of the game is just to be a step ahead of your competitors - you just need to do things better than they do. What I meant is not to look at what they do and just create a better version of it, but to try and figure out which SEO practices they use to rank better, and figure out how to do it better and optimize your content and pages. Here are some tips you can use: 1. Start with a keyword research. An easy and free way to do that is to simply start typing the topic you want to write about in the Google search bar and take a look at the suggestions for auto-completion - this shows you related expressions that people are searching. 2. Click on one of those expressions or write your own and hit Enter to view the SERP (search engine result page). a. Look at what's ranking at the top and see what they're doing. b. Look at the "People also ask" section - use those questions as headings in your articles. c. At the bottom of the page you'll find the "Related searches" sections - these are also keywords that you can use. 3. You can use this website ahrefs.com/keyword-generator to search for keywords. It's a free tool that's very useful and well-known. I won't get into an explanation on how to use it now (and I believe it's pretty straight-forward), but if you need you can find many videos explaining it. 4. SEO practices - First, you need to know the strongest points on the page for SEO: a. Page title (aka title tag) b. Meta description c. Headings and subheadings d. The first paragraph of your article e. Internal links, especially the anchor text (what's written on the text that serves as a link) 5. If your English isn’t great, I’d highly recommend you install Grammarly. You can install it as a browser extension, desktop app, or mobile app. This app corrects your spelling and grammar mistakes and typos, and suggests options for better readability. The free version should be enough for your needs. 6. Use AI - I don’t mean to write your entire article in Chat GPT, but it is definitely useful. Here are some ways that you can use it: a. You can write the topic and ask it to suggest keywords, title and headings. b. After writing your article, you can ask GPT to review it. Before you do that, make sure to always start the chat with an explanation of who you are, what is your expertise, what is your blog about, who is your target audience, what is the purpose and goal of the article, what keywords you want to rank for, and how you want it to sound (professional, friendly, informative… whatever feels right to you). If using the paid version, you can set it all in the settings. If using the free version, you can start the chat with this info, and then use the same chat window for all of your articles so you don’t have to write it every time, except the purpose and goal of the article, and what keywords you want to rank for. After gathering all that info, this is how you implement it: To begin, choose a title that contains your main keyword, and try to write a catchy title. This can also serve as the main heading of your page. If using a CMS to create your blog (and I assume you are), this probably happens automatically. The title appears as the title of the search result in the SERP. Then write the meta description - this is the text that appears in the SERP below the title, and doesn’t appear on your page. This is a short text that’s intended to attract people to your article. Use it to write a short compelling text using your keyword. Try to make it sound as attractive as possible. Use the related keywords and search expressions you found as I explained above in your headings throughout the article. Make sure to make good use of the headings as they are very powerful both for Google and for readers, so don’t shy on them. If your keywords have different variations and synonyms - use them in the headings. Make sure to set the headings in the correct order. I can’t cover all of it now, but if you need it, search for “page hierarchy” to make sure you follow good practices (also for accessibility). Inside the article itself - mention the keywords early on in your first paragraph. Use links to related articles in your blog (internal links), and be mindful about the text you’re using for the link - it should be the keywords for the article you're pointing to. It's also a great practice to link to articles and external sources by authoritative websites if relevant, Google loves it. You can also go back to older posts you’ve already released and optimize them in the same fashion. That’s a lot of information, so I hope you’ll find it helpful and make good use of it. Good luck!

[@rodrigocruz356]

Uauuuu. Que video top

[@JimMakosCom]

Thanks Rodrigo!