Smashed By The Recent Algo Update - Will Google Treat My New Content The Same?

[milehighmuscle]

Hello Everyone!

My site probably like many of yours got obliterated by the recent update. I have lost 75% of my traffic.

I was curious for those who have experience with past updates... Since my site got smashed by google is that them saying they most likely wont rank any of my new content either?

Is it best to start putting content on a different site and see if in the next several months the site that got hit starts to recover before investing anymore into it?

 

[Ryuzaki]

The problem here is you're making several assumptions:

• that this update was about content quality
• that this update didn't include a big mistake that will get rolled back in coming weeks
• that this update wasn't about other issues, most likely dozens of them

Core updates are never about one variable. Panda, Penguin, and others deal with specifics. Core updates deal with tons and tons of algorithmic variables.

Google often pushes out big updates with unintended consequences that they immediately start clawing back. If you read around you'll hear about how many people got walloped during the November update only to recover it all back in the December update. So on and so forth, constantly.

There's often unintended consequences, and there's no way that sites losing every single ranking and falling out of the top 100 across the board was on purpose.

After enough of these "rodeos" with Google you learn to not panic. Your site wasn't perfectly fine and then completely not fine with the flick of a switch without you doing anything to screw it up. If things were fine before hand, the best thing you can do is stay the course. What it costs you to wait is losing time and momentum and future income potential.

Diversifying your income even across multiple sites isn't a bad idea, and while this is a good reason to do it in general, it's not a good specific reason to do it.

Before you decide "Google doesn't like my content", think about all of the other things you can be working on or fixing. How's your link profile? What's your DR or DA or TF / CF scores? Are they up to snuff? How's your page speed? I shared a large list of things to look at in the past in the Kitchen Sink post you may consider going over.

Knee jerk reactions during updates are the exact wrong thing to do, is my point.

 

[milehighmuscle]

You're right I am assuming. I guess that's the frustrating part is that with this update all you can do I assume. Nobody really knows what it was targeting.

That's where your advice on not having a knee-jerk reaction comes in though! Without knowing its not worth making rash decisions. It just stinks to see your site's value become 1/4 of what it used to be when it has good content and completely whitehat. Like you said though, if it was built correctly and google liked it before then there may be an issue with the update. Only time will tell!

Im hoping there is a roll back of some sort in the near future. In the meantime, Im sure the Kitchen Sink post will keep me busy!

Thanks @Ryuzaki !

 

[bernard]

In addition to what @Ryuzaki said, use this Core Updates to challenge yourself on the quality and usefullness of your site.

Be honest about it. Is it actually helpful content that is written in any easy to read manner without a bunch of spelling errors? Does it have a design that is trustworthy and signals seriousness?

The truth is that we're all creatures of habit and our mind comes up with reasons that we're "good enough" so we don't have to change. The world is as you think it is until proven otherwise.

Catastrophic setbacks however resets your brain, allows you to actually objectively assess your life and your decisions.

In the grand scheme of things, getting smashed in a Google Update is a very mild catastrophic event, but it still gives you that brain reset and objectivity boost.

So use it!

Go through that site and identify what is good, what is bad, what must be improved. Live and learn. Get a philosophy for life and websites, that is positive and contributes to the world. When doing that, you won't be so afraid of unforeseen events, because you know you've done your best, it's much easier to weather a storm when you know your foundation will hold up.

 

[bernard]

Seems like indexing issues are back with this update?

 

[milehighmuscle]

In addition to what @Ryuzaki said, use this Core Updates to challenge yourself on the quality and usefullness of your site.

Be honest about it. Is it actually helpful content that is written in any easy to read manner without a bunch of spelling errors? Does it have a design that is trustworthy and signals seriousness?

The truth is that we're all creatures of habit and our mind comes up with reasons that we're "good enough" so we don't have to change. The world is as you think it is until proven otherwise.

Catastrophic setbacks however resets your brain, allows you to actually objectively assess your life and your decisions.

In the grand scheme of things, getting smashed in a Google Update is a very mild catastrophic event, but it still gives you that brain reset and objectivity boost.

So use it!

Go through that site and identify what is good, what is bad, what must be improved. Live and learn. Get a philosophy for life and websites, that is positive and contributes to the world. When doing that, you won't be so afraid of unforeseen events, because you know you've done your best, it's much easier to weather a storm when you know your foundation will hold up.

I do agree @bernard it is a great time to reset and see what can be improved! However, and in line with your comment about indexing issues my top pages/keywords are not even on the SERP anymore.

I've looked through the first ten pages of the SERPs for each of my keywords and a lot of my pages aren't anywhere to be found.

So as I'm trying to analyze where I can improve as you said (which is great advice) I cant even begin to diagnose it because I'm not even sure where I'm ranked anymore.

Im hoping something happens in the near future to at least get me back on the SERP!

 

[Bob_the_Builder]

Seems like indexing issues are back with this update?

Actually, I had a handful of posts that did not get indexed (discovered, not indexed). Those posts were no different from the 50 - 100 published and indexed in the same period. This week, those posts were indexed out of the blue. One posts was from the beginning of December. So for me, it seems that Google fixed indexing issues with this update.