Websites that lost over 90% of their traffic due to changes in Google search algorithms complain
HouseFresh disappeared from Google Search results. Now what?
https://housefresh.com/how-google-decimated-housefresh/
In February 2024, HouseFresh published a warning article stating, 'Do not trust product review articles from well-known media that appear at the top of Google search results.' Even now, more than 10 weeks after the article was published, many responses are still being received via social media.
A few days after publishing the article in question, HouseFresh received information from a former employee of digital media company Dotdash Meredith that 'Dotdash Meredith was using an SEO strategy called 'keyword swarming.''
Keyword swarming is a strategy in which you identify smaller sites that rank high on Google's search results pages for a particular word or topic, then down-rank them by posting a ton of content on the same topic.
'Swarming' means overwhelming your competitors, essentially publishing 10 or so articles on a particular topic to boost Dotdash Meredith's rankings in Google search and knock out smaller sites that were ranking higher,' a former Dotdash Meredith employee explained.
HouseFresh is a site that specializes in reviews of air purifiers, but Dotdash Meredith also conducts keyword swarming for categories other than air purifiers. The screenshot below shows the content (in blue) of Dotdash Meredith-related sites that appear at the top of the search results page when searching for air purifiers, slow cookers, and posture correctors from the left.
'Should we blame Dotdash Meredith for using its network of affiliated sites to post large amounts of content in order to help Google improve its placement on search results pages?' HouseFresh continued. 'Personally, I don't think it's good for the Internet, but if Dotdash Meredith's management has adopted it as a way to make money for shareholders, then it's understandable.'
Dotdash Meredith is not the only company using keyword swarming. Forbes, a world-renowned financial media outlet, also uses keyword swarming on topics far removed from their field of expertise. Forbes is a financial media outlet, but they post many articles about 'puppies,' which is far removed from their field of expertise.
Forbes has also published thousands of articles about dogs, cats, and kittens over the past few years.
Most of these articles contain a directory in the URL: forbes.com/advisor/pet-insurance/. This is a directory where Forbes publishes affiliate content related to pet insurance, HouseFresh points out.
Additionally, HouseFresh points out that 'Forbes' affiliate content team publishes a ton of content about cats and dogs because Forbes needed to establish itself in the pet-focused category against pet-focused publications like
In addition, they state that 'the majority of pet-related content on Forbes prior to 2020 was not based on pet expertise or tied to high-frequency search keywords that generated monetizable traffic,' and claim that Forbes began efforts to generate revenue from pet-related content after 2020.
As mentioned above, Forbes posts a large amount of pet-related content in order to maximize the profitability of its pet insurance affiliate content. However, because linking to the source increases the page rank of the linked content, Forbes publishes many articles without linking to the source.
Statistics pages without linking out to the actual sources of the statistics are everything that is wrong with content-led link building.
pic.twitter.com/F3IkHb37TS — Gisele Navarro (@ichbinGisele) April 2, 2023
As a result, Forbes' pet insurance affiliate content is viewed by an estimated 1.1 million users every month. HouseFresh points out that 'Forbes' decision to make money from pet insurance affiliate content has come at the expense of all the other sites that have been producing pet-related content for years.'
HouseFresh has been fighting a fierce battle against such 'content created solely to appear at the top of Google search result pages,' but in March 2024, Google announced that it would change the algorithm of its search ranking system to lower the search ranking of such low-quality web pages.
However, it seems that it was HouseFresh, not the major media companies that produce low-quality content, that was negatively affected by this.
For example, if you search for 'best budget air purifiers' on Google after May 2023, the HouseFresh article that was displayed second from the top of the search results page will be buried deep under sponsored articles, articles from major media outlets, and Google Shopping product listings after Google changes its search ranking system algorithm.
Below is an image showing what media content appears at the top of the search results page when searching for 'best budget air purifier.' The top-ranked content is from social media site Reddit and Q&A site Quora (orange), followed by major media (purple) and YouTube content (yellow), and below that is a large amount of Google Shopping content (red). HouseFresh's content appears below these, so its traffic via Google search has dropped dramatically. This is also true for search experiences using generative AI .
As a result, traffic to HouseFresh from Google search dropped by 91%. HouseFresh noted that since October 2023, nearly 4,000 users had visited the site daily from Google search, but that number had dropped to just 200 due to the change in the algorithm. In addition, most of these 200 people were intentionally looking for HouseFresh content by including 'HouseFresh' in their search terms.
HouseFresh has seen little of its content appear at the top of Google search results pages, but by taking advantage of Google's emphasis on popular platforms like YouTube and Reddit, it's taking steps to make its content more visible to more users.
Specifically, in addition to posting videos to social media such as YouTube, X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, and Instagram, HouseFresh is also posting content on Reddit, aiming not to 'increase traffic to HouseFresh content from Google search,' but to 'increase traffic to HouseFresh content from Google search via social media.'
Below is a screenshot showing the results. It appears that content posted by HouseFresh (in blue) is now being displayed on YouTube and Reddit, which are ranked highly in Google searches.
In addition to this, HouseFresh has also taken measures to secure revenue sources other than Google, such as adding affiliate links to articles.
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