John Mueller, Google Search Analyst at Google, wrote a response to a site owner who saw his site tank in September 2023 and hired SEO, and there has been no improvement. John’s response was that it probably wasn’t one thing but many things and that even possibly the site had a good run and it’s time to move on to something new.
John wrote Reddit the following points:
Chances are server issues weren’t the problem. Removing a few ads will not solve the problem. Denying the links will not fix the problem. Buying links will not solve the problem. Switching to a new SEO plugin will not fix the problem.
He goes on to explain that sometimes you might “consider that you’ve possibly already had a good career” and should apply what you’ve learned to “another project.”
This is what he wrote:
The server downtime probably has nothing to do with the changes you’re seeing, it was just a random awkward moment. Probably the bump after the server downtime just caught up again.
To be fair, downtime of more than a month (from a rough look) is terrible for search, as many pages will fall out of search results during that time. It takes time for them to re-index again. Even with a technically correct 503 response code, downtime of more than a day or two will have an effect (and with a change of hosters, I doubt you served a 503 anyway).
There will be more basic updates, so there is room to grow again, but you really need to rethink your site strategy to get a good site (disclaimer: I have no idea what site you’re talking about). It’s not about flagging ads from infinity to infinity-1, denying 5 links, buying 5 links, or switching to another SEO plugin. It’s hard, and I think some sites may find that their business models don’t work with the changes (for example, if you have a maximum of 50 cents to spend on auto-generated content, to give an extreme example). If you suspect you’re in the “it doesn’t make sense anymore” camp (well, I hope not, but sometimes cutting your losses and moving on is good for peace of mind, too), consider that you may have had a good run already, and you’ve learned a lot about how to build / optimize / monitor / debug technically sound sites, all of which you can apply to another project, or to the professional work you do with clients.
This reminds me of Glenn Gabe’s kitchen sink approach – where you simply can’t point to one problem with a site and it’s Google positioning.
I mean, this site seems to have been hit by the September 2023 useful content update and there have been no recoveries for that update yet.
Discussion in the forum a Reddit.
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