1 Month After August googlegeddon! of 2018!
Month one - Post Augustgeddon and the acopolypse of my site!
Waking up on lovely sunny summer morning, fresh sea air breazing in the window and some great background tunes ala chillax cafe del mar getting ready to work..
Pho Bo for breakfast - a delicious traditional Vietnamese beef soup and my fave "Cafe suda Saigon" Vietnamese Coffee that orininates from Saigon, made with condensed milk.
Absolutely everything going perfect, breaking all records traffic is actually a record month (July)..
Then Boom!
Log in to Google Analytics.....
Shock Horror....OMG!
8am..only 120 visitors
I start feeling a bit sick....something is SERIOUSLY wrong! I have I been hit by a penalty?
I mean I should be at about 300-350 sessions by 8am..
Down..65%
It's like I got a V12..but its firing on only 4 cylinders!
August 1 Update...whooped My ass!
Not much I could do about it but ride the wave..I figured no point making any drastic changes or edits or what ever...not on a site with 750 posts!
Ride this one out!
The more info I can get the better. The more I can understand what happened and what to do about it.
Exactly what I spent August doing...geeking out on my stats using Google saerch console.
I spent 3 years building up a site - ! Ain't losing it without a fight!
What keywords moved in serps..and by how much..(in both directions)
Can I categorize those posts? Do they have a common element?
What is the comparitive CTR for those posts..how was the CTR prior and after the update?
Note down the changes..and document it.
I continue that over a whole range of keywords (ranking for 15k!) filter out review, best, top, "how to" main type of keywords..
and spend hours checking many other sources of info in regards to the latest update. Geeked out on the data put an action plan together.
Results
August: Traffic -65% in comparison to July
I did n't do much traffic wise, just a few things targeting..(cherry picking more like).. keywords that were money related, and easy picks and ones that I had not created content around. They had to be ranking in positin 4 or 5 and be what I believed to be stable or moving in an upwardly direction going on my over analysis.
Content was improved and updated on pages In positions 4-5.
Content created around previously very high ranking keywords that just dissapeared from rankings (dropped keywords!).
Moolah!, the green stuff... Very much the same, slightly down but that could have been seasonal and unrelated.
I focused on improving conversions, although I was getting pretty good traffic Earnings Per Mille was freaking low! something I have been lazy about (been $40/1000 sessions for about a year!) July was actually lowest ever despite record traffic ($36 EMP!)
Result the dramatic improvement on an under optimised site helped me to earn very much the same as previous months.
September - a full month post googlegeddon... traffic is up to a little more than 50% of previous record of July.. Yay!
Action taken as per above and more fresh content. And About me page was updated and improved. Surprising the difference an about me can make!
Moolah; Ohh that was really good! $78 EPM, now kinda in the normal range but can still do better and I believe it will.
If you are gonna go down..don't go down without a fight!
Special Shout out to Princilla and Reyhana both of you have kept motivated and inspired, when really I wanted to was bury my head in the sand and pretend it not happening! Your positivity keept me going!
Now I really can't wait until I recover my traffic with that higher and better EPM.. :-)
Update: Traffic since dwindled and stuttering to 50% of September traffic rate given further Algorithm updates. Since stablisied at 25% of my record traffic month of July
but,
Earnings are now 90%-95% of that, Thanks to some full on email optimisation techniques.
Of which you can see Here How To Market To Send A Broadcast To Unopened Emails
Derek.
Recent Comments
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I am glad (though I shouldn't be) the downturn I experienced after the "Medic" update was real and not just due to something I did! If it is was just me it would be easier to fix however so I really shouldn't feel that way!
Good for you for plugging away and building it back up! I did the same on a much smaller scale. I started to look at everything, look for patterns, figure out where my site's strengths and weaknesses are and fix them. It is coming back I think but still slow.
Proper bummer that update eh! I am actually glad it was an update too and not a penalty!
Vietnam eh, so that's where you at! Awesome work man on growing back the traffic. That cafe suda saigon sounds amazing
Not out of the woods yet - I'll call it sorted when I get 100% of my traffic back and get a traffic above the July 2018 record for 3 months in a row..
Yes, very, very very targeted writing targeting keywords that were not falling (I lost about 8,000 keywords - some page one, some absolute top!) I had to be 100% sure I was not wasting my time targeting a falling keyword or one that wont' be dropped completely.
Specifically, I targeted those only on positions 4 and 5 and were LSI keywords not previously with an article of their own targeting them
Just to add Rufat, normally I would target keywords that are page 2 or 3 and create content around those and get page 1 rankings but I needed some quick instant hits and sales (thus only pos 4 & 5 and money related keywords).
Thank you for the tips. Just curious. I have 440 pages of content and still my traffic doesn't grow. Always around 120 visits a day. Now even less than 100. Writing more doesn't help at all.
Pho Ga! I like Pho Bo too much to try the chicken version. and yeah Pho Tom is a very nice. I am a sucker for Bo Ne! (especially ina Bahn Mi)
That's fantastic! I can't wait until I have these problem. LOL
honestly though that is a great report and good advise for all of us. Thanks for sharirng
Thank you kindly.
I'd rather not have those problems..haha! I was lazy about my low EPM because its not a problem if you have a growing site - can always optimise that later!
Really a low EPM and raising that, which has helped the bottom line. Still fighting for traffic..might take as much as a further 6-8 months (projected) to recover.
Thanks for the heads up to keep on fighting. I'm actually in a lull in my traffic right now, and am just riding it out right now.
I have yet to check rankings, but will do that soon if it stays low. Hoping it's just a phase and the 'pendulum' will swing back the other way soon, but we'll see.
That is exactly what Big G is like..It quadrupled my traffic in June 2017 - then took 2/3 of it back in August 2018!
All swings and roundabouts as they say!.
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Yikes. Valuable lesson here for everyone. Thanks for sharing your road to recovery. Well done.
Thanks..not there yet..long way to go---still got to double my traffic of traffic to say I have fully recovered.
You will. I know you work hard and I believe in you. I look forward to reading your next success post. Cheers