Google seems to have shut me down?
Discussion
Wonder if anyone else is in the same boat? Right from the start this year has been s
t, utter st. The first change seemed to happen late 2015, September by memory. We used to get hundreds of spam emails, these stopped over night....and so did our sales! Ever since it's been up & down like a tarts knickers. Some weeks normal others what we would expect during the Christmas break. Last week was utter st, this week much the same. I've really given up with it, after 14 years of doing OK it seems we were shut down in weeks. No manual spam actions in search console, no messages at all (I lie, just one from Google Analytics telling me one of our goals hasn't had a conversion in weeks on one of my domains, no st sherlock!)
I've spoken with a few other webmasters who seemed to be suffering the same so I guess Google have done something yet again.
Anyone else seeing anything similar? To be frank I feel like topping myself, I've worked fking hard to get where things are and it seems it's all over, just like that. I've read the bullst about "quality" and "content" yet I see some really stty sites on page 1 for some of the search terms I used to monitor (& it's been like that since their Mayday update in 2010!). Apart from that it's Amazon Amazon & Amazon again (great user experience Google)
I've spent most of today looking at a big fking zero in GA real time, again, not much fun. I could go & spend a few grand (prob. more like 6-8K for what I do starting from scratch) with a web pro and get a new site but is there really any point with Google acting the way it does?
I feel so fking low I could ( & have) cry.
t, utter st. The first change seemed to happen late 2015, September by memory. We used to get hundreds of spam emails, these stopped over night....and so did our sales! Ever since it's been up & down like a tarts knickers. Some weeks normal others what we would expect during the Christmas break. Last week was utter st, this week much the same. I've really given up with it, after 14 years of doing OK it seems we were shut down in weeks. No manual spam actions in search console, no messages at all (I lie, just one from Google Analytics telling me one of our goals hasn't had a conversion in weeks on one of my domains, no st sherlock!)I've spoken with a few other webmasters who seemed to be suffering the same so I guess Google have done something yet again.
Anyone else seeing anything similar? To be frank I feel like topping myself, I've worked f
king hard to get where things are and it seems it's all over, just like that. I've read the bullst about "quality" and "content" yet I see some really stty sites on page 1 for some of the search terms I used to monitor (& it's been like that since their Mayday update in 2010!). Apart from that it's Amazon Amazon & Amazon again (great user experience Google)I've spent most of today looking at a big f
king zero in GA real time, again, not much fun. I could go & spend a few grand (prob. more like 6-8K for what I do starting from scratch) with a web pro and get a new site but is there really any point with Google acting the way it does?I feel so f
king low I could ( & have) cry.Wacky Racer said:
Very VERY important these days to have your website mobile optimised.
That doesn't really explain the wild, & I mean WILD fluctuations? Not to mention only a small % of users are coming from mobile according to GA. I guess what I'm asking (as well as venting) is has anyone spent thousands on a new website and actually seen any reward vs their old site?After spending days searching the closest I've come to a explanation can be found here :-
https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4777180.htm
No one seems to have an answer to it though!
ThanksTo answer some of the questions :-
Mobile tool didn't give a great score, 51. However as mentioned most of our users seem to come from desktop, I watch GA real time all day & when a user does hit our site from a mobile device they don't seem to have any trouble buying.
A lot of the products were niche, now copied elsewhere. We also self produce quite a few, again copied elsewhere now.
Spam in analytics? Constantly getting it, filtered out a soon as it hits via GA & also in htaccess file.
SEO-none, never employed a company and never involved in link schemes etc.
I can't see any new competitors, in fact a long standing one disappeared a few weeks ago (online since '99 by memory). I'm guessing in the same boat as us so went under
A fellow PH'er has been in touch & is taking a look, thanks for the idea's guys.
Mobile tool didn't give a great score, 51. However as mentioned most of our users seem to come from desktop, I watch GA real time all day & when a user does hit our site from a mobile device they don't seem to have any trouble buying.
A lot of the products were niche, now copied elsewhere. We also self produce quite a few, again copied elsewhere now.
Spam in analytics? Constantly getting it, filtered out a soon as it hits via GA & also in htaccess file.
SEO-none, never employed a company and never involved in link schemes etc.
I can't see any new competitors, in fact a long standing one disappeared a few weeks ago (online since '99 by memory). I'm guessing in the same boat as us so went under
A fellow PH'er has been in touch & is taking a look, thanks for the idea's guys.
NorthDave said:
Don't do that! I'm no expert but length of time you have been online for is a massive positive.
Although you might not want SEO in the sense of dodgy link building etc I would get someone to review your site from a search engine point of view. Even a fresh set of eyes can be a massive help from a user experience point of view. I can probably recommend someone if you want to drop me an email (or I'm sure there are a few people here who could help).
Yeah there is that but some people say if Google has in some way tagged your site then recovery will never happen no matter what, see this for eg :-Although you might not want SEO in the sense of dodgy link building etc I would get someone to review your site from a search engine point of view. Even a fresh set of eyes can be a massive help from a user experience point of view. I can probably recommend someone if you want to drop me an email (or I'm sure there are a few people here who could help).
https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4798321.htm
My other thought is to start again with an off the shelf cart system that is responsive. The current system was written by a PH'er and is long in the tooth now to say the least. Customers(when we have them!) still comment on how simple it all is and like the way it works. But if they can't find me that's pointless so I must abide the Internet police AKA Google
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