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This is one of several posts I've seen on HN lately following a similar trend: sudden and unexpected drops in search engine traffic. On the one hand it must be

This is one of several posts I've seen on HN lately following a similar trend: sudden and unexpected drops in search engine traffic. On the one hand it must be jarring to suddenly have a drop in traffic. But is it necessarily indicative of a bad administration of a search engine? Popularity of sites shift. People's tastes change. Even without an algorithm change we would not expect search traffic to remain constant. And algorithm changes do shift attention to sites that previously weren't getting traffic. Would the world better with static search traffic? The incumbents always win, and newcomers have a tough time getting a foothold. That's what it would take to avoid situations like these, and I'm not sure if it's an improvement over the status quo. Between living in constant worry that the algorithm might change and shift search traffic, and a world where the algorithm never changes and search traffic remains rather static I'm not sure which is really better. In the latter goodcheapandfast.com might never even have existed. Bing's blocking mechanism seems pretty crude, though, and not sharing why it was blocked seems particularly wonky. Sure it's a cat and mouse game between scammers and devs, but it'd be nice if they at least vaguely alluded to why the false positive happened.

jbman223 6y ago
You’re saying that user preference shifted, but in reality, Google’s preference shifted. That, to me, is the problem highlighted by this story and others.
- dj_mc_merlin 6y ago
  Google shifts their algorithm also in response to people gaming it. Affiliate websites (such as this one) have been gaming the SEO system with AI/India-written articles for a long time. It seems the dude is honest and writes the content himself, but it is obviously nearly impossible to tell them apart, so they all get the chop. Sucks for him, but perhaps we're all better off.
  - johnwdefeo 6y ago
    I agree with this in concept, but it has been a bitter pill to see my site overtaken by scraper/outsourced content that I consider to be pure spam. Google doesn't always get it right (regardless of my own situation).
    - dj_mc_merlin 6y ago
      I'd feel the same. I manage a SEO-driven website too and know the struggle. Sadly, some business practices go out of style. Good luck with this and your future endeavours!
      - johnwdefeo 6y ago
        Thanks, likewise!
- manfredo 6y ago
  I'm saying both user preferences and search algorithms change. Even absent an algorithm change, it's not reasonable to expect search traffic to stay high over time. A drop in search traffic is always a potential, and one that exists regardless of any change in the search engine. And it's also unclear whether algorithm changes - "Google's preference" as you put it - is a problem. Unchanging algorithms would likely trend towards a small set of incumbents collecting most search results. A shifting search algorithm landscape means users are more likely to see results that were previously buried. This story highlights one loser of this change, but not all the aspiring websites that would be eager to get even half of goodcheapandfast's traffic. These search results went somewhere. One site's lost traffic is another site's opportunity. Algorithm updates changing things up is not altogether an undesirable factor in a search engine.
  - johnwdefeo 6y ago
    Changing algorithms also favor a small set of incumbents. The stock of my former employer is up more than 2,000% in the last 5 years. That's amazing growth for any publisher and it's largely based on SEO.
andrewmutz 6y ago
Search engine ranking systems change from time to time. Those whose traffic benefit from these changes attribute it to their outstanding abilities as an internet entrepreneur. Those whose traffic suffer write blog posts like this one. It sucks for this guy, but this is just how search engines work.
ryan29 6y ago
I'm not really sure what to think of that site. I think it's above average for an affiliate marketing site, but I also wonder how reliable the recommendations are if they're derived from automated analysis of other systems like reviews, pricing, etc. when we know those are garbage systems that are constantly gamed. Even filtered, it's still garbage in garbage out, right? I think that (affiliate based monetization) is a really, really tough market to be in right now because Google and Bing are absolutely _dominated_ by low effort, garbage affiliate marketing blog spam sites. There are days where I'd pay per search if I could filter out sites that have affiliate links on them. The review / product discovery market as a whole is a disaster right now. The last good review site (IMO) was JonnyGURU and there hasn't been a new PSU review there since early 2019 (since Corsair hired him?). The thing that made that site great was that shitty products got shitty scores. It's not like the affiliate marketing reviewers nowadays where everything is 9.5 stars with the primary goal of getting you to buy _anything_ they can slap an affiliate link on. Even the site in this article is a bit guilty of that. "Here's a list of good value products that you can just buy without thinking," right? Off topic... If the site owner is lurking, I'd love to know why sites like Anandtech, or almost every review site from what I can tell, stopped doing endurance testing on SSDs now that manufacturers are packing them with shit quality TLC and QLC.
- djitz 6y ago
  Wouldn’t this mean it’s a good market to be in right now?
  - ryan29 6y ago
    I think reviews, especially something honest like the site in this article is aspiring towards, might be an ok market because the quality of those sites has declined so much in the last decade that I think there's room for a much better product. However, it's the affiliate based monetization that I was calling tough. At least for me, an affiliate link is an untrustworthy link because that link is working for the manufacturers and retailers, not me. I can't think of a decent way to monetize a review site without relying on a revenue stream that's susceptible to corruption (product access, affiliate links, advertising, etc.). Just look at the whole Hardware Unboxed / Nvidia thing that happened recently. The whole review industry must be completely FUBAR for Nvidia to think they could get away with that.

jbman223 6y ago

You’re saying that user preference shifted, but in reality, Google’s preference shifted. That, to me, is the problem highlighted by this story and others.

dj_mc_merlin 6y ago
Google shifts their algorithm also in response to people gaming it. Affiliate websites (such as this one) have been gaming the SEO system with AI/India-written articles for a long time. It seems the dude is honest and writes the content himself, but it is obviously nearly impossible to tell them apart, so they all get the chop. Sucks for him, but perhaps we're all better off.
- johnwdefeo 6y ago
  I agree with this in concept, but it has been a bitter pill to see my site overtaken by scraper/outsourced content that I consider to be pure spam. Google doesn't always get it right (regardless of my own situation).
  - dj_mc_merlin 6y ago
    I'd feel the same. I manage a SEO-driven website too and know the struggle. Sadly, some business practices go out of style. Good luck with this and your future endeavours!
    - johnwdefeo 6y ago
      Thanks, likewise!
manfredo 6y ago
I'm saying both user preferences and search algorithms change. Even absent an algorithm change, it's not reasonable to expect search traffic to stay high over time. A drop in search traffic is always a potential, and one that exists regardless of any change in the search engine. And it's also unclear whether algorithm changes - "Google's preference" as you put it - is a problem. Unchanging algorithms would likely trend towards a small set of incumbents collecting most search results. A shifting search algorithm landscape means users are more likely to see results that were previously buried. This story highlights one loser of this change, but not all the aspiring websites that would be eager to get even half of goodcheapandfast's traffic. These search results went somewhere. One site's lost traffic is another site's opportunity. Algorithm updates changing things up is not altogether an undesirable factor in a search engine.
- johnwdefeo 6y ago
  Changing algorithms also favor a small set of incumbents. The stock of my former employer is up more than 2,000% in the last 5 years. That's amazing growth for any publisher and it's largely based on SEO.

andrewmutz 6y ago

Search engine ranking systems change from time to time. Those whose traffic benefit from these changes attribute it to their outstanding abilities as an internet entrepreneur. Those whose traffic suffer write blog posts like this one. It sucks for this guy, but this is just how search engines work.

ryan29 6y ago

I'm not really sure what to think of that site. I think it's above average for an affiliate marketing site, but I also wonder how reliable the recommendations are if they're derived from automated analysis of other systems like reviews, pricing, etc. when we know those are garbage systems that are constantly gamed. Even filtered, it's still garbage in garbage out, right? I think that (affiliate based monetization) is a really, really tough market to be in right now because Google and Bing are absolutely _dominated_ by low effort, garbage affiliate marketing blog spam sites. There are days where I'd pay per search if I could filter out sites that have affiliate links on them. The review / product discovery market as a whole is a disaster right now. The last good review site (IMO) was JonnyGURU and there hasn't been a new PSU review there since early 2019 (since Corsair hired him?). The thing that made that site great was that shitty products got shitty scores. It's not like the affiliate marketing reviewers nowadays where everything is 9.5 stars with the primary goal of getting you to buy _anything_ they can slap an affiliate link on. Even the site in this article is a bit guilty of that. "Here's a list of good value products that you can just buy without thinking," right? Off topic... If the site owner is lurking, I'd love to know why sites like Anandtech, or almost every review site from what I can tell, stopped doing endurance testing on SSDs now that manufacturers are packing them with shit quality TLC and QLC.

djitz 6y ago
Wouldn’t this mean it’s a good market to be in right now?
- ryan29 6y ago
  I think reviews, especially something honest like the site in this article is aspiring towards, might be an ok market because the quality of those sites has declined so much in the last decade that I think there's room for a much better product. However, it's the affiliate based monetization that I was calling tough. At least for me, an affiliate link is an untrustworthy link because that link is working for the manufacturers and retailers, not me. I can't think of a decent way to monetize a review site without relying on a revenue stream that's susceptible to corruption (product access, affiliate links, advertising, etc.). Just look at the whole Hardware Unboxed / Nvidia thing that happened recently. The whole review industry must be completely FUBAR for Nvidia to think they could get away with that.