Byebye Google traffic!
Filed under: reads
Number of comments: 
Number of trackbacks: 
Tagged with: Since a while I've noticed that traffic to my blog has gone down quite a bit. I really didn't know what could possibly be causing this decline until I remembered what I wrote before. In their eternal wisdom, Google has decided that all of a sudden, without having changed a single letter in my existing content, this content is a whole lot less 'relevant' than it used to be. In other words, my PageRank went down from 6 to a lousy 3. And believe me, this is clearly reflected in traffic numbers. Now the question is: do I really give a fuck? The answer is: not really. While it's nice to receive a lot of traffic I do think this is an utterly ridiculous thing. Has the absolute importance of my articles changed? Of course not! I haven't edited them. They're still there in their original form. Yet, because I make a few stray bucks through a few sponsored links, Google has decided that my content doesn't matter all that much anymore. As I wrote before, I don't really mind Google cracking down on paid links. I wouldn't really have a problem with interest in paying bloggers some bucks for a link on their site gradually disappearing because the associated effect is gone. I do however have a problem with being deemed 'less relevant' for nothing. The wrong parties are being penalised here if you ask me. If my content used to be 'relevant' it still is today. It's not 'outdated' or 'obsolete' yet. So much for 'quality search results' eh?
So, bye bye Google traffic! Luckily I don't financially depend on running this site which is why I can safely say that I really couldn't care less. The ones who are truly interested will hopefully know how to find me!
read where I predicted this to happen sometime soon...
At 30 March '08 - 02:01 Matthijs wrote:
That there are so many spamblogs with some lousy filler content and some adds just for the reason of getting some paid clicks on adds?
At 09 April '08 - 02:26 weefselkweekje wrote:
I agree though that Google’s punishment is rather harsh, especially considering that it’s their algorithms that created a situation where links are worth money.
I still know of a few sites that copy-paste banner ads in by hand, thus creating a link to the ad buyer’s website. Should these sites be punished as well? For simply not running (needing?) a banner server?