Is Everyone Moving On?

[edgarf76]

I read an article in seroundtable (https://www.seroundtable.com/google-...ing-38323.html) that was a bit disturbing. Is everyone moving on to other sites or projects? Do you still feel your site can recover?

[bpmee]

My impression is that this article, and some of the "SEO Influencers" it cites, are using sensational headlines for quick traffic and publicity.

Sites don't recover as much as they become more or less relevant in a constantly evolving search landscape.

To believe your site can recover to where it was before HCU is to hope that the internet - and Google's algo - would return to a previous state. This is impossible.

The only way forward is to adapt and become more competitive. The "move on" conclusion would be appropriate for individuals making a living online, but it doesn't necessarily apply to a comprehensive SEO strategy.

Just my nickel.

[PaulEchere]

Like bpmee said, website and pages may drop ranking over time and that is the natural way of things. Pages and content may become outdared and less relevant over time. Algo updates (as much as they can) try to ensure that the most relevant content is served to the people searching for it.

If your pages got hit by any of the recent updates, that's simply a signal that you need to change something.

[casinohub888]

I've had a couple of older sites that got hit by the HCU update. I've tried to revive them without success, so I've started a couple of more projects in order to hedge my bets.

There's a big possibility that sites hit by the HCU update will not recover for a long time, even if you fix all the issues, so I would recommend starting a couple of more sites in the meantime.

Funny story; I had a site that got hit in one of the Google updates around 5 years ago. I just kept the site online and barely touched it. Now the sites has started to get some traffic again, so it is possible for sites to resurrect on their own, without you doing anything.

Ploy
Content Manager

[Nordiska]

Shouldn't be something to worry about as long as you write high quality content as people mentioned,
Try not to melt in the crowd as that often results in you getting blown away. I'm not saying that you should write something that no one has ever written before but keep in mind, the better you help people find what they're searching for, the better you'll get treated by google.

Goodluck!

[wonderpunter]

I think what happened in the 2023 HCU is here to stay, I think the damage was permanent and google can't fix it hence why they say move on. Some people had success by moving sites to a new domain it would be intrestign to know id those rankings they gained are still going well? or did they get punished from previous updates?

[MarkKnight]

Domain history is very important in SEO you just can't get rid of it. If your domain has been heavily damaged during HCU (drop by more than 50%) restoring it will most likely take more time and money than creating a new one.
We don't have any cases of recovery after HCU although we have worked on several projects. And it is disappointing that the price of a mistake becomes even higher in the SEO.