Such a shame how much damage has been caused. Wish there was a more positive end to the story, a section entitled "And here is how they turned it all around" would have been great ;)
@RetroDodo - I don't know if my comment was deleted by accident.. but you have lost a subscriber over nothing. My related comment was that I had no issues finding their site @ #1 in google (even being from SA).. and asked if there was any other site I had to see besides YT or Discord. Censorship is a NoNo in my book @Ahrefs - cheers.
Google is a business, and it wants to make money with ads. If you receive organic traffic and don’t spend on ads, for them it’s a loss of revenue. This could very well be a way to force people to pay for ads.
@@jorgeegrojjorge google ads sucks. you have to spend a lot of money to get traffics, but there is no guarantee customers are going to keep the item. in India it's a nightmare with over 70% of COD rate in some industries. the typical ROAS is always around 2 to 5. it means when you spend 1000, you get max like 5000 USD, but mostly it stays around 1 to 2 at the beginning. if you account shipping, manufacturing, paying for employees, other company expenses, compliance, tax, you barely get any income to sustain your business. for a small business this is a big hit, for a large company it's not a problem as they earn from sheer numbers. nowadays businesses are moving towards influencer marketing.
@@jorgeegrojjorge interesting. if a website receive organic traffic, and the site put some google ads/adsense in it, isn't that revenue as well for google?
Everything in this video is right. Dunno what happened during 2024, we lost half of the views all of a sudden, no matter the big watchtime or high quality content. Now the UA-cam search is filled with massive short videos at the top, if not them, endless playlists filled up with oldish content inside... Only at place 5 minimum, you finally get videos you search for. With AI coming, traffic will not be improving, giving a promotional factor to who has paid for the positions and AI reference to use. Missing the old authentic times ...
They destroyed revenue for a business I am a owner in 1.5 years ago .... totally wiped us off the internet and we lost $20k/a day in organic traffic and our PPC ad spend went thru the roof(6 figures a year). Our Ad rep said "Yeah we realize an internal tool did this in error to you but we cant fix it or we would be giving you competitive advantage" WTF!!!! Then we were told "Maybe you should rebrand" My response is would you tell that to a company like Heinz? Just now we have started to pop back up in the search
//My response is would you tell that to a company like Heinz? Just now we have started to pop back up in the search// They wouldn't tell Heinz anything other than where to spray.
SEO is clearly dying. AI is shrinking Google's space, and their response has been obvious: increasing ads, charging more, and turning the first page into an almost entirely paid space, something they were already doing before AI.
I have a website in the AI space and I beg to differ. Google has been my best traffic source. I'm getting tons of organic traffic from SEO. It's all about the topics you choose to create your business around. Go after trendy topics and ride the wave. You'll find Google blessing you everyday. Topic selection is the step 0 of SEO. So I won't say SEO is dying
The same thing happens with gamer UA-cam channels. Google only shows what Google itself promises to generate the most advertising revenue. This started about 2 years ago. I have a UA-cam channel that made 3000 hours a month with 500 subscribers. Now I have almost 10,000 subscribers and only 100 hours. Despite having subscribers, the videos are shown to less than 1% of the subscribers. The biggest UA-camr in the same game only made 1 million views overnight, going from 6 million to 1 million. AI may be making it even worse now.
Throwing me into a random home page is one of the top ways to piss me off when I’m on random sites. This is why i don’t even bother giving new sites a chance most of the time
Such a good video. A great story telling about Retro Dodo's seo issues with some explaination on how to improve some key aspects of the website in 13 mins is what i like to watch, this is good content!
Best product marketing video ever. Didn't hype the product, barely mention it. However when you see the reports your like WTF??? how do I get that?? Awesome job!
It was a pleasure to welcome Brandon, Sam and the crew to Retro Sect to shoot this video. A very important topic that needs discussing to ensure Google doesn't dictate traffic to websites clearly following best practice.
The truth is, it’s getting harder and harder to find anything on Google now. I don’t understand why particularly, because when you type in a search the ads Google displays knows exactly what you’re talking about. But in terms of actual search results, it’s the complete opposite.
Yep, my new site. Whereas my older sites not updated for months suddenly got a bump. Another big old active project unaffected, but that one wa sunder some algo hit for like a year before suddenly recovering the next year and I haven't been doing anything different, I gave up trying to understand what Google wants this time.
Love these stories! This one, in particular, is my favorite. Retro Dodo has such a nostalgic vibe-a massive online brand created by a guy who simply loved playing retro games with his friends. Oh my gosh, that's so cool! Also love the clean layout of the blog.
yep, make it very volatile and confusing so the only way to get steady traffic is to buy the stupid ads everyone is tired of having to scroll past on the first page.
It’s awful seeing so many posts, so many videos and so many articles from across the board of people who use Google having negative feedback about the state of SEO. For many years I’ve had a dream to create a blog of my own, which has brought me to learn as much as I could about SEO, Paid Ads, Affiliate Marketing, Ad Real Estate, Email Marketing, Social Media Management and Content Creation, and now with AI everyone only has negative things to say. It’s frustrating and absolutely is the thing keeping me from investing money in what will apparently never have a chance. What is supposed to be done when even the best have nothing good to say about what’s going on?
AI is going to change how we search very soon. Meanwhile, seems like email lists and social network presence are safest bets to invest time and money into.
I'm glad he's figuring out ways to engage with the community and traffic in alternate ways to keep the business going. But a larger issue at hand especially at this point in time, is that Google is effectively killing content sites for their own agenda. Now if someone else does this, Google's algorithm will punish them and practically de-list their site; but because it takes a government consortium to make them play fair, Google themselves basically do whatever they want and leave creators to try and puzzle it out. This has been the status quo for years and why the SEO industry exists, but it seems to me that everything has escalated (or declined) rapidly since AI rolled onto the scene.
Google is a business, and it wants to make money with ads. If you receive organic traffic and don’t spend on ads, for them it’s a loss of revenue. This could very well be a way to force people to pay for ads.
@@kilotangosierra I know what you are saying but having a stronger Bing would be a good reality check for Google and a healthier competition for both to strive better. Being this quasi-monopolistic in the search engine market gives google the leeway to do what it wants without much repercussions to their audience which has no good enough alternatives.
@hentype i understand your point, i think openAI are now doing this...but i was emphasising that MS cant, and havent ever been able to do anything properly. Bing after all these years, still sucks, and theres no real excuse for that imo.
Fantastic video! Is there any way out of this Google update/AI mess?? 1. What would you as an SEO expert suggest that Google should do? 2. What do you suggest small creators and business do? 3. Inventing another search engine does not seem practical but how can tech innovator help small & organic players?
This has to be officially investigated, there's no way they've consistently punished severely and disproportionately smaller publishers over the years with only minor slaps here and there to the big guys. There has to be something in this, it's been happening for too long to not be deliberate. Especially now that they basically abuse them with getting AI trained on them and then leaving them out to dry. And even the killer link building he has organically doesn't cut it, this is insane.
I love these series! I just received a tough blow from the latest Google spam update, and I've lost rankings and traffic in a drastic way. It’s comforting to know I'm not the only one. I can't help but think that, in the end, Google is a business. If it sees that your site generates organic revenue, it doesn't like it because behind all that 'user-first' talk, Google makes money from selling ads. So, this could very well be a way to push people to spend on ads. Don’t doubt it for a second.
I don't understand, surely he could see in his backend, that people are getting to pages that he killed, and are being redirected? Why didn't he act on those?
Absolutely disgusting what happened to RetroDodo. However, this was a fantastic share, and I hope to see more storytelling within SEO using this format. Great work Sam and team.
This is a very good video Sam. We need to talk about the ai generated content on SERP that is stealing our traffic while at the same time using our traffic
Wouldn't it make sense from a profit incentive standpoint that this would be intentional? It forces successful players to utilize advertising in order to continue siphoning traffic to their website.
My site got crushed too. It was gaining weekly in 2024 until August, then it crashed by 40% and slowly degrading since. It is no longer self-sustaining on ads so...who knows
On a business perspective, it makes absolutely sense to use an algo that maximizes the profits for google. I think they already do this for years. same on UA-cam. there is no growth anymore.
Google shouldn't drop traffic off a cliff. They should give warnings instead of leaving owners down a never ending Easter egg hunt with a bad ending. I spent my savings on an affiliate site at the beginning of covid to help ease problems. My traffic and $1000 income a month was gone in 2 weeks with the 2019 update.I have met many with similiar stories.
We've seen Google can pull the plug anytime. They didn't give him a warning, they didn't even give him a reason. His livelihood, gone. If you ever gain success on UA-cam or SEO. Cash in as much as you can, and use that chance to grow outside of Google's eco.
TL:DR; algorithm was updated to punish link rot by wiping metrics on page deletion, Retro Dodo wrote massive amounts of short-lived speculative content which drove 90% of their traffic - and continued to drive traffic post-mortem - and got one-shotted by the change.
i do notice a change in recent years. When i google someting i always got it in 5 minutes. Now it takes 30 minutes or more if i can find it at all... Now you have ads, the standard google anwers/question that more often than not are wrong or out-dated info. the rest are ONLY mainstream websited. Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, major news organizations, Spotify, UA-cam, etc...
Google search has gotten worse, Android Swipe keyboard has gotten worse, OK Google accuracy has gotten worse... Google services product quality is so much worse than it was 4 or 5 years ago. This is not a new thing - these have all been getting worse over time.
When you freely rely on algorithms, Instagram, fb, Google Search, youtube.. then your business is just a hobby. If you haven't learned anything from the last 3 decades, then your in the wrong game.
Google is being overwhelmed by AI. I've even had people popping up on my channel asking if I'm an AI generated avatar LMAOOO Things will never be the same, but change has happened before. Stick to your guns, up your game if you can, and weather the storm.
FYI- The voiceover needs to lower the Low End Frequencies, sounds too "bassy" in the car and earbuds. Who ever edited, overlooked the audio. Just my feedback. Overall enjoyed the video! 👍
i honestly believe too, that the retro "bubble" from covid has also burst. post covid/lockdown everyone went nuts for retro games and hardware. we were all in it, i bought a ps2, an xbox360 and went retroing that whole year (or two). unfortunately we live in a pay to win economy that comes from US trends and habits through mainstream search engines, social media etc. you just cannot rely (or trust) them to build a business upon
People have been complaining about overly SEO optimised small sites for years now. How many times have you read comments about people always adding "reddit" to their queries? It definitely sucks for this guy, but in general Google is just following the general public's feedback.
I can't speak for every user, but I personally stop following publications that publish rumors for new games. They're clickbaity, don't have any substance and feel disrespectful of my time and attention by using titles that intentionally mislead you into thinking there are new developments when there aren't any. I appreciate and follow content creators that respect their followers enough not to do that.
The people who made money off of Google becoming the monster that it is, are now complaining about Google becoming the monster that it is. And I'm supposed to feel bad about this?
wait what? I love retrododo . The retro handheld community tends to be pretty nice, and they are part of the reason why imo. Really sorry to hear. Hope something gets fixed.
Your abusive dismissive parent throwing away highly valuable memorobia out the litteral window and being locked in solitary confinement for months on end or worse on a whim is a rite of passage for gaming millennial
He deleted his best posts because he thought that Google would think they are click bait. They only way Google would think that is if the user bounced. Well did bounce, because they got redirected to homepage. As a site owner would you do this?
Thanks for sharing our story, it's super appreciated. We're still here, and will continue creating content about our passion, with or without Google.
Such a shame how much damage has been caused. Wish there was a more positive end to the story, a section entitled "And here is how they turned it all around" would have been great ;)
Keep Going :)
I found your YT website @ #1 on Google search (I stay in Cape Town, SA).
Was there any other site besides discord ?
One of many examples why I now hate SEO and inbound marketing with a passion, despite being certified in both.
@RetroDodo - I don't know if my comment was deleted by accident.. but you have lost a subscriber over nothing.
My related comment was that I had no issues finding their site @ #1 in google (even being from SA).. and asked if there was any other site I had to see besides YT or Discord.
Censorship is a NoNo in my book @Ahrefs - cheers.
Lesson: Google doesn't care, diversify your business in every way that can produce revenue, not dependent on Search/Google.
Google is a business, and it wants to make money with ads. If you receive organic traffic and don’t spend on ads, for them it’s a loss of revenue. This could very well be a way to force people to pay for ads.
I've been saying this since 2014...buy hihg DA backlinks and focus on Digital PR even a subpar website can rank in the top 10 with this.
@@jorgeegrojjorge google ads sucks. you have to spend a lot of money to get traffics, but there is no guarantee customers are going to keep the item. in India it's a nightmare with over 70% of COD rate in some industries. the typical ROAS is always around 2 to 5. it means when you spend 1000, you get max like 5000 USD, but mostly it stays around 1 to 2 at the beginning. if you account shipping, manufacturing, paying for employees, other company expenses, compliance, tax, you barely get any income to sustain your business. for a small business this is a big hit, for a large company it's not a problem as they earn from sheer numbers. nowadays businesses are moving towards influencer marketing.
@@jorgeegrojjorge interesting. if a website receive organic traffic, and the site put some google ads/adsense in it, isn't that revenue as well for google?
as
Everything in this video is right. Dunno what happened during 2024, we lost half of the views all of a sudden, no matter the big watchtime or high quality content. Now the UA-cam search is filled with massive short videos at the top, if not them, endless playlists filled up with oldish content inside... Only at place 5 minimum, you finally get videos you search for. With AI coming, traffic will not be improving, giving a promotional factor to who has paid for the positions and AI reference to use. Missing the old authentic times ...
Yeah, these short spams are horrible. Turning them off in the search section doesn't even work.
good its working
And you know what the saddest part is? The site will never recover even if he follows all that SEO advice. This is firsthand experience.
4. Don't repeat the old contents - be interesting and updated
@geomarketingpartner I wish it was that simple.
This tells me there is a whole internet out there we can’t see. And that tells me there is opportunity for a competitor to google to do better
I think Google stopped being a good search engine years ago. But it's taking a while for people to find an alternative they like better.
This happened because "doing better" is not good for their advertising business.
They destroyed revenue for a business I am a owner in 1.5 years ago .... totally wiped us off the internet and we lost $20k/a day in organic traffic and our PPC ad spend went thru the roof(6 figures a year). Our Ad rep said "Yeah we realize an internal tool did this in error to you but we cant fix it or we would be giving you competitive advantage" WTF!!!! Then we were told "Maybe you should rebrand" My response is would you tell that to a company like Heinz? Just now we have started to pop back up in the search
//My response is would you tell that to a company like Heinz? Just now we have started to pop back up in the search//
They wouldn't tell Heinz anything other than where to spray.
That sounds frustrating! Yet glad to hear you're recovering little by little🙏
-Helen
irony of this video is it ends with, how to get traffic from google for beginners
Ahrefs is still shamelessly pushing BS despite the fact that serps are dead.
SEO is clearly dying. AI is shrinking Google's space, and their response has been obvious: increasing ads, charging more, and turning the first page into an almost entirely paid space, something they were already doing before AI.
the dead of internet is near mate
They basically threw in the towel.
@@megatronreaction its already here, hiding in the shadows, I can feel it
I have a website in the AI space and I beg to differ. Google has been my best traffic source. I'm getting tons of organic traffic from SEO. It's all about the topics you choose to create your business around. Go after trendy topics and ride the wave. You'll find Google blessing you everyday. Topic selection is the step 0 of SEO. So I won't say SEO is dying
not seo, google is dying
The same thing happens with gamer UA-cam channels. Google only shows what Google itself promises to generate the most advertising revenue. This started about 2 years ago. I have a UA-cam channel that made 3000 hours a month with 500 subscribers. Now I have almost 10,000 subscribers and only 100 hours. Despite having subscribers, the videos are shown to less than 1% of the subscribers. The biggest UA-camr in the same game only made 1 million views overnight, going from 6 million to 1 million. AI may be making it even worse now.
This is absolutely horrible. I feel for everyone who has been affected by this. Brandon works so hard and this is just absolutely horrible to see.
Throwing me into a random home page is one of the top ways to piss me off when I’m on random sites. This is why i don’t even bother giving new sites a chance most of the time
Such a good video. A great story telling about Retro Dodo's seo issues with some explaination on how to improve some key aspects of the website in 13 mins is what i like to watch, this is good content!
Glad you like it!
-Helen
Best product marketing video ever. Didn't hype the product, barely mention it. However when you see the reports your like WTF??? how do I get that?? Awesome job!
Thanks, so glad you liked it! 🙏
-Helen
Love the "Ride Along" / Documentary-style videos. Nice to see an SEO channel doing this.
Glad to hear that, thanks! More such videos to come ;)
-Helen
It was a pleasure to welcome Brandon, Sam and the crew to Retro Sect to shoot this video. A very important topic that needs discussing to ensure Google doesn't dictate traffic to websites clearly following best practice.
Thanks for having us Ben! 🙏
Thank you, Ben!🙏
-Helen
I love Brandon. He’s honest and wants to follow the rules but is punished for doing so. Even with that he adapts and moves on. True bravery.
Thanks for your kind words!
-Helen
The truth is, it’s getting harder and harder to find anything on Google now. I don’t understand why particularly, because when you type in a search the ads Google displays knows exactly what you’re talking about. But in terms of actual search results, it’s the complete opposite.
SEO become more & more unpredictable. 2024 Dec A lot smaller websites disappear over night, even for brand keywords.
Yep, my new site. Whereas my older sites not updated for months suddenly got a bump. Another big old active project unaffected, but that one wa sunder some algo hit for like a year before suddenly recovering the next year and I haven't been doing anything different, I gave up trying to understand what Google wants this time.
@@ageofllms I can feel you, I have 200+ websites. take it easy man.
google*
Love these stories!
This one, in particular, is my favorite. Retro Dodo has such a nostalgic vibe-a massive online brand created by a guy who simply loved playing retro games with his friends. Oh my gosh, that's so cool! Also love the clean layout of the blog.
Glad you liked that! 🙌
-Helen
@ You should create more videos like this one! It's super exciting to learn stories behind blogs!
Sounds like Amazon. Punishing sellers for not following TOS yet amazon not following their own rules.
Simple answer Google wants you to pay for be in search results
Exactly!
yep, make it very volatile and confusing so the only way to get steady traffic is to buy the stupid ads everyone is tired of having to scroll past on the first page.
That’s life, essentially. Pay to win
It’s awful seeing so many posts, so many videos and so many articles from across the board of people who use Google having negative feedback about the state of SEO. For many years I’ve had a dream to create a blog of my own, which has brought me to learn as much as I could about SEO, Paid Ads, Affiliate Marketing, Ad Real Estate, Email Marketing, Social Media Management and Content Creation, and now with AI everyone only has negative things to say. It’s frustrating and absolutely is the thing keeping me from investing money in what will apparently never have a chance. What is supposed to be done when even the best have nothing good to say about what’s going on?
You are 10 years late. Should have taken action earlier.
AI is going to change how we search very soon. Meanwhile, seems like email lists and social network presence are safest bets to invest time and money into.
Love the tips! The new updates are interesting for sure.
I'm glad he's figuring out ways to engage with the community and traffic in alternate ways to keep the business going.
But a larger issue at hand especially at this point in time, is that Google is effectively killing content sites for their own agenda. Now if someone else does this, Google's algorithm will punish them and practically de-list their site; but because it takes a government consortium to make them play fair, Google themselves basically do whatever they want and leave creators to try and puzzle it out. This has been the status quo for years and why the SEO industry exists, but it seems to me that everything has escalated (or declined) rapidly since AI rolled onto the scene.
Google is a business, and it wants to make money with ads. If you receive organic traffic and don’t spend on ads, for them it’s a loss of revenue. This could very well be a way to force people to pay for ads.
I wish Bing had turned the table on Google in 2022
definitely not! look what MS did to skype and nokia? the undisputed leader in instant messaging and mobile at the time
@@kilotangosierra I know what you are saying but having a stronger Bing would be a good reality check for Google and a healthier competition for both to strive better. Being this quasi-monopolistic in the search engine market gives google the leeway to do what it wants without much repercussions to their audience which has no good enough alternatives.
@hentype i understand your point, i think openAI are now doing this...but i was emphasising that MS cant, and havent ever been able to do anything properly. Bing after all these years, still sucks, and theres no real excuse for that imo.
Ya'll did an amazing job on this video. Great story telling (with wonderful SEO and business advice sprinkled in)!
Thanks! Glad you liked it :)
-Helen
Fantastic video! Is there any way out of this Google update/AI mess??
1. What would you as an SEO expert suggest that Google should do?
2. What do you suggest small creators and business do?
3. Inventing another search engine does not seem practical but how can tech innovator help small & organic players?
I love watching videos like this both entertaining and educational. They always leave you with something valuable!
I like this new type of video by Ahrefs, meeting business owners who got hit by google and helping them with SEO. Please do more like these.
This has to be officially investigated, there's no way they've consistently punished severely and disproportionately smaller publishers over the years with only minor slaps here and there to the big guys. There has to be something in this, it's been happening for too long to not be deliberate. Especially now that they basically abuse them with getting AI trained on them and then leaving them out to dry. And even the killer link building he has organically doesn't cut it, this is insane.
I love these series! I just received a tough blow from the latest Google spam update, and I've lost rankings and traffic in a drastic way. It’s comforting to know I'm not the only one. I can't help but think that, in the end, Google is a business. If it sees that your site generates organic revenue, it doesn't like it because behind all that 'user-first' talk, Google makes money from selling ads. So, this could very well be a way to push people to spend on ads. Don’t doubt it for a second.
I don't understand, surely he could see in his backend, that people are getting to pages that he killed, and are being redirected? Why didn't he act on those?
Absolutely disgusting what happened to RetroDodo. However, this was a fantastic share, and I hope to see more storytelling within SEO using this format. Great work Sam and team.
Thanks! I'm glad you like ed it - more to come!
-Helen
If you can sit through this video, you'll actually learn a lot. It's a great story, and he seems very interested. I wish him great success.
Actually all search engines doesn't work anymore.
The main reason of drops is weak brand. Brand search volume is now major ranking factor, that`s why lots of tiny brands are dropping organic traffic.
A button where people can recommend it, Welcome in the world of AI where everything on your new search engine will be automated and hacked.
Google must see their own traffic deteriorating since they trashed their products.
google trying their best to make their search algorithm pay to win
What's the tool you use to analyse the traffic at minute 10:00?
It's our tool: Ahrefs. ahrefs.com
Really interesting. I'd like to see the traffic for this site after these changes, and see a follow up. That would be really interesting.
This is a very good video Sam. We need to talk about the ai generated content on SERP that is stealing our traffic while at the same time using our traffic
Wow that was amazing to watch thank you for sharing!
NEVER KILL a link that's the fundamental rule of SEO !
Shows a lot of maturity not dwelling on blame.
Love these videos
Thanks!
-Helen
Google sounds like Gary Gensler and the SEC, except the SEC doesn't even have clear guidelines.
TL;DW - Google still just dumps the oldest things up top.
Wouldn't it make sense from a profit incentive standpoint that this would be intentional? It forces successful players to utilize advertising in order to continue siphoning traffic to their website.
All my sites crashed too. I no longer use Google, it's outdated and no longer any good.
My site got crushed too. It was gaining weekly in 2024 until August, then it crashed by 40% and slowly degrading since. It is no longer self-sustaining on ads so...who knows
This was an amazing deep-dive!
Thanks! :)
-Helen
On a business perspective, it makes absolutely sense to use an algo that maximizes the profits for google. I think they already do this for years. same on UA-cam. there is no growth anymore.
Google shouldn't drop traffic off a cliff. They should give warnings instead of leaving owners down a never ending Easter egg hunt with a bad ending. I spent my savings on an affiliate site at the beginning of covid to help ease problems. My traffic and $1000 income a month was gone in 2 weeks with the 2019 update.I have met many with similiar stories.
We've seen Google can pull the plug anytime. They didn't give him a warning, they didn't even give him a reason. His livelihood, gone.
If you ever gain success on UA-cam or SEO. Cash in as much as you can, and use that chance to grow outside of Google's eco.
Great content. Thanks 👍🏻
It's time to create an underground alternative to google/bing/etc.
We have Yep.com :)
-Helen
TL:DR; algorithm was updated to punish link rot by wiping metrics on page deletion, Retro Dodo wrote massive amounts of short-lived speculative content which drove 90% of their traffic - and continued to drive traffic post-mortem - and got one-shotted by the change.
Gaming is an excellent niche that can entirely depend on social media traffic.
Hell yeah RetroDodo, great channel that.
🙌
Bro what that gameboy meant to us can't be replaced by any device today.
i do notice a change in recent years. When i google someting i always got it in 5 minutes. Now it takes 30 minutes or more if i can find it at all...
Now you have ads, the standard google anwers/question that more often than not are wrong or out-dated info.
the rest are ONLY mainstream websited. Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, major news organizations, Spotify, UA-cam, etc...
Great, it will understand the reality of SEO
Don't be evil, eh?
Long time Ahrefs user and reader. Great stuff as always. Such a bummer though.
Glad you liked the video! :)
-Helen
Shorts are better to watch forces creators to go back to old youtube time limits
I'm surprised the Google Search Engine could get any worse, since it's already a big pile of steaming 💩
Google results are total crap these days. So many Reddit results that are either unreadable or totally irrelevant.
Google search has gotten worse, Android Swipe keyboard has gotten worse, OK Google accuracy has gotten worse... Google services product quality is so much worse than it was 4 or 5 years ago. This is not a new thing - these have all been getting worse over time.
When you freely rely on algorithms, Instagram, fb, Google Search, youtube.. then your business is just a hobby. If you haven't learned anything from the last 3 decades, then your in the wrong game.
Hey Sam please create a new seo course latest 2025.
Thanks for the suggestion!
-Helen
Google is being overwhelmed by AI. I've even had people popping up on my channel asking if I'm an AI generated avatar LMAOOO Things will never be the same, but change has happened before. Stick to your guns, up your game if you can, and weather the storm.
FYI- The voiceover needs to lower the Low End Frequencies, sounds too "bassy" in the car and earbuds. Who ever edited, overlooked the audio. Just my feedback.
Overall enjoyed the video! 👍
There's only one way: restart at a new website, adding a little bit a day ... very limited SEO...
MY website Traffic Drops after Google Spam update Dec 2024. But I am unable to recover traffic .
Same here... Any suggestions?
this was great. thanks a lot
I can make my video too: Google´s last update destroyed this $1000 business.
I am shocked he deleted pages with backlinks leading to it. Like... why?
i honestly believe too, that the retro "bubble" from covid has also burst. post covid/lockdown everyone went nuts for retro games and hardware. we were all in it, i bought a ps2, an xbox360 and went retroing that whole year (or two). unfortunately we live in a pay to win economy that comes from US trends and habits through mainstream search engines, social media etc. you just cannot rely (or trust) them to build a business upon
What seo tool is shown in this video?
It's Ahrefs.com :)
-Helen
People have been complaining about overly SEO optimised small sites for years now. How many times have you read comments about people always adding "reddit" to their queries? It definitely sucks for this guy, but in general Google is just following the general public's feedback.
If only he had sold his company
You never know how tomorrow will be
I can't speak for every user, but I personally stop following publications that publish rumors for new games. They're clickbaity, don't have any substance and feel disrespectful of my time and attention by using titles that intentionally mislead you into thinking there are new developments when there aren't any. I appreciate and follow content creators that respect their followers enough not to do that.
great video
Thanks!
-Helen
What was the algorithm update that caused this drop?
"Helpful Content Update"
He was telling ai garbage to sam oh's face. Hahahaha damn
The people who made money off of Google becoming the monster that it is, are now complaining about Google becoming the monster that it is.
And I'm supposed to feel bad about this?
wait what? I love retrododo . The retro handheld community tends to be pretty nice, and they are part of the reason why imo. Really sorry to hear. Hope something gets fixed.
🙏
Your abusive dismissive parent throwing away highly valuable memorobia out the litteral window and being locked in solitary confinement for months on end or worse on a whim is a rite of passage for gaming millennial
You can’t rely on google.
10:24 .."Update the content" or bait and switch?
The lessons from this video is: Google does not like dead links or 302 http responses ...
Nice! 👍
-Helen
This guy is a true entrepreneur
It's not just Google.. its Ad blockers... no one likes Ads!
He deleted his best posts because he thought that Google would think they are click bait. They only way Google would think that is if the user bounced. Well did bounce, because they got redirected to homepage. As a site owner would you do this?
i like your seo description
Great video
And this is what you get for relying on someone else, google of all
It's ironic naming your business from an extinct animal.
From 0 da to 2 da in 2 months n suddenly Google screwed me