It is time to say goodbye to Google Organic Search traffic. The slow decline in traffic for this case study site seems to have concluded with a final almighty slap.
I don’t know whether the site was impacted by some kind of overall sitewide classification or just that the last few queries that were generating my organic traffic, were diverted elsewhere. But I do know that it seems like this site will not get any further Google organic search traffic, or negligible traffic at best.
Keep reading for more detailed breakdowns and screenshots looking at March traffic and revenue.
Site Recap
The site is in the ‘Entertainment’ niche – established in January 2021. Monetized with Ezoic advertising.
Approx 350k words of content over 300+ posts.
See full site history, content publishing breakdown, and traffic history here.
March Statistics
It looks like Google has continued its mission to divert all traffic to its preferred social forums for user-generated content, or to ‘traditional’ businesses for product-related content.
Comparing February traffic to March, the final ‘slap from Google appears to have hit this site around the middle of March. There is very little traffic remaining that Google can take away at this point. Besides the trickle of traffic coming from other search engines, it appears this site will have no choice but to adapt to other content and traffic approaches or die.
From a revenue standpoint, we dipped slightly, but as you can see from the sharp traffic drop, the full effect of this will be realized in next month’s revenue figures which should essentially be at an all-time low.
Comparison to the Ezoic Ad Revenue Index
My personal EPMV was on track with previous months and stayed steady against the benchmark index. The issue is no longer has anything to do with EPMV, but with getting traffic in general. EPMV is the least of my concerns at this point, but it is good to know that the monetization is on par with the industry standard fluctuations.
It was interesting to check the new data available inside the Ezoic dashboard where they give you information about how your site is performing relative to other sites in your niche/category.
Clearly, other sites in my category have been more active in creating new content, but in terms of traffic growth, I have performed better than the benchmark, even given the major slap-down I have just had.
I will review these stats again next month, as I imagine that my traffic stat will fall in line with the rest of the category, once the new low level has been experienced for a full month.
April Activity
The undeniable truth is that if I want to continue this business, then I will need to generate website traffic via other channels. The dominant channels to consider are email or social media.
To do so would require a significant rethink of the content strategy of the site as the categories and topics covered are quite broad. I would need to niche down and specialize in one thing to focus on to serve a specific audience.
In the coming days and weeks, my focus is going to be on exploring and considering the future of this site, given the evaporation of organic search traffic. I hope everyone else is doing better than me!
