If I ignore the previous 6 months, and just compare this month to last month – things look like they have been relatively stable in terms of traffic and revenue.
But when I zoom out to include the months prior to the infamous Helpful Content Update, I’m quickly reminded how far I have fallen.
I’ve heard whispers from other site owners, and people posting on Twitter (X) that they have seen 10% improvements to traffic in what they hoped was a Helpful Content Update reversal of sorts, but I have yet to see any evidence of that myself.
Keep reading for more in-depth traffic and revenue breakdowns and see the impact of Black Friday ad rates.
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.
November Statistics
When comparing the two Search Console snapshots below, you can see they both indicate relatively stable impressions and clicks throughout both October and November.
Both months give the impression of a slight dip at the end of the month, but in the case of October, the dip does not translate to a trend and seems to suggest end-of-month traffic patterns more broadly.
I rely on Search Console for my impressions metrics, but it tends to always underplay the actual amount of traffic that a website gets. I find Google Analytics or Ezoic Analytics to be the best data source for page traffic. According to Ezoic traffic was steady at just under 5k website visits for the month.
If this level holds it means the overall impact of the recent Google updates is about a 50% reduction in traffic.
I’ve connected with some other site owners who have seen even larger declines, with a trend that is continuing downward. In my case, I think the decline is fair because the content is not outstanding and I can understand how it does not meet some of the Google creator guidelines.
However, some of the sites I have seen are those that are following all the rules and doing what I would consider an amazing job at providing unique and relevant content, with unique images and personality, with lots of social engagement, and they got hit very hard as well.
Further to the ponderings I have described in previous income reports, it is clear that just posting a large amount of ‘decent’ content is no longer a profitable strategy, and we have seen some big sites from big names in the industry fall over.
I am not even certain whether ‘niche sites’ are a viable business model anymore, but it won’t stop me from trying.
December Activity
I’ve stopped mass-producing content, and now focusing on the pages that are getting traffic and optimizing them to ensure I am getting all the traffic I can from them.
The insights from Ezoic Analytics make it easy to highlight which pages have experienced an increase/decrease in traffic so I might also look at some of the pages that have lost the most traffic and see where that traffic is being diverted to in the SERPs now.
If I am up against any form of user-generated content, I won’t try and outrank it because Google has made it clear how much it is prioritizing UGC. But if it’s another niche/info/publisher site, then I might try and get the traffic back with optimization of my existing content.
Doing the usual things like SEO on page optimizing, but also ensuring internal and external linking is on point, and adding unique images, and more images where possible.
If I see the opportunity for additional supporting content, I will take it – but without the expectation that the new pages will bring much traffic. But with more of a hope that they will boost the relevance and authority of the existing pages to prevent future drops.
I’ll let you know how it goes!
