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My Painful Real Life Blogging Experience:
How to Survive A Merciless Google Smackdown; Google Algorithm Update!
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It was on a cool Sunday afternoon, one certain year.
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On this fateful day, I was on the road, going to purchase a landed property with part of my blogging income.
And that’s when I noticed it.
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We’ve already moved halfway when I finally got a little signal on my phone. So I decided to use the opportunity to check the performance of my blog for that day.
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And what I saw shook me to my marrows.
As soon as I logged in to review my earning statistics for that day, I was greeted with a long sloppy line like one of Niagara Waterfalls that indicated a huge drop in performance and revenue.
Shocked, I head over to other statistics such as traffic and page views, only to be greeted with a similar sloppy line that shows a huge decline.
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Trying to comport myself so I can focus on my journey, I went over to some of the blogging groups I belonged to, only to realize what I suspected had happened!
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There had been a core Google Algorithm Update!
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For those of you that don’t know what an algorithm update is, it is a situation where Google reviews and updates how they rank websites in their Search Engine.
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When this happens, some sites will be positively affected, while some will be negatively affected.
Those that were negatively affected would see their rankings and traffic drop drastically, while those that were positively affected will see their rankings and traffic skyrocket massively.
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Unfortunately, I was negatively affected as most of the key posts on my blog went from ranking Number 1 to ranking number 58 on the 6th page of Google Search results as other blogs now took over the top spot in which I was previously ranking.
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It was indeed a season of tears and heartbreaks as so many people in the Facebook groups I belonged to were also wailing.
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I just managed to keep my head straight and continue my journey despite knowing that some hard times await me in the nearest future.
That month, the blog that was supposed to earn several thousands of dollars in affiliate commissions ended up earning just $150.
And a blog that was on track to hit 150,000 organic monthly traffic ended up with just 1,700 visitors that month.
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When I finally got to my destination, I turned on my laptop at night and began to analyze the blogs whose ranking replaced mine to see what they did differently that made Google reward them with increased rankings.
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Then I began to implement what I discovered…some of which I’ll teach members of my blogging club so they don’t suffer a similar fate.
It took several months for another Google algorithm update before my blog began to show signs of recovery. Nevertheless, it was a painful and arduous experience.
How to Survive A Merciless Google Algorithm Update!
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So from my experience, here are some tips to survive a brutal Google update as a blogger:
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1. Use Your Head When Helping Friends And Relatives
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When all was well and rosy, I used to spend a good chunk of my blogging income lavishly with friends and relatives.
But when there was a turn of events I suddenly realized I was on my own!
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Those friends of mine especially had gotten accustomed to me always having money with me. So it was unbelievable to them when I told them I was broke and needed some assistance.
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None came to my rescue.
Needless to say, I painfully understood that I needed a new set of friends.
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2. Have 1 Year’s Worth of Savings In The Bank.
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Part of what caused the hard times that followed the Google smackdown on my blog was that I only had 60 days worth of savings in the bank.
When the smackdown occurred, my savings could only fund my lifestyle and cost of living for only 2 months.
Once the funds dried up, life became hard. Feeding well became a challenge and subscribing for an Internet connection was by MTN’s willingness to borrow me some data.
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3. Diversify Your Blog Earnings
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Channel part of your blog earnings into another business or investment that would bring you daily income.
Before the smackdown, I usually had the urge to buy a bus, car, or set of Keke and put them up for transport services on a hire purchase agreement for the sole purpose of having a daily income.
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Unfortunately, chronic procrastination got the grip on me and I couldn’t do that until it was too late.
Worse still, just 4 months earlier, I stopped a very lucrative…but stressful….side business I was doing that also brought in good money.
It was truly a regrettable decision.
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4. Have Good Relationship with Vendors
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Do you see that man that supplies you a bag of rice? Please build a good relationship with him or her. You may need him someday. Same with the one that supplies you gas and other items you use on a daily basis.
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Part of what helped me to weather the storm was that these vendors in my neighborhood were willing to give me goods on credit. This continued until my blog began to recover and I ended up paying every outstanding debt.
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5. Learn How to Troubleshoot Your Blog Or Have Access to A Troubleshooting Expert
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What led to the recovery of my blog was that I swung into action and began to troubleshoot my blog in expectation of it recovering on another Google update.
Those who don’t know how to troubleshoot had to pay huge sums of money to have an expert in the US do their troubleshooting for them.
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Thank Goodness I didn’t have to, else it would have been a serious challenge.
If you’re part of our blogging club, you’ll have the opportunity to have me troubleshoot your blog if any of such arises at a ridiculously low price from what is obtainable outside.
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So there you have it—-the ugly side of blogging that most people don’t talk about frequently.
Just like every business and income opportunity out there have its ugly side, so does blogging.
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If a smackdown didn’t come as a core algorithm update, it could come in form of Google shutting down your Adsense account with all the earnings in it…or Amazon shutting down your account…or your web hosting company accidentally deleting your blog from its servers, or you getting sued to court for writing about someone if you’re blogging about celebrity gossips/news/politics/entertainment.
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If you ever experience any smackdown in the course of your blogging journey, I believe the 5 tips above, coupled with others will help set you on the path of recovery.
BLOGGING TIPS FOR BLOGGERS AFFECTED BY THE GOOGLE ALGORITHM CORE UPDATE
The ongoing May Google core update is a nightmare for some bloggers (including I myself). A day after the update was announced by Google through their Twitter page, I began noticing the negative effects on one of my blogs.
What Did I Do?
I did nothing but kept posting new content while I watched. With every day that comes by, traffic keeps dropping. Lol. Frustrating right? Yea. That’s the downside of being a blogger. Google can ruin all your months of effort with just one of their algorithm update.
Did I perform blackhat SEO practices? – Absolutely not.
Did I go against any of Google’s algorithm update rules? – Never.
Are my contents thin or of low value? – Nope!. My contents are Masterpiece, which answers users’ queries.
But Why Did The Update Hit My Blog?
Whether you engage in pure SEO or not, updates may still likely hit your site. According to Google, they’re restructuring their algorithm, thereby enhancing their search engine, so that the most relevant content reaches potential online searchers.
But Google will always be Google. They are a bot-lized company, so due to their non-human mechanism, their bots may do some mess. Thereby favoring other blog content ahead of yours.
If you’re hit with these recent ongoing core updates it could mean the following
Your contents are thin and aren’t of much value, create quality and engaging content.
You engaged in blackhat SEO – aggressive and unnatural link building can cause algorithm hit, same with content plagiarism and scrapping. disavow the spammy links pointing to your domain and don’t engage in such acts again. disavowing bad, spammy links from your domain keeps your blog safe and clean from the next Google algorithm update.
You may be innocent, and the update will still hit your site. Just like in my case. I did absolutely nothing infringing, but still had a share-cut from the algorithm update.
My site Was Hit By Google Core Update; What Should I Do?
For now, the update is going on, it’s advised you do nothing, so you won’t fix the wrong things.
Keep your fingers crossed till the update is over. And when the update is over and everything didn’t normalize Just accept it with big faith and move on.
But ensure to find the culprit behind your site being hit, so it won’t suffer the same fate on the next update.
Analyze your blog to see what may be the problem. If the contents are. Then improve them. If blackhat SEO practices are the cause, then stop it. But if you can’t really pinpoint the reason behind the decline in traffic, then do nothing. Things will stabilize. But it’s going to take a while. Just Keep posting quality and engaging content.
Don’t be scared of Google’s helpful content.
I know a lot of things have happened, some blogs have lost keywords in terms of ranking position.
If you are a victim of this, what you have to do is to:
1. Write on semantic keywords as your focus phrase.
2. Write naturally this time and don’t stuff keywords only place them strategically.
3. Link traffic from related content to the article that has been de-ranked from SERP.
4. Tag/pin those articles that have lost ranking on SERP to appear first on your blog.
With this, you are not losing but rather gaining more in other ways.
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