Google is getting even worse for independent sites

An article on HouseFresh, a website dedicated to air quality, touched a nerve in February: it described how independent publishers were gradually eliminated from Google search results, with large media companies taking their place. Months later, the situation only got worse, according to a follow-up published by HouseFresh.

In February, HouseFresh editor-in-chief Gisele Navarro called out publishers like BuzzFeed It is Rolling Stone like some of the culprits who post content about air purifiers despite a lack of experience – but Google rewards these sites with high rankings all the same. The result is a search results page packed with SEO content, designed to just rank high on Google.

In one piece published todayshe says HouseFresh has “virtually disappeared” from search results: Search traffic has declined 91 percent in recent months, from about 4,000 visitors per day in October 2023 to 200 per day today.

“We lose rankings we’ve maintained for months (and sometimes years) to articles that are constantly updated and improved based on the findings from our first-hand, in-depth testing, our long-term experience with the products, and feedback from our readers. ,” writes Navarro. “Our article [previously ranked at #2] it’s now buried under sponsored posts, Quora advice from 2016, lists of the best big media sites, and no less than 64 Google Shopping product listings. Sixty. Four.”

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The HouseFresh article is a fascinating, deep dive into a part of the internet that’s so ubiquitous it’s easy to take for granted: product reviews. Almost every news site has something of this, even if the products are not directly related to the outlet’s expertise. HouseFresh calls Forbesfor example, who published many articles about cats and puppies As a form to try to get readers to buy pet insurance. There is no obvious editorial need for Forbes to write articles like “The 20 Largest Dog Breeds” or “What Fruits Can Dogs Eat?” — until you take a look at the sidebar of these stories, which is filled with dozens of affiliate links to pet insurance that Forbes receives a bribe every time someone signs up.

This type of SEO affiliate content is being relentlessly deployed on countless websites. Last year, when CNET was discovered to be using artificial intelligence tools to produce dozens of stories, it was the high-SEO “evergreen” articles that he focused on first. In cases of Sports Illustrated It is USA todayAfter the AI ​​content disasters, product reviews were also carried out using automation tools.

Aggressive targeting of Google’s top search locations – with or without AI – by large media outlets affects small sites like HouseFresh more. A significant loss of traffic for independent publishers is often enough to close an outlet entirely.

“This drop in Google search traffic has impacted our revenue, our ability to support our team, and our plans for the future,” Navarro writes. But HouseFresh appears to be in decline: the outlet promises to “discover fraudulent products” by analyzing the products that major publishers recommend in product guides.

“And if Google doesn’t want to rank our reviews, we’ll use their own broken results against them to get our takedowns in front of people before they waste their money on an overpriced, overrated product.”