HCU google?
 

So no one is complaining here about the HCU update and results that are devasting SEO community, or I've missed those threads somehow?

I haven't noticed many changes. Adult seems to have different rules than mainstream. The amount of sites I've seen ranked with questionable backlink profiles and hardly any content is staggering

Didn't it happen gradually from Sept-Dec?

I'm also surprised nobody is talking about it. I have read on other sites that it's hitting people hard. I'm getting hit and also and wondering about how the rest of the adult community is doing.

The SEO community is in a panic. Everyone was hoping the situation would stabilize but it didn't. Fantastic sites, big ones, and serious ones are devastated.

This is the first time that I don't know what to do because there is no logic. What Google guidelines say is not aligned with what is happening in SERPS.

Maybe adult is different, but I have lived from SEO for the last 4 or more years only. It was logical and predictable and if you were following rules, results were there.

For example, one of my blogs is ruined. No more rankings in top 10 which never happened before. The site is PERFECT. Speed, handwritten content giving answers to questions and being informative, no popups or any kind....all by the book. It is dead

Backlink profile is good?

I find backlinks are king in adult. They over ride any content. It sucks but it's the way it is

yes I know, but in the previous period I've obtained a fresh one way do follow links on relevant sites. There is no way that at the same time, everyone else did the same and in better quality and amount than I did.

Interestingly, with almost no links, I was managing to be in the top results for targeted money keywords ( longtails), only with good content.

This actually explains a lot as I have seen some weird traffic drops since around October. They would never last more than 2-3 days but even that short of a time period would reduce sales for the week leading to a shitty week.

But things seem to have stabilized since early-mid December. Not great mind you, not returning to pre-September numbers, but stable. For now.

Let's see what Jan-Feb brings once all this shakes out.

the panic starts when there is no sense in the events (from webmaster perspective). OK, google updates have been happening since ever, but for those that were trying to match requirements (like me), things were always stable long term. Sure, there were some periods with drops, but as you said, it is usually short.

For me, this is the first time in the last 5 years or so that I am really confused and started looking for alternatives. Until now, SEO was pretty predictable and if you are patient and consistent it will work just fine.

Of course, Google won't admit they screwed up. The latest update is trying to cope with a sudden "attack " of shitty AI articles which is also ok. The question is are they doing a good job.

I am also seeing slow signs of recovery today but still, the feeling of not controlling anything and not knowing what is going on is unpleasant, at least.

I know that many black hat practices are working just fine, especially in adult. I was never ready to invest time in those actions expecting to be hit at any moment. But that's my logic, doing it by the rules always resulted in a stable situation, until now.

You know, if Google says they are fighting parasite SEO, and then suddenly you see 6 of 10 results being parasite SEO sites, then it means they are lying or not capable of controlling their own rules.

Interestingly, not many webmasters with adult sites are complaining, maybe only a small number of them is relying on SEO practices as the main source of income. If you take a look at SEO communities, there will be plenty of examples of ruined legit sites.

I made a thread 3 months ago on it. The Google traffic to my money site went down by 80% or more. Picked up a little over the last month. Seems that Google know they have fucked up, so just got to hope they will fix it eventually. Like you, I've seen lots of parasite SEO articles jump above me for my most important keywords.

is your website following google requirements? were you aware something was missing?

How can we do that with adult sites, where are zero content - only thumbnails, short titles, ADs, and suggested videos - xvideos example?

Tube sites mainly rank by backlinks anyway

I don't understand the question. I am talking about high quality sites following SEO rules.

Almost all adult sites are low quality - with zero content (text). How we can pass helpful content update by google?

Overheard at big G HQ - in the room where the clusterfucks meet:

Data? I thought you said dada, fml.

https://assets-global.website-files....t%20poster.jpg

Get better backlinks than the guys above you

How long has this stretch been for you? It sounds like it has been going on for months?

The New Year is the perfect time for Google to correct whatever it is that has gone wrong so let's see how January goes but ultimately we have little control over how the damned Big G algo butt fucks us. :(

I don't have the right answer. The reason is that I've just started working on my site(s) after a few years of being on "pension". SEO worked well for me and I was getting a stream of passive income without effort. Made me feel powerful and think that I can do it again whenever I want. so I've completely relaxed myself.

It was clear that I was slowly losing positions and revenue, but the money was still decent. I mean whales and all that....so after a few years of this "approach" to business , I've started working again. Unfortunately, somewhere at the same time, HCU started so I am not sure precisely.

Anyway, lack of sales is directly tied to losing rankings on the first page of SERPS for multiple keywords and I think it started maybe 10 days ago for me.

Additional confusion coming from the fact I've technically changed the website in question to meet speed requirements. That part of the job is also great and done by the book.

I would even think that lost positions are because of those changes but after browsing SEO communities and reading about the same problems other people have after HCU, now I am almost 100% sure it's the algo itself, nothing on my end.

Google is a mess right now, I am seeing some crazy results when I search for things, these are garbage sites with nothing on it but ranking on page 1 for big keywords

my wild ass guess is google algo is probably mostly demand driven and very little hacker response. if pornhub wants to cut your ranks, they'll just pay. ad buys affect rank, even if they say it doesn't. big tech companies are heartless corrupt greed machines.

#

It does seem that backlinks play more of a role in adult SEO than mainstream proportionately.

That said, the algos are a mess and it's scary.

I remember in 2018 after a few years of "G" not being good to me and thinking SEO was dead, along with my sites and business, Google finally gave me a huge spike of traffic, and me thinking it was all the backlinks I had acquired over the last several months (good quality ones). Then I came to GFY to see if anyone else had experienced the same thing and EVERYONE had.

Google just started giving more to adult in general. Likely they started directing some adult terms to adult sites instead of mainstream-ish blogs that posted articles on "The Definition of Anal Fisting" which we all know 99% of surfers are not looking for when they search that term.

...

I am the 1% then....I wanted to explain the definition of anal fisting to my girlfriend who was asking what the hell I was doing down there.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

Butt seriously the whole Google thing is maddening because it doesn't look like any SEO is working so I guess we just have to wait....sucks!

Thanks, messing up the algo for all of us :)

Bumping this thread up

Seems like Google rolled out another update to HCU on March 5th. Internally here at crak we saw some of our blog lose all their organic traffic overnight and never get it back.

We also observed the same thing in our media buys. Networks that are heavily invested in RON traffic all progressively lost traffic daily since that date...

Are you guys observing the same thing?

Hello, sent you a message on Skype :)

Why would you talk to these idiots?? :1orglaugh:1orglaugh

For 2 weeks there have been people crying every day on Reddit. The update has been massive.

https://www.reddit.com/r/SEO/

Today finished the Spam update and the core is still running

https://status.search.google.com/pro.../history?hl=es

Yeah thanks for the details, will bookmark that Google status page! Didn't see impressions drop all of a sudden on the 6th, the ROI was still somewhat stable until this week so that's why I only realized today. :1orglaugh

I tried establishing trade partner connections for the past 10 years but kept getting blown off for myopic SEO-centric sites that wanted 100% SE traffic.

GFY in 2005 was full of site owners who wanted to trade traffic and not rely on a single service for their bread and butter. How far we've come.

"until this week" !!! yeah didn't effect me "until this week"! :disgust:mad::Oh crap

I hope it come back up. Damn