Running an online business has never been easier… Yeah, right. Google has found more ways to cripple small and medium businesses. If your business is ruined by recent January 2023 Algorithm update, you have no other option than to complain to A.I (artificial intelligence).
If you noticed a sudden rank and/or traffic drop your website is probably affected by recent Google updates. I see all of this as a game where big fish eat small fish. A.I or better to say, the creators of A.I are doing their best to make your life miserable.
4 of my clients, who were always playing 100% by the rules (SEO), dropped down from first page of Google to 2nd or 3rd. When it comes to SERP and local search, the situation is a complete disaster. Some of those websites are nowhere to be found, even though they operate globally and have many clients in all major (US) cities.
It seems to me like someone is trying to ruin the last remaining market that was not so much affected by C19, financial crisis etc.. the internet.
One of my EU clients was on the first page of search results for the past 6 years. It’s a medium size company with many distributors in US and the demand for their products is always on a very high level.
If you try to look them up on Google from Texas, Florida or some other US state, there’s a big chance that you won’t find them on the first or second page of local search results. If you’re located in Europe, you’ll see their website on the first page.
It simply makes no sense that a 17 year old company with 100% clean and perfect SEO records is nowhere to be found (within US).
On the other end, their competitors, the big companies are not affected by 2023 update. And the more I am browsing through all the data, the more I am getting impression that all of this is done intentionally.
What actually happened?
There are rumors that the latest Google Algorithm Update is fighting against AI generated content (content farms) and spammy backlinks. If that’s true, I wonder why so many websites without AI content (and sp. backlinks) are being penalized?
Now, the real question is, how many businesses will survive this never-ending game.
How to recover?
If your website is affected by the latest update, my suggestion this time would be to play dumb and continue business as usual. Algorithm is currently way too sensitive and even a sudden change in the content publishing frequency, may be suspicious to AI.
I see that many people online are bragging about success they have with ChatGPT and SEO, but IF the rumors about AI are true, all of them will eventually disappear from the search results and honest businesses will be rewarded with a better rank.