Why Is Google Discover Traffic Disappearing?

Google’s John Mueller responded to an Office-hours hangout question about why Google Discover traffic might suddenly stop. His response covered methods for diagnosing on-page issues as well as content policy violations specific to Google Discover.

Google Search Discover

Google Discover is a source of the traffic to websites that is distinct from Google search-related traffic. It is a highly personalized feed of articles that match the user’s interests.

When a user searches for baking content, Google’s algorithms will begin to surface related content via the Google Discover feature.

Google Discover displays content from entertainment websites to users who are interested in entertainment content.

The key to comprehending Google Discover is to recognize that the traffic sent by Discover is determined by how well a website’s content matches user interest in a topic.

As a result, it’s critical to clearly communicate what a web page is about from the title tag and headings so that Google can understand what the page is about and match it to users who are interested in that specific type of content.

The question:

“We noticed a big problem with Google Discover on our website. In two days traffic had dropped by some 70%.
It has dropped to a certain level and has been stable on that level for some time.
We’re wondering if we did something wrong or was it an update or something.
Can you clarify as to what exactly happened since it’s such a drastic drop.”

Google Discover Traffic Explained by John Mueller

John Mueller first clarified that he couldn’t comment specifically on the individual’s website because he didn’t know it, so his response would be more general.

Mueller commented on Google Discover traffic:

“I anecdotally get reports from a lot of people that Discover traffic is very… either on or off in the sense that there’s very little kind of room in between if our algorithms determine we’re not going to show much content from this website in Discover at the moment.
Then basically all of that traffic disappears.
And in the other way it’s the same thing where if we do show something from your website in Discover then suddenly you have that big rush of traffic again.”

The person who asked the question went on to say that the website had previously received consistent Discover traffic for four months before abruptly collapsing in the span of two days.

He wanted to know if there was a technical problem that was causing Google Discover to stop sending traffic.

Why Is Google Discover No Longer Sending Traffic?

Mueller discusses Discover content policies after explaining how to diagnose technical issues.

John Mueller answered:

“If it’s a technical issue then you would see that in web search as well and you would see crawl issues showing up.
I don’t have full insight into exactly what happens in Discover but usually the issues that I see people talking about are on the one hand quality issues where maybe the quality of the website is not so good and with regards to the individual policies that we have for discover.
So in particular for Discover we have some policies that are different from Web Search and recommendations that are a bit different with regards to I think like adult content, click-baity content, things like that.
That’s all mentioned in the help center page that we have for Discover.
And sometimes I suspect… uh… like I imagine a lot of websites have a little bit of a mix of all of these kind of things and I suspect sometimes our algorithms just find a little bit too much and then they say, oh like we have to be careful now with this website.
So… without knowing your website and without knowing the details of what exactly Discover is picking up there that’s kind of the direction I would head there.”

Read SEO Tips for Small Business: 5 Ways To Rank Better.

To gain more insights, John Mueller advised the person who asked the question to look for articles written by SEOs about what types of content perform well with Discover.

Mueller continued his answer:

“From our point of view, Discover is something where we try to show a stream of information to people and because of that we tend to not have a lot of detailed information on what exactly you need to provide there to perform really well.
So sometimes it makes sense to look at what other people have figured out.”

Several Causes of Discover Traffic Loss

Google’s John Mueller proposed two possible explanations for the drop in Google Discover traffic.

Issues with Website Quality
Google Finds Policy Violations in Content

Issues with Website Quality

Website quality issues can be caused by a variety of factors, but as Mueller suggested, if there is no change in regular search rankings, a site quality issue may not be the cause.

Google Discover Content Guidelines

Publishers should become familiar with Discover Content Policy Violations to avoid negatively impacting Google Discover traffic, as there are a number of prohibited topics.

Aside from violence, explicit or hateful content, there are other types of content violations to be aware of.

Ads cannot outnumber content.
Affiliate relationships must be stated clearly.

Misleading titles that promise one thing but fail to deliver on the content

Author bylines, publication, publisher, contact information, and publication dates are all transparent.

Other important content violations to be aware of include the prohibition on misleading clickbait titles, content designed to outrage and trigger emotional responses, and what Google refers to as “morbid curiosity,” among other things.

Takeaway

The main takeaway from Google Discover content is that it is not always dependable in the same way that ranked content in search is.

Google Discover traffic is based on the interests of the users. For example, if user interest in your content is seasonal, such as travel, that traffic may begin to dwindle in the fall after the vacation season has ended.

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