Alan in Calgary, Alberta, submitted this week’s Ask An SEO question:
“I created EmailSanta.com in 1997. I’ve been an avid follower of SEJ and with your help, have been rewarded with #1 positions for very competitive keywords using only white hat methods.
(I even once – briefly – beat out Google and NORAD.)
However, the site’s ranking and organic traffic has been falling hard these past two years. The drop possibly happened in March 2019, according to GA, but seasonality can make inflection points difficult to pinpoint.
There was a core update then but I haven’t been able to figure out what the update was and how it would’ve affected my site.
Despite my best efforts and 24 years of SEO experience (as an ‘enthusiast,’ not a professional), I cannot stem the drop.
There has never been any black hat (no need for it). Technical SEO is decent, although not perfect. Hopefully E-A-T is decent as we have multiple links from Wikipedia, NYT, etc. since 1997.”
Alan went on to share a few theories about what he believes is going on, including:
- The site is a Christmas portal (more than 100 pages), and portals have been phased out for a long time. He wondered if dividing the site into components would help him.
- He noticed that Google’s AI appears to be favoring pages with similar content/styles in the SERPs. His pages frequently differ from competitors and appear to fall out after “sifting.”
- The EmailSanta website presents arguments in favor of Santa’s existence while dropping hints about the truth. He’d heard some industry talk about Google frowning on this before. He put this theory to the test, but the results were inconclusive.
- He wonders if there were any other algorithmic changes that he was unaware of.
First and foremost, Alan, happy holidays to you and yours.
I have a secret to share with you.
I’m Santa Claus.
My wife is a photographer, and I’m a big guy with a “prematurely” white beard.
It was unavoidable that I’d become a celebrity for those who are perpetually sticky and have no control over their bodily functions. My first gig is approaching, and I’m sure there will be plenty of photos.
But enough about me; it appears that Google stuffed a lot of coal into this other Santa’s stocking.
Because we don’t have an exact replica of Google’s naughty and nice list, we’ll have to make some assumptions that may or may not be correct.
Read What is DA PA and How Rand Fishkin define it as effective for SEO?
Even if we had all the information, without extensive testing, we probably wouldn’t know what’s causing this Santa’s rankings to plummet faster than a flying sleigh devoid of Christmas spirit.
When we see rankings drop, it’s usually due to one of two things.
In the first case, we’re talking about a gradual decline over time.
These drops in rankings are typically caused by slow, external changes that appear to occur in the course of an SEO professional’s work.
In this case, it may be impossible to identify any major factor that contributed to the drop in rankings.
There are simply too many variables that could change. It’s nearly impossible to pinpoint the exact reason a site isn’t ranking in search engines.
Then there’s the sudden drop.
Your rankings plummeted overnight. They went downhill.
This usually happens over a short period of time, and SEO professionals/marketers are left perplexed as rankings drop and they can’t seem to do anything about it.
EmailSanta.com appears to be in the first scenario, with rankings declining over a two-year period.
Was it a new algorithm?
When SEO professionals compare notes on major algorithm updates, they frequently notice a pattern in terms of what was affected.
In some cases, members of the Google team, such as Danny Sullivan or John Mueller, will confirm these findings (or steer us all in a different direction).
In terms of the inflection point, it could be in March 2019, when Google released the so-called Florida 2 core update.
Roger Montti stated at the time,
“A broad core update means that Google is not targeting any niche or any particular signals, like quality…
Broad core updates do not target websites, niches, or qualities. That is why Google has said that in broad core updates, there is nothing to fix.
The best approach to understanding a broad core update is to set aside preconceptions that Google is targeting low page quality or niches. Then focus on relevance-related factors.”
Even so, unless something had changed, there would be no need for an update. At the time, several industry experts speculated that Florida 2 was a rollback of previous algorithm updates, with more gains than losses.
At least early on, Semrush indicated that the verticals most affected were Autos & Vehicles, Health, and Pets & Animals.
Without seeing the traffic trends and ranking reports, it’s impossible to tell whether or not Florida 2 played a role.
However, it appears unlikely given that it appears to have reversed some controls that were possibly too stringent when first implemented.
Should You Be Like Your Competitors?
Alan wondered if he should be more like his competitors, but I’m not a big fan of blindly following the crowd.
You don’t want to create content that is identical to theirs simply because it ranks higher.
However, it can be beneficial to examine the sites that rank ahead of yours for specific keywords to determine the differences.
Are there any informational questions or questions that they are answering that you aren’t?
Are there any types of search intent that they’re addressing that you haven’t?
Are they utilizing different types of media or more detailed information to better answer the questions they’re outperforming you on?
Rather than attempting to be more like others, look for ways to differentiate your content.
However, Google has learned to ignore even high-quality links if they aren’t relevant or indicate an exceptional on-site experience.
Mueller stated in a Google Search Central SEO Hangout in February 2021:
“We try to understand what is relevant for a website, how much should we weigh these individual links, and the total number of links doesn’t matter at all.
Because you could go off and create millions of links across millions of websites if you wanted to, and we could just ignore them all.”
Even as your site ages, it’s critical that you keep your content fresh, relevant, and engaging.
The on-site experience is also heavily influenced by design and ad placement. Large banner ad loads and interrupts the above-the-fold content experience the second the user hits the page, so you do have some layout shift going on.
In my opinion, there is rarely a good time to redesign a website.
However, regardless of how frequently you redesign your website, most people wish they had done it sooner.
I’ve seen webmasters hold on to designs for decades because they work.
However, when they redesign their site to be more modern, they are astounded by how much better the new site converts.
As you can see, searcher behavior is constantly changing.
If you’re still using a site that’s nearly a decade old, it’s time to update.
I don’t care if your website is operational… Find someone who has worked on redesigning websites for search engine optimization and get to work.
In conclusion
I strongly recommend that EmailSanta.com undergo a site redesign as well as a copy rewrite, Alan. You’re losing traffic over time as the competition improves and Google finds more and more “better answers” to rank above yours. It wouldn’t hurt to revise your keyword strategy and reconsider your approach to link building.
You might be surprised by what Google places in your stocking!
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