Google’s John Mueller responded to a question about the disappearance of Discover traffic. Mueller provided several reasons why Discover traffic might dry up before cautioning against building a business on Discover traffic.
What Does Google Discover Mean?
If the Google Web & App Activity feature is enabled, Google Discover is a content feed based on a user’s web and Google search activity. Google Discover displays a personalized list of content relevant to the user’s interests.
If users are searching for how to make specific types of recipes, sites about those recipes will begin trending for users in their Discover feed.
Because the feed is personalized, no single website will tend to dominate in Google Discover because there are so many people searching for different things.
That is what contributes to Google Discover traffic’s somewhat random nature.
Other reasons why Google Discover can’t be relied on for consistent traffic are listed by Google’s John Mueller.
Website Experiences Collapse in Google Discover Traffic
The person who asked the question explained that the website is a Brazilian news site that receives consistent Google Discover traffic. He’s curious as to why the traffic has suddenly slowed to a trickle.
The following is how the individual described their situation:
“We’re going through a huge drop in the delivery of our content through Google Discover.
…Google Discover is our main acquisition channel. But in the last ten days the delivery of our content through Discover has dropped to practically zero.
Our normal audience was kind of a thousand active users in real time. And now it’s about ninety or a hundred active users.
And we didn’t change anything technical or editorial. And our Search Console did not report any problem.”
The person who asked the question went on to say that their Core Web Vitals performance and CrUX reports are all excellent, and their site is served with AMP.
He was perplexed as to why Discovery traffic would dwindle when everything remained the same and nothing had changed.
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Google Traffic Is Variable
The person asked:
“What do you think could be happening with us?”
John Mueller began his response by confirming that Google Discover Traffic is not a consistent source of traffic in general.
John Mueller answered:
“I think it’s always tricky with Discover because it’s… at least what I hear from people, it’s very binary in that either you get like a lot of traffic or you don’t get a lot of traffic from Discover.
And that also means that any changes there tend to be very visible.
So my main recommendation is not to rely on Google Discover for traffic, but rather to see it as an additional traffic source and not as the main one.”
What Causes Google Discover Traffic to Disappear?
John Mueller then moved on to talk about general issues that might affect Google Discover traffic.
Mueller:
“When it comes to Discover there are a few things that kind of play in there… you mentioned some of the technical things that I think are good practices.
One of the things that also plays in there is, for example, the core updates also play a role.”
Google Discover Traffic May Be Affected by a Core Update
Interestingly, Mueller stated that the core update may have an impact on Google Discover traffic. He didn’t say what exactly within a core update might affect traffic, but it could be related to improvements to algorithms related to understanding content. It could be a variety of other things.
Mueller continued his answer:
“We recently had a core update, maybe from a timing point of view that matches what you saw there.
So that’s something where if you do see an effect from the core update, then I would double check the blog post that we have about core updates with the large number of tips and ideas that you could focus on.”
Google Discover Content Policies
Mueller then mentioned Google’s Discover content guidelines as influencing what types of content will receive Google Discover traffic.
Mueller explained how the policies influenced traffic:
“Also, with Discover, in particular, we have a set of content guidelines that we try to adhere to in an algorithmic manner.”
And, depending on the website, it may be that some of these content guidelines are borderline for your website.
As an example… I don’t know the content guidelines by heart, but I believe there is something about clickbait-y titles, clickbait-y content in general, or adult-oriented content, for example.
And it’s possible that your website is on the borderline in terms of how we evaluate it in that regard.
And then it’s possible that our algorithms will say, “Oh, well, a large portion of this website is just clickbait or one of the other categories listed in the content guidelines.”
Then we’ll be a lot more cautious about how we display the website in Discover.
So… if I didn’t know your website, that’s where I’d go.
Consider the core updates on the one hand.
On the other hand, we have content guidelines.
Finally, I would recommend that you do not rely on Discover for your overall business because it can change quickly.
And it’s something where there aren’t always pure technical reasons for the changes.”
Google Discover Is An Unreliable Traffic Source
The main takeaway is that Google Discover is an extremely untrustworthy source of traffic. So it’s not a good foundation for a business.
Nonetheless, John Mueller mentioned some guidelines to keep in mind if you want to increase your chances of receiving Google Discover traffic and avoid being kicked out of Discover.
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