This article is going to be a little long, as I will be explaining everything in detail. I will start with a brief introduction about myself and my website, then move on to what happened and its overall impact on SERPS.
I am a small-time publisher who writes about gaming and anime. I have seen over 800+ anime series and played plenty of games across different genres, mostly RPGs.
I cover content related to those games, writing reviews and recaps of various anime episodes and manga chapters.
I have been doing this for the past 5 years and have turned writing about this stuff into a full-time career.
Before Replay Jutsu, I had two partnered websites. After last year’s HCU update, we lost about 70% of traffic on those sites, and after the March Core Update, the websites were completely destroyed.
My partners left the project, and we didn’t even renew the domain and hosting of those websites.
Decided to start a solo project, ‘Replay Jutsu,’ after the March core update 2024, giving blogging one more go.
I didn’t hire any writers and wrote all the content myself. Apart from basic onsite SEO, nothing else was done on Replay Jutsu.
Grew it to a point where the website was generating 75k-150k monthly traffic, which is great for a new site.
It might seem SUS for a website to grow that much in just a few months, but I was lucky as 2024 has been a good year for gaming content with big hits like FF7 Rebirth, Dragon’s Dogma 2, Palia, Stellar Blade, Gray Zone Warfare, Elden Ring New DLC, and many others being released.
Ahrefs and Semrush won’t show our accurate traffic because they base it on ranking keyword volume.
Since my content is focused on the latest games and anime, those tools take 1-2 months to update, so the data there is not accurate.
After Google’s August Core Update, Replay Jutsu got hit badly. Now, when I say “hit,” I don’t mean losing just a small portion of traffic and visibility.
These updates completely shadowbans your site, making it disappear from search results for any keywords, sometimes even for branded keyword searches as well. My monthly traffic has dropped to 10-20k.
Is this the first time?
No, this is not the first time I already covered a piece on this particular topic “Google August Core Update Has ShadowBanned Replay Jutsu” back in August, however, that article got buried and does not even appear on SERPs anymore. In case, you want to know in detail what happened to Replay Jutsu in August, you can check out that article.
Helpful Content Update
The Helpful Content Update was announced in 2022, and the first update rolled out in August of that year. Very few websites were affected at that time, and there were actual recoveries from that update.
The major issues began when Google’s September Helpful Content Update was released last year. Many small and mid-tier publishers were hit by this update.
While some managed to survive, they later faced hits from the core updates, as there were four major updates rolled out by Google back-to-back after the September Helpful Content Update.
Google March Core Update
Many of us waited for the March Core Update, hoping Google would admit their algorithm was flawed.
Instead, with the March update, most of us lost nearly all of our traffic. It felt like a complete shadowban had been placed on our websites.
Many publishers tried reaching out to Google and their Search Liaison to get answers about this shadowban issue.
Some publishers, who had enough capital ($$$), kept pushing through, paying their writers and hoping for relief from Google so they could at least keep their employees on payroll. But others, who ran out of capital, had no choice but to shut down and move on.
I mean, why would anyone keep publishing content when it’s not being seen? Google no longer shows those articles in search results anymore.
Sure, some people will say, “Diversify, and publish on social media,” but for some editorial sites, it is not that simple.
We can’t survive without Google. No matter how big your social media following is, editorial sites need Google to stay afloat. It is a long debate.
I know you are going to say that the business model is flawed and that we are entirely dependent on Google but it is what it is.
If it is flawed then how come sites like Forbes are surviving? They don’t get hit by these algorithm updates at all.
August Core Update
After a lot of promises and interviews by Google’s Search Liaison, fast forward to the August Core Update, a lot of new sites that were created after the March Core Update were hit badly in this update.
Websites that were previously affected by the March Core update saw some slight improvements. Opportunistic SEOs called this a recovery, showcasing case studies on how they helped clients bounce back, which gave Google a PR boost.
However, only a small percentage of sites actually improved, while many others saw major traffic declines during the August Update. The August Core Update ended on 3rd September 2024.
What Happened in September?
In September, there were a lot of layoffs by big media companies like Gamurs Group and Dexerto, It was due to Google’s Updates.
Some sites that showed recovery during the August core update lost all the traffic they had gained after the recent changes, almost as if Google reversed its algorithm.
Sites that were unaffected earlier also experienced traffic drops, despite no official update being announced.
Traffic volatility peaked in September, with well-known sites losing 50-60% of their traffic, I believe there was an unannounced big update by Google in September.
GGRecon, a popular gaming website (A site I personally loved), has decided to shut down because it can no longer sustain itself.
They were affected by the September Helpful Content Update and the March update. GGRecon’s content has always been accurate, direct, and helpful, created by expert writers who genuinely know about the topic and the game they are covering. I have read a lot of their guides on Diablo 4.
This situation makes me really wonder what Google really considers “helpful” if sites that gamers love and trust are deemed unworthy.
While Dexerto and companies like Gamurs Group didn’t shut down, they had to lay off some of their talented writers due to the recent Google updates.
Now, many of those writers will likely question their content, wondering if it wasn’t ‘helpful’. This self-doubt may end up making it harder for them to move forward and search for new jobs, and it will extend the time it takes to process everything mentally.
As a result, this could lead to financial struggles for them as they deal with the aftermath of these changes.
I am also sharing some recent tweets from writers who were laid off. If you need content creation, please feel free to reach out to them.
AI Overviews, Reddit, and Everything Else
AI Overviews may be helpful for some other niches but I don’t think it is helpful for gaming or entertainment.
No matter how good an AI is, it can not properly explain a task within a quest of any RPG game without either paraphrasing or copying content from a website, which is theft.
So, if Google considers stolen content helpful but sees genuine content created by an expert writer as unhelpful, it is clear where Google’s priorities lie.
The first page is pretty much AI overviews now, and they appear even when the AI overview does not actually understand the topic.
For example, if I search for an anime episode release date, and no publisher or Reddit post has covered it yet, the AI overview will show information about the previous episode instead.
This does not meet the search intent and ends up wasting time by giving inaccurate or outdated information.
Let’s talk about Reddit. While it may be helpful to see UGC on the first page for some people, it becomes really annoying when that’s all there is.
Google’s search liaison shared an example where a forum helped him ‘in real life issue’, but in niches like gaming and entertainment, these forums are often filled with trolls, false information, or hateful remarks. I know this because I use Reddit a lot.
What’s worse, Google sometimes highlights these misleading posts, even giving them snippets. Small publishers, who create authentic content, now have to compete with platforms that may promote low-quality information.
I am not really against Reddit being featured in top results, but there needs to be balance as I mentioned in my other post as well. However, I don’t think that is possible now since Google has partnered with Reddit in order to train their ‘AI’.
In the gaming and entertainment niche, YouTube videos, TikTok videos, Facebook pages, and Reddit threads all show up, often crowding out more accurate sources.
Why is TikTok ranking? Most of these TikTok links just take you to the TikTok Discover page. How is that even useful for users? It doesn’t even provide the content you are looking for, just another search result.
State of the SERPs Now and Impact on Small Publishers
Google will obviously flex that they have made search better, but did they? A normal user can’t really tell as they have no idea about what happened and this actually benefited Google a lot.
Now the big publishers who are apparently algorithm proof cannot really cover every anime or game, there are certain animes and games that only small publishers were covering until September 2023.
Even if big publishers hire 100+ writers, it’s impossible for them to cover everything. Recently, I searched for a review/recap of Bleach TYBW Episode 25/26, a two-episode finale.
To my surprise, only 2-3 editorial websites appeared, with the rest being forums and YouTube videos. Last year, there were plenty of reviews for these episodes, but now, many small publishers have disappeared from search results.
Google’s updates have most likely wiped out these sites, which is why only a few show up now. The only relevant piece I found on this was from But Why Tho.
I used to read But Why Tho reviews on these animes a lot. But they also rarely appear on search results now. Because the algorithm got to them as well. I have so many examples like this, if I started adding all those examples the word count would reach 10000+ words.
Spam is still ranking, I made this post back in July and tried reaching out to Google and Search Liasion as well about this but those spam websites are still ranking, meanwhile, my website got penalized in the recent August Core Update, the irony.
Many Gacha game guide creators have stopped producing content. I have noticed there aren’t many up-to-date guides for popular gacha games like Honkai Star Rail, Genshin Impact, or Wuthering Waves anymore.
Now, only a few well-known sites, like Sportskeeda, seem to publish guides regularly on those games.
Even if those small creators/publishers are still making content about these games, I wouldn’t know because Google has completely removed their visibility.
For an average user, it seems like those sites no longer exist. Since most people use Google as their default search engine, if a site isn’t showing up for a topic, the user’s search intent isn’t being fulfilled. Is that really helpful?
Google has removed the opportunity for mid-tier and smaller publishers to compete. Now, only a handful of sites appear in search results when you look for anything related to games or entertainment, like movies, shows, or anime.
High-authority sites seem immune to these updates and don’t get affected. Google often responds by saying, “Become a brand.”
But how can you build or become a brand if no one can see it? It’s like telling a class of 30 students that only three top performers deserve to stay, while the rest should leave and find another school.
Many prominent SEOs have interviewed the search liaison, but all we hear in response is, “We are trying to improve, we are trying to do better.”
Websites are shutting down, and writers are losing their jobs. In a recent interview, the Search Liaison said to keep producing content, and the algorithm will eventually catch up.
Is it really a race? Do we have infinite money? Content creation isn’t free, it was a business that supported families.
Yet, Google suddenly labeled the work of so many amazing journalists and publishers as unhelpful meanwhile the unhelpful content continues to appear in search results.
The spammers are still at it, and the updates didn’t really affect them as intended. Instead, these updates have just destroyed legitimate websites, putting them out of work while allowing spammy content to still thrive.
Final Words
Honestly speaking, things are not getting better, even if you create a new website, it won’t matter, their core update will eventually hit you no matter how great your content is or how amazing the UX of your website really is.
The helpful content update has turned out to be the most unhelpful update yet. Unless you have a huge backlink profile it has become impossible to survive these updates.
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