With the recently completed Caffeine update Google has once more clearly demonstrated it’s power to make or break a business to many affiliates. The initial update at the start of May was followed by a final adjustment to the algo between June 4th and 2nd which hit many sites whose owners were breathing sighs of relief that they had escaped this latest shake up. Those affected lost up to 60% of their site traffic – a huge blow.
There’s lots of chat about large e-commerce sites largely being the ones affected, but I know that a lot of affiliate sites have also been hit. What I wanted to do in this post was show you guys different sites that I own which were affected in different ways and share with you some of my early feelings about what’s been going on here. Anyone needing a refresher on the joy of Google Caffeine can read my previous post talking about it here.
My Winners and Losers…
The Winners
Blokes Undies – Traffic has increased by around 30% since the start of May.
Lingerie Brands – Up there and rocking with a lovely 25% boost.
The Losers
Personalised Gifts UK – 70% reduction
Fragrance Brands – As above.
Fortunately for me, the sites affected were not at all key to my business. That in itself is probably a bit of a clue – they’re all sites I probably haven’t really done “properly” for one reason or another.
What The Sites Have In Common
- All 4 have either exactly the same or similar basic structures.
- All have reasonable cross linking and no real issues with orphan pages.
- All have completely unique content.
Features of The Winners
- Both have had extensive work done on generating good quality links. This has either been through quality exchanges or spontaneous links to bits and pieces of my content from sources such as blogs, forums, and other online publications because people have found them useful or interesting.
- Both are relatively large sites. One around 1,100 pages the other around 500.
Features of The Losers
- Some are long neglected sites I’ve been meaning to get back around to working on (there are more than listed above!).
- Some are niche sites which I took to a certain stage and then left alone, updating infrequently.
- Many had a low number of pages. The largest had around 280.
- None of them have had much time at all put into generating links beyond the usual round of mailing some friends with relevant sites and cadging links from them. Very few links go to internal pages (although there are some).
- All the affected sites were slapped in the second part of the algo adjustment at the start of June.
My Conclusions
- My traffic boosts have come from the shift in the SERPS caused by the downgrading of larger sites’ quality signals. Happy days
- My own quality and relevance signals for sites that benefitedwere a-ok with Google.
- Those signals were related to good unique content, decent cross linkage, very few orphan pages, and decent inbound links to many different parts of my sites.
- Ranking value of domain names remains strong, I didn’t lose any traffic within affected sites which was related directly to the domain.
What Does This Mean For Affiliates
Cutting through lots of algo related jargon about quality and relevance signals, it does come back to the type of frustratingly bland statements one always finds in Google’s webmaster guidelines.
Try to add value, create a site with unique and compelling content, and don’t make it all about earning money. I think the last one of those is probably key to affiliates. Understandably we want to channel our time into creating traffic with the strongest possible chance of generating a sale for us. However, I think affiliates ignoring this latest warning shot from Google and not thinking about whether they need to change their strategy will be very ill advised indeed. Lets face it, this won’t be the last algo adjustment. How close were you to the cut off this time? Do you think you’d make it through the eye of Google’s algo needle next time??? Are you sure?
Incidentally, Matt Woods mentioned in an article on A4U that this update might see a mainstream return to the micro niche site in affiliate marketing. He’s absolutely right that those sites will still work. I’ll certainly still be popping the odd one up here and there. However, I’d say that anyone building a business on them is creating wealth propped up by a house of cards. I predict their days will be numbered in the longer term. Looking at them from Google’s viewpoint they’re often thin on content, add little value, and are designed to funnel people straight through to another site. If you think sites like that aren’t already on the big G’s radar you’re deluding yourself.
My Own Next Steps
In an attempt to add a little more value than handing all those slapped affiliates a report card type statement reading “must do better” I’ve popped my own recently written “to do” list for all my sites. Some of it will never happen but it’ll all be thoroughly investigated and I will apply bits of this (and some other stuff I think of along the way) to all of my sites – not just the ones with problems.
- Perform an audit and decide which sites I’ll leave “as is” and which I will try to “rescue”
- Create more newsy articles of relevance to the industry I’m promoting.
- Investigate social networking angles so that Google can see me in lots of different places.
- Look at ways of helping my users more. Maybe a section on some types of sites offering to help locate hard to find items or answer questions?
- Investigate creating some unique product browsing tools for my sites. The ipad generation really do love their visuals.
- Work consistently on all key sites on ethical link building (hopefully the above will generate a lot of this!!)
- Look at site speed (Google has warned us all!!).
Food For Thought?
I hope I’ve given you at least a tasty little nibble. Whether you are affected or not, I think bearing in mind that Google can and does raise the quality bar for affiliates on a regular basis is a jolly good idea. Despite having no real impact on my income, this update has given me the proper willies and no doubt about it. I’ve been sitting still for too long and not innovating. I can visualise all too clearly how easily I could have been on the other side of the fence with this update. The difference between my affected and unaffected sites is uncomfortably small.
Onwards, upwards, and always… Forward!! 
June 22nd, 2010 at 9:41 am
Very informative post, and good to see your very open review of how you have been effected by the google caffeine / Mayday updates.
I have had similar issues, but reading your analysis it has given me lots of food for thought. I am not doing lots of the things you mention, so will need to do so, to avoid the cull next time
June 22nd, 2010 at 10:09 am
ALL of my sites have noticed a boost in traffic, although this is probably due to the fact each is targetting a specific product, which is what I think Google was trying to accomplish rather than an price comparison page ranking top.
June 22nd, 2010 at 10:12 am
@Purple – definately a few things to think about at the moment, yes!
@Shane – that’s good to hear
How were your inbound links to those? Some of my affected sites were also targeting single products or niche product groups, so I’d be interested to hear how our experiences compare.
June 22nd, 2010 at 10:23 am
A couple of my sites are new, so I’m hoping in the next updates I’ll see some PR with them. None of my others have altered as far as trafic is concerned. I just keep working on trying to get good backlinks, and to provide quality content.
June 22nd, 2010 at 1:37 pm
We’ve been caned in our main content sites – one had no commercial links on at all, the other only a few compared with almost 2000 newsy posts and a great industry reputation as an authority that generated loads of proper, real incoming links. One has dropped to no traffic, the other to last year’s levels when it had been running at three times last year’s traffic until Caffeine. As a result we’ve shut them both, as it just isn’t worth the work any more. Thank you Google, for screwing us so royally.
June 22nd, 2010 at 6:10 pm
I’m finding that the sites I care about and spend time on daily are all performing well with the new Caffeine searches. Meanwhile, static sites that I seldom spend time updating are tending to perform worse with the new searches.
Really this all sits well with me and I think if I spent more time with my poorly performing sites I could get them performing well with little problem.
June 23rd, 2010 at 1:05 am
@geoff – I think that is pretty much all you can do – and hope you don’t fall foul of Google. This update has been very confusing!
@Andy – really sorry to hear about your sites. There are always tales like yours at every update where a site that should have been a-ok gets caned. Have you just left the sites sitting or removed them? Although Google says they’re happy with the update I do wonder if there will be adjustments to the algo down the track.
@Rich – I must confess my experience has been similar to yours, although my Personalised Gifts site was updated with fresh content most days. It’s so hard to fathom Google at these times. I’m just glad I wasn’t affected on any important sites.
June 23rd, 2010 at 1:33 am
I do agree with your dissection of Caffeine and I am noticing a trend that shopping merchants are getting slapped around a bit. My reasoning is that up until the Caffeine update I was ranking for a lot of terms and brands and would appear just under my merchant, now I find I am above them either directly or there is a gap between us of 1-3 listings. For now the update has been great and I do strongly believe that integrating yourself with all faucets of social media is going to be the make or break in the future.
June 23rd, 2010 at 1:39 am
Definately the way forward Zane… and if nothing else I’m sure I’ll have lots of fun finding out more about social media marketing which I really know too little of.
I’m still sure there’s some feature of this algo update we’re missing here… something beyond just cross linking and good links. I can’t stop thinking about it – it’s driving me absolutely nutty!!
June 23rd, 2010 at 1:46 am
I do agree! Are we missing something? Whilst the transparency of the update seems darn obvious I can’t help but think that there is quite possibly some other factor that is sneakily lurking below the surface that we’re unaware of (I can hear the Jaws theme song right now).
Cross linking and quality backlinks have been the standard for a long time so in thinking these ranking factors are the only things optimised leave me feeling quite suspicious.
For now I plan to at least comply with the guidelines Google have set out and attempt to create communal interest in my sites and have people actively involved. This in particular is how I have come to understand the update.
June 23rd, 2010 at 1:56 am
Ha ha ha ha ha… glad I’m not the only one. I can’t for the life of me find something consistently in common or that differentiates the winners and losers.
It gives me the willies because it seems to be I could so easily have been one of the losers as there’s just no (apparent) consistency to it. By all accounts Andy who posted above should have been in clover… but he’s been hammered, what gives?
You could waste weeks on this sort of stuff though, best to get on and try to add some more value to the sites before G-meister changes it’s mind.
June 23rd, 2010 at 6:50 am
Most of the sites I mentions are small, 4/5 page sites that were put in place and usually landed on the first page based purely on onsite SEO. I’ve then chucked a few (less than ideal) links at them and most have gone to the top. A few were sitting at around 3rd/4th though. Since the update from 7 sites, all are number 1 for a variety of keyterms and have seen a traffic increase or between 10 and 50%.
Now im not competing in any highly competitive keyterms for any of the terms, however, one site for example was stuck at 5th. Being outranked by a massive article/review section on the Which website (they had 3rd & 4th) and Amazon who had the top two nailed. My site is now top and making at least a sale a day now, compared to 1 a week at 5th (I need to optomise the site now though).
June 23rd, 2010 at 12:40 pm
Thanks for your good wishes Kirsty. We’ve left both there but won’t be updating. Announced the decision about the bigger one to general dismay (http://www.facebook.com/britsonpole) but the ridiculous workload with declining traffic and no payoff made the decision unavoidable. The other site was more a personal hobby, updated twice daily, that might have grown and now won’t.
June 23rd, 2010 at 11:39 pm
@shane very interesting – it seems your niche sites are benefitting from the issues suffered by larger, stronger sites. Are most of your search phrases aligned with your domain name or are there others? Sorry for all the questions, just interested in how Google is treating niche sites. I know my own niche sites have been slapped, but they ranked for a lot of terms beyond those directly related to the domain. So for search terms that are core to the site topic I’m either A-OK or sightly better, but the rest have vanished!
@Andy – I sincerely hope you see some sort of improvement in the coming weeks. I really hate hearing stories like yours.
I had a quick look at your site and note it’s in a traditional blog type format. I know at least one other person who has a similar site structure, all unique etc who has also been hit. Not sure if this is related.
Good luck
June 24th, 2010 at 8:59 am
Well the main keyword for each site is a match on the domain, however the site I mentioned that was being outranked by which/amazon is now ranking top for “widget” but also top 2 or 3 for “brand name widget”, “large widget”, and several other longtail terms which it wasnt ranking for (or I hadnt been receiving any traffic from anyway).
My personal blog has also seen a massive increase in traffic (around 50%), but this may be down to the fact I have been writing quite a bit recently.
June 24th, 2010 at 1:41 pm
Kirsty, perhaps the tide has turned against WordPress at the Googleplex? Maybe it’s now too closely associated with being the platform of choice for throw-them-up-quickly affiliate sites? Which means the quality sites built on it that don’t change its core taxonomy might be in danger?
Or perhaps the internal linking on my site just sucks…
June 25th, 2010 at 1:03 am
@shane – great, thanks for those responses. Very interesting and helpful!
@andy -I think if there was a broader issue of targeting thin affiliates we’d have heard about it. WordPress is used by an awful lot of organisations large and small so I’d be surprised if Google targeted it.
The trouble with issues like this is that there are so many facets to changes we can only guess at.
Maybe you could try jazzing up your internal linking. How about creating some hub pages around popular topics and seeing if it makes any change? Vanessa Fox recommended this somewhere to help make sure content was more easily accessible and no more than 6 clicks into your site.
Google is never dull, that’s for sure!
June 25th, 2010 at 12:38 pm
Had a lot of bad news on most of my sites during this update. Was all going so well too, what with going full time mid May, my earnings have almost halved over the last 3 weeks.
If anything, I’ve noticed my thinner sites with less regular updates are doing better whereas the older ones with more content and links are doing worse.
Got a lot of ideas in the pipeline to rescue the ailing sites though so I may be battered but I’m certainly not broken.
Oh Google, you do love to confuse us all.
June 28th, 2010 at 10:29 pm
Hi Kirsty. I couldn’t be nosey and ask what plugin/script you use on those WordPress sites to get the product listings?
I don’t recognise the format/layout of them so am I right in thinking they’re custom?
June 29th, 2010 at 12:43 am
That’s the spirit Matt – you have to find a way to fix Google’s crimes or you won’t be able to move on. Sounds like you have some fun times ahead, but keep on fighting
June 29th, 2010 at 7:04 am
Hi Doug, just found your comment in the spam filter – dunno what you did wrong there!
We actually do that part of the sites by hand… manipulate the feed, create template etc.