A painful read and it mirrors my situation with Google. I used to get good organic traffic from Google having done no SEO ā just, you know, having a site that people liked. Then Google updated something and 80% of my traffic slid away.
Whatās distressing is that thereās no point of contact, human or otherwise, that could shed light on what the issue is. Some sites get warnings in Googleās Webmaster Tools, but I never have.
Iāve spent countless hours reading forums and implementing suggestions and as Haughey says, itās as though Google flipped a switch somewhere and thereās a permanent penalty applied. Nothing Iāve done has had any effect.
The irony of this is that in their efforts to kill spam, Google has put sites who have never touched SEO in the position of urgently needing SEO. Or buying AdWords. Of course, Google would never be so unethical as to sabotage a siteās traffic to force them to buy AdWords, which is their primary source of revenue.
Anyway, best of luck to MetaFilter. I suppose I should contact them to have links to my site removed. Sigh.
Whatās amazing is that he was able to pay a staff of seven just on the money generated from google text ads for as long as he did, and itās an indication of what kind of person Matt is that he didnāt resort to a plea to his devoted userbase for funds sooner.
I used to spend WAY too much time on MeFiās various sitesā¦ I loved my time there and I like matthowie a lot too. But I wonder how much of AskMeās decrease in traffic is due to some sort of Google penalty, and how much of it is the related to the rise of Stack Exchange? Why would people spend $5 to register and ask questions on Ask Metafilter, when they can just go to one of the various Stack Exchange sites and ask there for free? It seems like any time I google just about ANYTHING these days, I get results from a Stack Exchange site.
Compassionate, but not too business savvy, as he seemed to think that adding two more moderators was going to somehow increase traffic? And then he left the site lose money for 18 months before doing anything at all about it. if the siteās not sold within the next 2 years Iād be shocked.
I never understood that place. I found it impossible to post anything there without pissing everyone off. I havenāt looked at it in 8 years.
Damn the man!
I donated!
I never even saw the forums, but I can remember back when all search engines sucked pretty hard, MetaFilter would kind of average out the suck and deliver some useful links. But then they got Google to work, and for me it became redundant.
I have to admit that I am not familiar with them, because my primary association with the name is āunwanted search resultsā. Fair or not, that may be connected to their problem.
I donāt think Matt was ever looking to pay the bills with the $5 registration fee.Whenever heās written about that, he said he has used the $5 more as a barrier to keep spammers and drive-by trolls away. And there was a time not too long ago when Ask Metafilter was always one of the highest ranked sites in Google results. Iām kind of surprised by the āunwanted search resultsā accusation. I always found the posts on Ask Metafilter to be way better than anything youād get from sites that have come along and copied what he made.
I imagine itās both. Iām sure itās a lovely community, but that can go too far as well, Iāve lurked there a bit and the discussion of MeFi family, ((((({HUGS}))))) and online āspouse/spicesā gets a little culty for me. I imagine itās easier to capitalize pure information (as available on StackExchange) versus the feels people get from a tight-knit community and its bloggy/LJ style interchanges.
Itās good that people have their safe space, but the discussions came up a bit cloying in my search results. While Iād MUCH rather see these coming up in my searches than HuffPo-style content-farm drek, I can see why changes in search algorithms may have hit this as well. The community isnāt creating content thatās as valuable outside the community.
Itās also interesting to see how MeFi has fared versus a similar heavily curated/moderated (regardless of what you might think of their slant) community like SomethingAwful. Much more in SAās budgetary favor, I donāt think the mods/admins are paid. Or at least, werenāt the last time I checked.
Of course, a farmer like āFree Range Contentā who serves up content nobody wants would NEVER blame Google for getting banned for Black Hat SEO.
Metafilter I feel sympathy for, these guys, not so much.
Meanwhile, another Matthew with a web site is driving his new Tesla.
The real testament to Mattās character is that he didnāt ask the userbase for help at all. He explored all his options to fix the problem behind the scenes, spent all the savings, then finally cut overhead (staffing) to be in the black. It was the news of the staffing cuts that prompted the MetaFilter userbase to seek out a long-neglected āDonateā link that was buried in the FAQ. The āHelp Fund MetaFilterā page was a response to the overwhelming call for an easier way to give the site money. Matt never asked for anything except understanding.
I suspect that its decline is at least partially a result of the culture fostered there. While the goals of being inclusive to all genders, creeds and stripes was very noble, but practice to was to ostracize anyone who accidentally marginalized a vulnerable demographic, and who you know is prone to accidentally marginalize a vulnerable demographic? EVERYONE.
Well, I donāt know if āmarginalizationā has so much to do with its lack of perceived value and downturn of users, but the same curation of users and keeping away the riff-raff is going to hamper growth.
Oh yeah, Iām well aware of the reasoning for having the $5 registration fee. But what Iām saying is, while itās an effective barrier to spammers and drive-by trolls, it also keeps some genuine users away as well, and when there is a good free alternative (Stack Exchange), people are going to flock to that instead.
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