Does Google want to kill Santa Claus? The peculiar case of EmailSanta.com

This week’s Ask An SEO question comes from Alan of Calgary, Alberta. He wrote:

“I created EmailSanta.com in 1997. I have always been an avid follower of SEJ. With your help, using only the white hat method, I won a very competitive keyword ranking first reward.

(I even defeated Google and North American Air Defense Command — briefly.)

However, the ranking and organic traffic of the site have been declining in the past two years. According to GA, the decline may occur in March 2019, but seasonal factors make it difficult to determine the turning point.

There was a core update at the time, but I have not been able to figure out what the update is and how it will affect my website.

Despite my best efforts and 24 years of SEO experience (as a “enthusiast” rather than a professional), I still couldn’t stop the decline.

There has never been any black hat (not needed). Technical SEO is good, although not perfect. Hope EAT is good, because since 1997 we have multiple links from Wikipedia, NYT, etc. “

Allen went on to share some theories about what he thought might happen, including:

• The site is a Christmas portal (>100 pages), the portal site has disappeared a long time ago. He wondered if he could do better by breaking the site into multiple components.
• He pointed out that Google’s artificial intelligence seems to have been prioritizing pages with similar content/style in SERPs. His pages are often different from competitors, and appear to be dropped after “screening”.
• The EmailSanta website provides arguments in support of Santa’s real existence, but has subtle implications for the truth. He had noticed the dismissal of discussions about Google in some industries. He tested this theory, but the results are inconclusive.
• He wants to know if there are other algorithm changes that he might have missed.

First of all, I wish you and your friend a happy holiday, Allen.

Now, I have a secret to tell.

I am Santa Claus.

I am a big man with a “precocious” white beard, and my wife is a photographer.

For those who are always clingy and unable to fully control their body functions, it is inevitable that I will eventually become a celebrity. My first performance is coming soon, I believe there will be many photos.

But it was enough for me; it looks like Google dropped a pile of coal in another Santa’s sock.

We don’t have an exact copy of Google’s naughty good list, so we will have to make some assumptions that may or may not be correct.

Even if we have all the information and have not conducted a lot of testing, we still may not know what caused this Santa’s ranking to drop faster than a flying sleigh without any Christmas spirit.

When we see a ranking drop, it is usually because one of two things happened.

In the first case, we are talking about a slow decline over time.

These ranking drops are usually caused only by slow external changes, which seem to happen only in the course of the work of SEO professionals.

In this case, it may not be possible to determine any major factors that contributed to the decline in rankings.

There are too many variables that may change. It is almost impossible to diagnose the exact reason why a website is not ranking in search engines.

Then there was a rapid decline.

Your ranking dropped overnight. They are in a hurry.

This usually happens in a short period of time, when the ranking drops, SEO professionals/marketers will be stunned and they seem to be powerless.

EmailSanta.com seems to be experiencing the first situation, that is, the ranking will drop within two years.

Is this an algorithm update?

When SEO professionals compare the annotations of major algorithm updates, they can usually find the affected patterns.

In some cases, Google team members such as Danny Sullivan or John Muller Will confirm these findings (or lead us in different directions).

As for the turning point, it may be in March 2019. It is Google’s launch of the so-called Florida 2 core update.

As Roger Monti says At that time,

“Extensive core updates mean that Google does not target any niche or any specific signals, such as quality…

Extensive core updates are not targeted at sites, niches, or quality. This is why Google said that in the extensive core update, there is nothing that can be resolved.

The best way to understand the broad core update is to put aside Google’s preconceptions about low page quality or niche markets. Then focus on factors related to relevance. “

Even so, unless something changes, there will be no updates.At that time, several industry experts suggested that Florida 2 was a rollback of the previous algorithm update, and there were Gain more than lose.

According to Semrush, the vertical industries most affected are automobiles and transportation, health, and pets and animals—at least in the early days.

If you can’t see traffic trends and ranking reports, you can’t guess whether Florida 2 is a factor, or to what extent.

But this sounds unlikely, because it seems to have reversed some of the controls that might have been too strict when they were first introduced.

Some holiday gifts that might help:

Should you imitate your competitors?

Alan wants to know if he should be more like his competitor, but I don’t like to follow the crowd too closely.

You don’t want to create the same content just because of their rankings.

However, it is useful to look at the ranking of a particular keyword on your previous website to see the difference.

Are there any information queries or questions that you have not answered?

Are they addressing a specific type of search intent that you have not yet resolved?

Do they use different types of media or richer information to better answer their question of beating you?

Look for opportunities to make your content unique, rather than trying to be more like others.

Put these under your tree:

Look at the searcher experience as a whole

The problem is that links to Allen, the New York Times and Wikipedia may have done more for you in the past.

But Google has learned Even ignore high-quality links If they are not relevant or do not indicate a special live experience.

In the Google Search Center SEO Hangout in February 2021, Mueller says:

“We are trying to understand what is related to the website, we should weigh these individual links, the total number of links is not important at all.

Because if you want, you can create millions of links on millions of websites, and we can ignore them. “

It’s important you Keep the content fresh, Relevant and engaging, even if your website is aging.

The on-site experience is also severely affected by the design and advertising placement. You do experience some layout changes when a large banner ad loads and interrupts the above-the-fold content experience when the user clicks on the page.

In my opinion, there is usually no good time Website redesign.

However, no matter how often you redesign your website, most people want them to finish it sooner.

I have seen webmasters insist on designing for decades because their designs are effective.

However, when they redesigned the website to be something more modern, they were surprised how good the conversion effect of the new website was.

You see, the behavior of searchers is always changing.

If you are still using a website that is nearly ten years old, it’s time to redesign it.

I don’t care if your website is working properly… Find someone who has experience in redesigning your website to improve search engine friendliness and start working.

Just prepare fillings for you:

At the end

I strongly recommend a site redesign and copy rewrite for EmailSanta.com, Allen. As competition improves, you are losing traffic over time, and there are more and more “better answers” that make Google rank higher than yours.

It doesn’t hurt to refresh your keyword strategy and revisit your link building method.

You may be pleasantly surprised by what Google left in your socks!

More resources:

Editor’s note: Ask SEO It is a weekly SEO advice column written by some of the top SEO experts in the industry carefully selected by search engine magazines. Have a question about SEO? Fill out our form. You may see your answer in the next #AskanSEO post!

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