Google’s John Mueller answered a question about disappearing discovery traffic. Mueller puts forward several reasons why exploration traffic may dry up, and then warns against doing business around exploration traffic.
What is Google Discovery?
Google Discover is a content feed based on user network and Google search activity (if Google network and application activity record is turned on). Google Discover will display a personalized list of content that users are interested in.
If users tend to search for how to make certain recipes, then sites about these recipes will start to provide users with trends in their Discover feeds.
But in general, because there are so many people searching for different things, no website will tend to dominate in Google Discover, because the feed is personalized.
This is the reason why Google Discover traffic is somewhat random.
Google’s John Mueller listed other reasons for not being able to rely on Google Discover for consistent traffic.
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Google found a crash in the website experience in traffic
The person who asked the question explained that the site is a Brazilian news site that has always enjoyed steady Google Discover traffic. He wondered why the traffic would suddenly dry up into a trickle.
The person explained their situation:
“Our content delivery volume through Google Discover is falling dramatically.
…Google Discover is our main acquisition channel. But in the past ten days, our content delivery through Discover has almost dropped to zero.
Our general audience is a thousand real-time active users. There are now about ninety or one hundred active users.
We have not changed any technology or editing. Our Search Console did not report any issues. “
The person who asked the question went on to explain that their Core Web Vitals performance and CrUX report are at the top level, and their website uses AMP.
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He was puzzled as to why he found that traffic would dry up when everything remained the same and nothing changed.
Google traffic is inconsistent
The man asked:
“What do you think will happen to us?”
John Mueller first confirmed that Google found that traffic is often not a consistent source of traffic.
John Mueller replied:
“I think Discover is always tricky because it…at least what I heard from people is that it is very binary, either you get a lot of traffic, or you don’t get a lot of traffic from Discover.
This also means that any changes there are very obvious.
So my main recommendation is not to rely on Google Discover to get traffic, but to treat it as an additional source of traffic rather than the main source of traffic. “
Why did Google find that the traffic disappeared?
John Mueller next began to discuss general issues that may affect Google Discover traffic.
Mueller:
“When it comes to Discover, there are some things that can work…you mentioned some technical aspects that I think are good practices.
For example, core updates also played a role. “
Core updates will affect Google Discover traffic
Interestingly, Mueller said that the core update may affect Google Discover traffic. He did not specify what specific content in the core update may affect traffic, but it can be speculated that this may be related to the improvement of the algorithm for understanding the content. It could be many other things.
Mueller continued his answer:
“We recently performed a core update, which may match what you saw there from a time point of view.
So if you do see the impact of the core update, then I will double check our blog post on the core update, which contains a lot of tips and ideas that you can follow. “
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Google Discovery Content Guidelines
Mueller then cited Google’s Discovery Content Guidelines as a factor that influences which content will receive Google Discovery traffic.
Mueller explained the rules that affect traffic:
“Another thing, especially for Discover, we have a set of content guidelines, and we try to follow these guidelines in an algorithmic way.
Depending on the site itself, your site may be on the edge of some content guidelines.
For example…I don’t fully understand the content guidelines, but I think there are some general content like clickbait-y title or clickbait-y content or adult-oriented content, for example.
In terms of how we evaluate your website in this regard, your website may be in a critical state.
Then it may happen that our algorithm says oh well, a large part of this site is just click bait or one or other categories we listed in the content guide.
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Then we will be more conservative in how we display the website in Discover.
So… without knowing your website, this is my direction.
On the one hand, the core update, think about it.
On the other hand, we have content guidelines.
In the end, I will still make sure that your overall business will not rely on Discover, because it can change quickly.
The reasons behind these changes are often not purely technical. “
Google Discover is an unreliable source of traffic
The biggest takeaway is that Google Discover is a very unreliable source of traffic. So this is definitely not something to build a business.
Nonetheless, John Mueller mentioned guidelines to be aware of to increase your chances of receiving Google Discover traffic and avoid being kicked out of Discover.
Citation
Read Google’s Discovery Guide
How content is displayed during exploration
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Read Google’s Discovery Content Policy
John Mueller on how to improve Google’s chances of discovering traffic
Watch John Mueller at 45:35:
