We're So Back (?)

Signs of life detected

The August Core Update is rolling out as we speak and many many many sites that were annihilated by the HCU are coming back from the dead.

According to Google, the update is designed to “connect people with a range of high quality sites, including small or independent sites that are creating useful, original content, when relevant to users' searches.

It’s also designed to reward sites that made improvements in the past year:

“This update also aims to better capture improvements that sites may have made, so we can continue to show the best of the web.”

People who updated their old content, kept building links, and kept finding alternative ways to drive traffic to their site are doing better than the people who gave up.

Who would have guessed.

If you don’t water your garden, your plants won’t come back to life (Update Recovery 101).

Never stop posting new content. Never stop updating old content. Never stop building links. Never stop adding more YouTube videos. Never stop posting on social media.

You can’t recover if you don’t do anything.

As of right now, no one is seeing a full recovery in the sense of getting all of their pre-HCU traffic back.

But this is the first sign of life most decimated sites have seen in the past year. People are seeing gains of 100%+. Take the wins when you can get them instead of being upset that they aren’t bigger.

Since you’re a subscriber to this newsletter I know you’ve been putting in the work. Based on a poll on X, NONE of my followers have lost traffic since the update dropped. That’s amazing.

So congrats on being one of the Real Ones. I’m proud of you.

Viral complainers conspiracy theory

The sites that went viral in the past year for publicly complaining about the HCU are seeing some of the biggest gains.

Of course because it’s 2024 and everyone’s insane, some think there’s a conspiracy afoot.