Google Has Killed The Niche Site

And what it means for bloggers

This is fine meme from Know Your Meme

On September 14th Google began rolling out its Helpful Content Update. An update aimed at helping users find more helpful content instead of content that’s been created specifically for search engines.

Sounds good right?

In theory, yes.

But the reality is 1000s of webmasters who are genuinely trying to help their audience have woken up to their traffic being down anywhere from 30% to 75%. Meanwhile, Google is showing answers like this.

author screenshot — Google search of how many legs does a chicken have

So, while Google thinks they’ve found a way around showing sites created purely for SEO they aren’t exactly on the mark yet. But the fact of the matter is, everything has changed for niche site owners.

Google Shakes things up

Not since the Panda update in 2011 has there been such a change in the way bloggers need to operate.

The Panda update got rid of the spam sites and made bloggers work a lot harder instead of keyword stuffing and spamming their sites with links.