Crypto Community Says Farewell To CCN
By Marina Generalova on ALTCOIN MAGAZINE
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CCN, one of the largest cryptocurrency media is going out of business, citing recent Google algorithm changes as a cause. The news announced on June 10th at CCN.com website has been actively discussed on Twitter and other social channels. Many crypto influencers have taken their time to say farewell to the news outlet that has been aggregating over 8.5 million views per month up until June. A lot of kind words and support are addressed personally to CCN founder Jonas Borchgrevink.
So… What Happened?
Google rolled out a core algorithm update between June 3–5. As a result, CCN has lost 71% of its mobile traffic and 53% of total traffic, according to the last article published by the founder Jonas Borchgrevink on his website. That CCN article was picked up by other media and ‘Google shutting down large crypto news outlet’ has soon become a loud headline.
But not everyone supports this claim. A lot of twitter users don’t believe that the announced closure of CCN is Google’s fault:
Are There, Other Victims?
CCN is not the only media that suffered from changes implemented by the search engine. According to the data provided by Sistrix, most cryptocurrency-related media have also taken a hit, although for some of them it was less notable.
If Coindesk, CCN, and Cointelegraph have all lost portions of their traffic, then who won from the update? Sistrix Visibility index shows that 14 out of 15 other crypto news websites are negatively affected. Bitcoinist.com is the only exception, but it didn’t gain new traffic either — the number of monthly visitors remained stable. So where do all of those millions of people searching for crypto topics in Google news end up now? The answer remains unclear.
Outside of the crypto world, there are also major moves: The Daily Mail has lost 50% of its traffic, while HuffPost, The Sun and The Daily Mirror seem to significantly benefit from the update.
History Of Google Updates
Google regularly tweaks its search engine algorithms. Most of such changes come unnoticed, but major ones cause dramatical changes in site visibility and rankings every now and then. Examples of the ‘big’ updates are called Panda, Penguin, Brackets, “Medic”, etc. Apparently the June 2019 update, which doesn’t have a specific name, also falls into this category. An announced goal of every update is to improve user experience, usually with no further details revealed.
Google doesn’t seem to care to give site owners a heads up. On the one hand, it does a good thing for the user experience. SEO-specialists work hard to ‘cheat’ Google’s algorithm. When they don’t know the exact search engine’s logic, this becomes harder to do and the network delivers more relevant search results. But this lack of stability makes it harder for sites and businesses to remain profitable. For example, following the Panda update, ezinearticles.com has lost 90% of its traffic. Many other websites have suffered from algorithm updates in the past. For some of them, it took years to recover.
CCN may have had its own financial problems and a lot of clickbait headlines. The Daily Mail may have not the highest content quality. But should it be up to Google to decide which content is ‘good quality’?
Almost all of the information we consume is controlled by a few companies, primarily Google and Facebook. Both do curate our search results/news feeds, and this new form of censorship is not a good thing. Is the AI-powered algorithm qualified to determine what we should watch and read?
Rest in peace, CCN. No matter what really caused the shutdown, your impact in bringing crypto news to people is meaningful.
