Google Appears to Crush Niche Websites

It was good while it lasted for the niche websites, but Google’s September algorithm update took the traffic out of many of the long-tail keyword sites. The Reddit group r/SEO is littered with panicky SEO consultants seeing their websites drop in ranking and keywords.

While both of my sites have felt the “hit” of the update, things are starting to improve. Add on the November update and both this site and my thomasott.io site will be fine, just beaten up until it recovers.

The irony is that I was starting to get on the niche website bandwagon but got distracted by writing for my other site. As my old boss used to say, “It doesn’t matter if you’re good, what matters is if you’re lucky.” I was lucky because I stopped posting about making these niche websites == making money posts.

Can you still build niche websites, fast, in Hugo? You bet! Hugo is an amazing static-generated CMS and I still use it for a few other side projects, but you have to be a deluded dumbass to try to “game” Google for the long term.

The best thing to do is to restart this site as what it was meant to be, a place to discuss technology, the financial markets, and the economy. That’s what it was back in 2007 before I focused on RapidMiner tutorials and AI stuff, and I think it should go back to that.

While I write about technology and startups over on my other publication, I do miss writing about the financial markets and what’s happening in the economy. I enjoyed finding new market trends and uncovering profitable opportunities.

I’ve also been inspired by some of the old stalwarts in the blog circles that are still kicking around, like howardlindzon.com and chrisperruna.com (although he’s moved on from his blog), and feel energized by DataDrivenInvestor and WolfStreet.com.

The moral of the story is that blogging has changed forever on the Internet and this site still has some latent value in the eyes of Google. However, it does need a makeover and I’m working on a few ideas. Expect tweaks and changes over the coming weeks.