Tuesday, June 25, 2024 Following a significant Google update in March, Stay22, a travel tech company specializing in affiliate revenue for travel bloggers and media, reported that some travel bloggers experienced up to a 75% drop in organic traffic. This impact has reverberated across the travel industry, with many relying on organic search—including hotels and smaller OTAs—suffering major traffic declines. Google has never publicly disclosed the specifics of its search algorithm, maintaining that each update aims to benefit search users rather than harm websites.
This lack of transparency has drawn criticism, particularly after the ironically named ‘Helpful Content Update (HCU)’. According to research by Digitaloft, since the first HCU rollout in August 2022, 78% of the 671 travel websites analyzed have seen a decrease in traffic. Recently, leaked internal Google documents, published by SEO expert Erfan Azimi on the Google API Content Warehouse, revealed details of the algorithm’s workings.
Some claim the algorithm is unfair, and the documents suggest that Google may have occasionally misled websites with potentially untrue information. Rami Nuseir, Head of Marketing at Stay22 comments: “The recent leaks show that Google has not only been untransparent with website owners, but it also seems to have often been misleading us. This is the last straw for us at Stay22 and should be for the wider travel media and blogger community.
Some of their changes also seem a bit.
