The Impact of Google's Helpful Content Update on Affiliate Websites
Posted: Tue Dec 17, 2024 3:24 am
I think this answer is the crux of the problem in the affiliate industry. And it also explains Google's desperate attempts to wipe out affiliate websites and niche sites in general.
Google has proven surprisingly effective at this since their Helpful Content Update (HCU).
image rest in peace google affiliate websites
Image source: Start24 research
The impact of HCU on Dutch affiliate websites
This research shows what the effects of the HCU (and subsequent Google updates) were on the Dutch affiliate industry. These effects were not mild. To quote a few findings from the article:
Dutch websites that rely primarily albania phone number library on an affiliate marketing model are estimated to have lost 37.65% of their monthly traffic.
In contrast, the impact was much greater on expert review websites, which lost 53.59% of their traffic.
38% of these expert review websites saw a traffic drop of more than 70%.
The turnover losses of these websites are between thousands and tens of thousands of euros per month.
Established affiliate websites within niches such as telecom & internet, energy and insurance have seen virtually no traffic decline.
These findings apply specifically to 'expert review' websites:
The 102 expert review websites studied lost a total of 53.59% of their traffic.
39 of these websites saw a traffic drop of more than 75%.
20 websites saw a traffic drop of more than 90%.
Consumer products websites were hit the hardest, with a 69.42% drop in traffic.
The software (-13.2%), money (-3.24%) and travel (-5.08%) niches saw a significantly smaller decline.
28 out of 102 expert review websites actually test products (27.45%).
Within the consumer products niche, products were tested by only 12 of the 71 websites (16.9%).
Google has proven surprisingly effective at this since their Helpful Content Update (HCU).
image rest in peace google affiliate websites
Image source: Start24 research
The impact of HCU on Dutch affiliate websites
This research shows what the effects of the HCU (and subsequent Google updates) were on the Dutch affiliate industry. These effects were not mild. To quote a few findings from the article:
Dutch websites that rely primarily albania phone number library on an affiliate marketing model are estimated to have lost 37.65% of their monthly traffic.
In contrast, the impact was much greater on expert review websites, which lost 53.59% of their traffic.
38% of these expert review websites saw a traffic drop of more than 70%.
The turnover losses of these websites are between thousands and tens of thousands of euros per month.
Established affiliate websites within niches such as telecom & internet, energy and insurance have seen virtually no traffic decline.
These findings apply specifically to 'expert review' websites:
The 102 expert review websites studied lost a total of 53.59% of their traffic.
39 of these websites saw a traffic drop of more than 75%.
20 websites saw a traffic drop of more than 90%.
Consumer products websites were hit the hardest, with a 69.42% drop in traffic.
The software (-13.2%), money (-3.24%) and travel (-5.08%) niches saw a significantly smaller decline.
28 out of 102 expert review websites actually test products (27.45%).
Within the consumer products niche, products were tested by only 12 of the 71 websites (16.9%).