Google's algorithm updates have significantly impacted the travel blogging world, and Euro Dicas was no exception. To adapt our content to Google's guidelines and those of other search engines, we implemented the following strategies in 2024:

1. Upgraded our website theme to a custom, more agile, and bug-free design, prioritizing a seamless experience for our readers.
2. Maintained a focus on producing high-quality, comprehensive content, enriched by real-life experiences, testimonials, interviews, and original photography.
3. Worked diligently to build high-quality backlinks from authoritative sites in our niche while also cleaning up toxic backlinks.
4. Enhanced our EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authority, Trustworthiness) by collaborating with writers who are experts in their fields and creating detailed author pages with comprehensive information about each contributor.
5. Expanded our presence on Instagram, using it as a tool for visibility, community engagement, and traffic generation.
6. Addressed technical issues on the website with great care, leveraging a range of tools to ensure optimal performance and functionality.

We focus on creating high-quality content that genuinely serves our audience’s needs. After each Google Core Update, we analyze our traffic patterns to identify any drops and determine areas for improvement. We prioritize providing accurate and up-to-date information. We’ve also found it essential to diversify our traffic sources by growing our brand and our presence on social media. We also use email newsletters to minimize the impact of algorithm changes. Most importantly, we remind ourselves to stay patient: SEO is a long game, and consistent effort always leads to results over time.

What did I do to adapt to the latest Google Core Update? Nothing. Or rather: I did what I had always done. Before I hit publish, I think several times whether my content is the best I could possibly create. Because only then does it have a chance (small, but still) to be the best on the entire internet. And only then does it have a chance (bigger, but still small) to be high in Google. But I don't focus only on new content. In fact, it's less important to me than the older content, which I try to improve regularly.

Our blog is over 10 years old and we've never focused much on SEO. It's only recently that we've started to take an interest in affiliate marketing, and we were surprised by the immediate success. In our view, this proves that the technical aspect is important, but remains secondary.

We're convinced that today, more than ever, the most important thing is to focus on content that really meets readers' expectations: sincere, with content that relates a real-life experience, with added value (so backlinks will come naturally).
For example, we never talk about destinations we don't know well, but rather try to position ourselves as “experts” on certain destinations, with articles that are precise, embodied, complete and interconnected.

Another important point is that we try not to produce overly “marketing” articles. As a reader, I hate content that is produced solely to sell me something.
Finally, we have a presence on social networks, which we see as complementary to our blog.

We believe that all this contributes to making our content more credible in the eyes of users, which is fundamental to us. Our bet has always been that we should think of them rather than google, since google's algorithms and others are only there to best meet this objective.

Since losing a significant amount of traffic and revenue thanks to Google's shenanigans, I have been experimenting with other sources of traffic and revenue. Sadly, Pinterest has not worked out for me, despite having a well-researched strategy that involved Pinterest SEO. I have found that running Facebook Ads to a lead magnet, followed by email sequences that lead subscribers to highly relevant blog posts, to be more effective. I also run ads to "engagement" posts, which a) increase brand awareness and b) drive affiliate sales. Another strategy that I have implemented is creating digital products, especially road trip itineraries for my destination. This allows me to boost affiliate sales as well as get direct revenue from the products themselves. The other thing I did this year was to start a Facebook group for my destination. I have post approval switched on, which allows me to be the first to comment on a question so that I can direct people to relevant content / resources.

All of my sites were hit by the updates, but one was especially hit. I use the recommended themes, all the sites pass the CWV, and all the content is useful to the reader and I use good titles, yet I have seen no recovery so far. So I am concentrating my efforts elsewhere - for example building an offline business, working on my facebook group and on my newsletter, working on products and on building my brand. Other than that, my blogging stragegy hasn't changed. I fail to believe that what has worked and has had tremendous success for 10 years suddenly is considered spam and I see the updates just as a strategy Google utilizes to strangle and squeeze the small fishes to its own benefit.

The number of visits on most of the blogs has been a roller coaster since last year. One thing I always keep in mind when working on this project is that it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Keeping this perspective helps me stay mentally resilient and face the challenges that come my way. During this time, I have focused on analyzing tools like Google Search Console to identify which articles or keywords have lost rankings on my site. My goal is to understand the reasons behind these drops and find solutions. I’ve also prioritized updating articles, always performing a thorough analysis beforehand. Recently, I’ve started working on acquiring high-quality backlinks, and I now plan to focus on exploring other strategies to drive traffic to my website.

As a 10 year old blog, we've navigated numerous changes in Google's algorithms by sticking to a core strategy focused on delivering the best reader experience. Here are the key pillars that have helped us adapt and keep our content relevant, valuable, and resilient through every iteration of Google’s Core Updates:

1. Site Speed: We prioritize a fast-loading site to keep readers engaged.
2. High-Quality Content: We only publish articles based on personal, in-depth experiences with destinations and activities.
3. Time to Value: We ensure readers find the most important information and calls to action within the first third of each article, then offer in-depth insights further in.
4. Data-Driven Decisions: By closely tracking traffic, ranking, and affiliate data, we identify trends early and double down on what’s working during each Google update.
5. Consistency: For 10 years, we've published two new articles per week. We also update multiple existing articles per week. This consistent flow of new and updated content helps us keep our content portfolio aligned with what's performing best.

After Google's recent update, I've shifted some of my focus to other search engines like Bing. With the growing popularity of ChatGPT, I ensure my website is optimized for visibility there as well. For Google, I continue to rely on our proven strategy: creating high-quality content and sharing personal experiences. A fast, user-friendly website remains crucial for attracting organic visitors. Additionally, we periodically explore new social media platforms to discover opportunities for promoting our blogs. Addressing relevant and insightful questions in our content is another effective way to draw more visitors. These questions often resurface in both Google and AI-driven search engines.

The September 2023 helpful content update has reiterated the importance of diversification in this business - both in terms of traffic and monetisation strategies. I think that many of us were aware of this prior to the drastic changes in the SERPs but it was easy to put the need to take action on the backburner while SEO was still so lucrative.

I was fortunate in that I sold my largest websites prior to the HCU because I didn’t want to have too much tied up in digital assets. My remaining website lost 60% of its traffic and trying everything from improving site speed, doing a huge overhaul/rewrite of content and redesigning the entire site has barely moved the needle. The website saw some small gains with the November 2024 update but it would be unwise to put all eggs into one basket with SEO again.

My priorities now are in building a brand that isn’t just a website - creating video content for Tiktok and Youtube both to create an additional monetisation channel and to add EEAT, and driving traffic with a niche Facebook page and group. I still follow SEO best practices when writing articles and do well with Bing but my approach is more multifaceted now. I think it's more important than ever to have a niche or an angle - something that makes you stand out from the crowd so they remember your brand.

Recent core updates were not calamitous for my sites, but all are facing strong headwinds to say the least. With all this volatility, one expression does comes to mind: the more things change, the more they stay the same.

I stick with the fundamentals: ensuring your content is the best it can be and aligned with reader expectations. Even with the current algorithms, I still believe this is the path to success. And even if Google doesn’t (immediately) reward your efforts, you still end up with excellent content that may perform through other channels or via internal traffic. Hence content quality being where 90% of my attention is.

I’ve always used an editorial-first approach with my blogs and pay almost no attention to typical SEO (e.g. keyword densities or difficulty scores). I try to include specific advice, personal insights, real photos, and helpful sidebars and internal links. I also regularly ask myself: what is the version of this that an AI could not write?

I’m keeping my head down and using the same content-focused strategy I’ve always used. However, to de-risk and not be reliant on one domain, I’ve built new niche sites besides my main site Indie Traveller and started a YouTube channel.

The Google updates are a direct hit from AI and change in SERPS to favor more sales and affilaites for Google. That's why many blogs were shoved down the rankings. Just as in the pandemic and other updates, the best thing to do is to: create valuable content, use basic SEO principles but nothing extreme, build authority with solid (genuine) links, write about unique topics or cover popular topics in greater depth. An update or a pandemic are never times to panic and change a decade-long strategy. Those who remark that the best strategy now is to try Pinterest and Facebook are showing that they didn't try this as a complimentary form of traffic even when Google was doing well. It is not something to replace Google it was always just an alternate. Social media such as Facebook and Pinterest are really better than the world's largest search engine, which provides far greater evergreen search traffic. It may seem to be unhelpful advice but we cannot manipulate Google and never have been able to. Write valuable, in-depth content with your own photos and own experiences. Use basic SEO principles and then the Google God's will decide your fate. Be very, very sceptical and careful when taking advice from people suggesting 'do x,y,z to beat the current update' as it is likely a fad, trend, quick fix that will fall apart in a few weeks or months.

The so-called Googlepoalypse that began in October 2023 with the Helpful Content Update (though some call it the Unhelpful Content Update) really pulled the rug out from under a lot of bloggers. This update hit travel bloggers particularly hard, and sadly, many saw nearly-all of their blog traffic from Google vanish overnight.

While so many travel bloggers relied on the organic traffic they got from search engines (particularly Google), blogging has drastically changed in a post-Helpful Content Update world. Today, traffic diversification is the name of the game, and it's considered a bit foolish to only go after traffic from Google.

While my Mexico blog wasn't totally decimated by Google like many others that I know, I did take a big hit in terms of organic traffic from Google.

If you're in the same boat and find yourself needing to diversify your traffic, I'd recommend Pinterest (which seems to be the #1 Google alternative), Flipboard, YouTube, and even TikTok. Instagram isn't known to be much help, but if you have a large IG following, Manychat can really help you drive traffic to your blog.

Of course, new platforms and services pop up all the time, and right now I'm hearing a lot about BluesBlueskyky.

This is billed as an X/Twitter alternative, which some say is akin to "old school" Twitter. In its older incarnations, Twitter was an effective way to get blog traffic, so the logic is that Bluesky should be as well.

Still new on the scene, I can't say if Bluesky is a viable blog traffic source (yet), but it might be worth checking out now. With these new platforms that eventually go big, it's the early adopters who tend to gain traction fast — and keep it!

Depending on 3rd parties is always difficult to deal with, as any change they make can impact our business. In the case of Google it's even more difficult as the last updates they made generated controversial and unexpected results, specially bad for a lot of travel blogs that lost a lot of traffic in favour of big platforms and/or forum sites, which in a lot of cases don't even have the best (or even good enough) content. In our case specifically the impact of the updates has been moderate, but we keep focusing on creating great content for our readers while also trying to diversify and get traffic from other sources. We think that the next month and years will be even harder and unpredicable, with the increase of AI answers in Google's search results, so we try to focus on the long term game while also keeping up to date with the last changes in case there are opportunities to rank in the new types of results Google is launching.

I’ve been travel blogging for more than 20 years, with lots of ups & downs. So 2023 Google Core Update was one of these terrible moments for many travel bloggers because, for some reason, independente travel content creators were hit very hard in favor of big user-generated content platforms like Tripadvisor or Reddit. It doesn’t make any sense, but that’s what happened. I was hit, but not too much - so fortunately my Alma de Viajante travel blog survived the storm.

For me, in retrospective, there are three or four things that I think made a difference. First, my blog is old, so domain authority might have been a positive factor to balance things out. Second, I believe UX is extremely important nowadays, either in terms of speed, Core Web Vitals or usability (we all know travel blogs that are very hard to read because of ads, right?). Third… and I know that sounds cliché… I focus on trying to create the best content available in Portuguese for each destination based on first hand experiences. And I want to believe that good content will always perform better that bad or AI generated content. Call me optimistic…

About november 2024 GCU, I didn’t feel any change in traffic so far. Fortunatelly, 2024 will be a great year for my blogging business.

When Google’s “unhelpful” update rolled out, I was actively growing my blog by creating content focused on the same topics and destinations, slowly but steadily building topical authority. I also targeted less competitive topics and wrote about subjects that Google already ranked well for me. This strategy significantly boosted my traffic and helped me qualify for Mediavine by the end of September.

In addition to following basic SEO best practices, I always use my own photos and share personal experiences and tips. This makes my articles more personable and engaging, rather than generic travel advice that lacks opinion or insight. I focus on long-form content and cover the most important aspects of each topic. However, I prioritize placing keyword- and search-intent-related information at the top, with additional useful details at the bottom, so readers can quickly find the information they need.

I don’t rely much on social media, except for Pinterest, which I started experimenting with a little more than before. It currently drive only a very small fraction of my traffic. However, I’ve noticed growth since I started sharing pins more actively, applying basic SEO strategies for Pinterest. Additionally, I’ve observed a positive impact from updating seasonal content.

To keep up with Google’s changes, we’ve made it a priority to regularly update our articles so they stay relevant, helpful, and genuinely unique—something no AI could replicate. We’re also stepping outside the comfort zone of just SEO and focusing also on social networks like Instagram to connect with new audiences and share our journey in a more personal way.

For us, it’s not just about writing; it’s about building a brand that feels authentic and memorable, with content inspired by our own experiences and brought to life with original photos and videos.

We’re also dedicated to prioritizing the user experience, ensuring our website is fast, mobile-friendly, and easy to navigate with a clean, intuitive design that makes it enjoyable for readers to explore.

My site has gone through a lot of ups and downs since September of 2023. The Google Update did take some articles out of the search but then uplifted others. What has helped my site grow in traffic since August of 2024 is my authentic voice and my commitment to my readers. As a solo female traveler writing to help other women who would be traveling alone it was important for me to tell the bad, not just the good about a destination. My honesty and detailed account of what it has been like to be alone in a destiantion has been rewarded in the search results as well as on social media where I have been connecting with my readers. I will continue to write for the reader and be available for questions for any woman who needs help to plan her trip.