Google’s John Mueller tells a frustrated website owner that sometimes there isn’t an SEO solution that can make a website better in search results.
This is stated on Reddit in a response to a profile titled, “If I hire an SEO expert service, could they find out what’s wrong with my website and help me improve it?”
The website owner provides more details on the thread and says that they lost all traffic on their website over six years ago.
“I just blog, I don’t code or anything, I don’t do any link building either,” writes the website operator.
Since they are not actively using search engine optimization techniques, they wonder if an SEO professional could help bring back their traffic.
In response to a response the website owner may not want to hear, Mueller says SEO doesn’t help in all cases.
What Do You Mean SEO Won’t Help?
Given that the website in question lost its traffic six years ago and has still not recovered, Mueller says SEO may not help.
This is not due to Google penalties or technical issues as these can be fixed with SEO.
Mueller suggests that this website’s strategy may now be out of date:
“Keep in mind that there may just be no SEO solution. 6 years is a long time and the web + google news + everything around it has evolved quite a bit.
Sometimes it’s not a technical problem, sometimes it can’t be fixed by simply “buying a few links”, sometimes it’s just that the site strategy is now out of date.
A website’s strategy can be out of date for a number of reasons, many of which are beyond the website’s control.
As Mueller says, life evolves significantly in six years. That is long enough for topics to lose relevance and information to become obsolete.
If a website publishes content that people no longer care about, SEO won’t help it.
The same goes for websites that sell old products, such as Mueller gives an example of a website that sells VHS tapes.
A website could follow any SEO best practice, but it doesn’t matter if no one is looking for it.
“You can have a fantastic website, make it super fast,” high authority & amp; Trustworthiness ”(however you want to define it) but if you sell VHS tapes you are going to have a bad time. It’s more obvious when it’s a physical product, but when it’s your product, it’s just as true. “
It’s uncommon for Google employees to stop people from seeking help with SEO, which makes Mueller’s comment on the Reddit thread remarkable.
This is sometimes an important consideration. If a website continues to lose traffic despite every effort, is it a problem with SEO or is the world moving on?
