I started building niche websites in 2020. Like most people in the affiliate space, I spent time in keyword tools early on, checking search volumes, looking at competition, trying to figure out what Google wanted to see. I bought some links too, like a lot of people did back then. Nothing dramatic, just the grey zone between “Google says don't” and “everyone does it anyway.”
Over the years, that faded. I stopped buying links entirely, and the keyword tools got used less and less. My content got better because I was actually testing products and writing about what I found, not about what a keyword planner told me people were searching for. But some of the old habits stuck around: articles that were a bit longer than they needed to be, FAQ sections nobody would read, phrases included for search volume rather than for the reader.
My Dutch hosting review site, Start24, grew steadily through all of this. I was already moving in a better direction, working from this idea that you do SEO by not doing SEO: make the content good, do original research, build things that are actually useful. The rankings followed.
Then Google pulled the rug.
700 to 5
At its peak, Start24 was getting around 700 clicks a day from Google Search. That's not massive, but for a Dutch niche site reviewing hosting providers, it was solid. Real traffic, real revenue, real people finding a site I'd built from scratch.
Then the core updates started hitting. The first wave knocked it down to about 400 clicks a day, which was painful but manageable. I figured it would recover. Good site, honest reviews, actual expertise. The system was supposed to reward that.
It didn't recover. It kept falling. At the lowest point, Start24 was getting 5 clicks a day from Google. Five. From 700 to 5. Right now, as I write this, it's around 15 to 20 clicks a day, which is effectively zero in terms of a business model built on search traffic.
The frustrating part is that I couldn't point to a single thing I'd done wrong. I'd personally tested every hosting provider, the reviews were honest, I had original research, custom tools, a free video course. The site was better than anything else in the niche. Google disagreed.
The Refresh
For a while I tried to understand it. Read SEO forums, analyzed competitors, looked for patterns. The answer was always the same: nobody knows. Not the forums, not the experts, not the people selling courses about it.
About two months ago, when the numbers kept dropping even further, something clicked. I was sitting there thinking about how to optimize my way back into Google's good graces, and I realized that what I was doing felt humiliating. I was trying to please an algorithm that had shown me, over and over, that the quality of my work has no bearing on its decisions.
So I stopped. Not the site, the mindset.
I went through the entire site and removed every article that was mediocre or outdated. Not bad content, just stuff that had been sitting there for a while without being updated, articles that weren't pulling their weight anymore. Then I rebuilt what was left, added interactive tools, redesigned pages, made everything sharper and more useful and more honest.
This wasn't a recovery strategy. I wasn't doing it for Google. I was doing it because once you stop thinking about the algorithm, you see your own site clearly for the first time, and there was work to do.
What User-Focused Actually Looks Like
“I write for users now” is the kind of thing every SEO says right before publishing another 3,000-word keyword-stuffed guide. So let me be specific about what changed.
Tools instead of articles. Start24 now has a hosting quiz (aff) that asks six questions and gives you a personal recommendation. A website builder quiz (aff) that helps you figure out whether you need WordPress, Wix, or something else. A site audit tool (aff) that scores your website on speed, SEO, design, and content. An AI assistant (aff) trained on every article on the site, so visitors can ask questions in plain language and get answers with sources.
These exist because beginners arrive at a hosting comparison page, see a table with 15 providers, and leave. A quiz that narrows it down to three options in 30 seconds actually helps. The table doesn't.
No filler. My main hosting comparison page (aff) used to open with 400 words explaining what web hosting is. Every competitor does this because it pads the word count and targets a keyword. I removed it. If someone is comparing hosting providers, they know what hosting is. I also cut the FAQ sections, the keyword-optimized conclusions, the “related articles” blocks that exist purely for internal linking. Anything that was there for Google rather than for a person reading the page.
Design that serves the reader. The content area is 780 pixels wide. Most affiliate sites use 1,100+, because wider means more ad space, but narrower text is easier to read. That's typography, not opinion. Long sections collapse by default, and the newsletter signup says “Free. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.” No countdown timers, no exit-intent popups.
A free video course. The WordPress course (aff) is 24 lessons with progress tracking. It exists because after someone picks a hosting provider, the next question is “now what?” Most affiliate sites abandon users at the point of purchase. I wanted Start24 to be useful beyond the transaction.
What Happened
Google didn't reward any of this. The rankings didn't come back, and some pages dropped further after the rebuild. I made the site measurably better and Google decided it deserved to rank lower. At some point the absurdity becomes the only sane response.
But something else happened. Start24 started working without Google. Traffic comes through other channels now: direct visits, social, email, paid ads. The people who find the site stick around. They use the tools, they take the course, they sign up for the newsletter, they send me emails.
And I'm happier. That's the part I didn't expect. The low-grade anxiety of wondering what Google thinks about every piece of content I publish, that's gone. I write what I want and build what's useful, without thinking about keyword density or topical authority or whatever the SEO community has decided matters this quarter.
The internet is changing, and Google isn't the only way people find things anymore. For a site like Start24, that's enough.
I'm Not Anti-SEO
I want to be precise about this. I still have clean URLs, pages load fast, proper heading structure, sitemap, structured data. That's just good web development.
What I stopped doing is letting SEO shape the content itself. There's a difference between technical SEO, which is making sure Google can read your site, and content SEO, which is writing for Google's preferences instead of the reader's needs. I still do the first. I walked away from the second.
The Uncomfortable Part
Google serves roughly 90% of all web searches. When you build a content site, you're building on someone else's land, and the owner can change the rules whenever they want, with no warning and no explanation.
The SEO industry's response to this is to try harder, study the algorithm more closely, adapt faster. My response is different: build something that doesn't need Google's approval to be valuable. If the tools are useful, people will find them. If the content is honest, people will share it. If the experience is good, people will come back. These things hold regardless of what the algorithm does next Tuesday.
It's slower, and it doesn't come with a traffic graph that goes up and to the right. But I sleep well, and I don't feel like I'm performing for an audience that isn't listening.
