Helen Foster

What are the most unique, cute or just plain weird things you can do in Tokyo? Well, it took us a few visits, but here's the top 47 we'd choose. differentville.com/unique-things-…

@betweenengland @AmazonUK Are you on Threads? Go on Wicked Threads if so there’s lots of people talking about problems with extras and some fixes.

Bit of a niche one, has anyone else bought the digital version of Wicked? I can’t find the commentary versions, is it not part of the @AmazonUK download or am I just being silly and can’t find it?? 🤔😂

@mrdavidwhitley St Albans roman stuff for me

@betweenengland It sucks. And there’s no reason to it. Dville is up but I haven’t touched it for a year for boring leg reasons (it takes a lot of walking). It’s set up the same as Japan, has worse ad layout, no social traffic, nothing. And yet the line is upwards.

The gift that just keeps on giving. I had literally zero hope or expectations for the update, so far it’s even worse (I wasn’t sure if that could be possible). I’ve had 6 months of coming to terms with it, nothing I do seems to help, but it’s still sad to see it💔

@Warriorne @Marie_Haynes Same here. The one I havent posted on, that I don’t control ad placement on, that has no social media, that I can’t actually write right now for health reasons is up. The one I pour my heart and soul into daily is dead in the water.

@Marie_Haynes A testimonial, but we know it's still too early to declare winners and losers: Two sites that I haven't touched since September are gaining more traffic. The site that I've changed, rewritten, improved, deindexed tags, removed articles with no traffic to is the loser.

I don't know that we can call this an error on Google's part. Although, I must say that Google could have communicated better with site owners impacted by HCU. It was so devastating for so many. And many are still left with very little idea of how to improve or whether recovery is even possible. I'll share in a moment how this site worked on improving helpfulness. If this site was impacted by Sep HCU it was because the helpful content system, a machine learning system predicted that overall, it was not a choice that users were likely to find as the helpful and satisfying answer to their query. So if they improved with Aug core, does that mean that Google made a mistake previously? Why are they now helpful? Looking back at this site in Ahrefs (they were not my client - just emailed me with a question) - they have made dramatic changes since the HCU hit: -New design that looks modern and professional -Addition of helpful buying guides -New realistic and helpful images -A quiz that helps people choose products -Better comparisons between products -More personalized - looks like the info comes from a real person rather than a made for making money on the web type of site They worked to make their site more helpful and were rewarded with Aug core. (Important to note that the helpful content system is no longer its own system. Helpfulness is predicted by the core systems now.) Looks like they are improving even more today!

@Marie_Haynes I get messages and comments from my FB group who read my posts every day saying how I’ve reduced their stress, explained things simply, answered their question. I don’t know how to be more helpful to actual humans than I’m being.

@Okayy_Dan My site with the upward graph (so far) is the one I haven’t touched for a year. It has random ad placement, no social media, nothing. Annoyingly I can’t even work on it as it requires me being able to explore more than I can right now!

Looking at a few of these HCU sites recovering emphasizes even more than the "helpfulness" part of the algorithm makes zero sense. (Not saying none of them deserve recovery, but there's no quality patterns for me). So SEOs can make claims as much as they want. Sharing graphs means nothing at the moment. My DMs are filled with confusion. It makes you wonder - why did Google do this? Their priority should just be spam, not targeting websites "just because."

@lilyraynyc Thank you. I get FB messages every day saying how my site helped reduce their trip planning stress, but it’s been obliterated from search. It’s the not knowing why that sucks, especially when in some cases I’ve been replaced by sites that do use AI or with huge numbers of ads.

There are plenty of decent, human-written sites that lost over 90% as a result of the HCU. Were they perfect? No. Did they deserve to lose more than 90%? Absolutely not. It wasn't all spam/AI sites that got hit that hard.

@strijdhagen @lilyraynyc Nope. My Japan site is down 97%. No AI, I’ve visited 7 times, all written with personal experience.

@lilyraynyc Arent the ones with 96% or more down the truly ai/spammy sites. Isn’t the 50% to 90% range more interesting re. recovery?

A lot of people have been asking how many HCU-affected sites are seeing recovery. Ok, I ran some numbers this morning. Here's what you're looking at: - I isolated ~200 sites hit by the HCU - shown here as the ones with the -96% or greater drops (red column) - I redacted the domain names (sorry) - the 3rd column shows the % change in visibility for these sites since the Aug 2024 core update started (Aug 15-19, 2024) The green ones are significant winners, red are losers. Most are somewhere in between. The average % of growth for HCU-impacted sites in this set of ~200 is 200% growth since the Aug 2024 core update started. 66% of the sites on the list are seeing improvements.

@Okayy_Dan Yep. I’m just me and writing is the bit I enjoy, but I’d just started using another writer to help me out with one of my other sites while I focused on my Japan site. He had to go. My plans to employ a Pinterest VA went out of the window. Many friends have also let their VAs go.

OK, I think I need to clarify something if my posts come across as overly cynical, snide, or " based on vibes." When they hear "small and independent websites hit by the HCU," some people assume one or a couple of people run them, either as a niche or a hobbyist project that makes them money—by the way, these websites deserve answers, too. However, here's my perspective. The website I built with a friend, which is still small, grew year after year to the point where we had a writing team with wages. This is the reason I urgently seek answers. I will continue to call things out as I see them. It's not just a feeling; it's a pattern I've observed. When you're forced to cut or eliminate people's wages before the year's end, you need to understand why. I'm not an SEO, nor have I ever been one. I'm new to search algorithms and how they work, so I'm not an expert. Everything I discuss is what I hear and see communicated by website owners, Googlers, SEOs, the fan club and industry professionals. I could be wrong on most things, but I could be right on some things. I don't believe that absolutely everything can be a coincidence. Sometimes, there are too many events for it to be a coincidence. It's a pattern. I certainly do not believe Google is my friend; they shouldn't be anyone's. It's unhealthy, especially when they are a monopoly. There should be transparency and accountability.

@mondaydotcom @LauraJDawson26 Thankyou. I’m playing with it now and love it. So easy to use.

@LauraJDawson26 @Differentville Hey Helen! Just so you know, we do have a free plan in case you want to play around with the platform! You can read all about it here: bit.ly/43hoA3Y ❤️

I need a system to organise my tasks, but I am not a system person. I’ve looked at Trello, Notion, Clickup. My brain does not work like that. Is there a simple system where I can just list all my jobs, dates and tick them off in one place without it feeling like I’m running ICI?

@tspadventure I don’t have a Mac unfortunately. And I literally bought a new PC yesterday as mine keeps crashing!

@Differentville I use Todoist. It’s literally just a to do list and you can have different categories, set reminders, etc. I love it!

@emiliesyverson @Okayy_Dan I now have digital products but at the time I got hit, I wasn’t there yet. My site was still a baby. It’s now 3 times bigger, has digital products, 28k FB followers etc but none of that counts because of the classifier. It’s like taking a toddler and damning it for life!

@Okayy_Dan @Differentville I can only imagine! I would be absolutely LIVID. (Side note, clients I've worked with did fine, all of them however were businesses selling a product/service with content as a marketing auxiliary, not sites based around content like a niche topic site.)

For months we heard the "Google doesn't owe you anything" line. Most of the time, we didn't ask. It mostly came from professionals not employed by Google, which was strange. And then Google was proven to be an illegal monopolist. And suddenly, that statement aimed at HCU impacted sites no longer holds weight.

@TheFearlessFor1 If only, but Google made my income go away! That’s why I now have so many tasks to try and get it back.

@Differentville I'm a "systems" person! Whether it's with my physical items or online stuff, I'm one of those OCD organized people. If you're ever looking to hire someone to organize things for you or set up systems, please let me know!

@Okayy_Dan @emiliesyverson I’m trying hard to move on and if I was being replaced by sites I genuinely thought had better content or UX, I’d hold up my hands, but I’m not & that’s what I don’t get. Yes, I can do FB but it’s exhausting to earn a 10th of the income and I just don’t have it in me much longer.

@emiliesyverson @Differentville It's the keywords that the big corporations are not gunning for where the problems are showing the most. It's a wasteland.

@Okayy_Dan @emiliesyverson Exactly. That was the bit that hurt. For two specific keywords I’ve looked at I’ve been replaced in search by someone leaving in the AI prompts and someone with literally one paragraph of copy sandwiched in between 6 ads. Yet I’m unhelpful.

@emiliesyverson Calling it the "helpful" update was their first mistake. Just call it what it is so folks can move on.

I had suspicions a site that outranking me after HCU-pcalypse hadn't been to the places they're writing about. There's no first-person experience in them. I've just read a post I'm not longer in the top 100 for. It has this snappy line of 'Helpful Content' in the middle. Grrr...

@mountainweekly @CharlestonCraft @Katie16282772 @searchliaison If they named it the ‘your site isn’t set up correctly’ update I’d have taken it far less personally. No, they probably aren’t, I’m not a website guru. But don’t just tell me I’m writing worthless crap when that isn’t the case - and then replace me with exactly that.

@Differentville @CharlestonCraft @Katie16282772 @searchliaison Helen thanks for your honesty, a lot of damage had been done to the mental health of webmaster. Google forgot to program in the possible outcome of whipping out millions of small business owners. I know my content is strong that's all that matters in my heart vs page views.

@shesabroadagain Friends I know who are giving up had to back to full time work after the HCU. I’m lucky I have savings and some other income or I’d have done the same.

So many great travel bloggers I used to follow stopped publishing on their blogs and Instagram this year... and honestly I'd like to know what happened. Where are they now? What are they doing? 😆 I've been so invested in their journey and didn't get any closure!