There is an interesting conversion going on at WebmasterWorld of a webmaster who wants to change the vertical his site is in but is failing to convince Google the site has changed directions.
His site is 16 years old and was established as the authority in his vertical. A couple years ago, he started to change directions and transform his site to become an authority in a new space, a new vertical. But Google isn't taking to it.
Here is how he put it:
For the best part of the last couple of years I've been trying to change the vertical my 16 year old web site has been attributed by google to no avail. Basing my notion of what this vertical is on the majority of the traffic google deems to send it, I've tried everything but it persists unwaveringly in sending me the same traffic no matter what. I've stopped building any links with sites related to this now less desirable niche, changed all meta data, I've minimized the amount of new content for it (the niche), more recently I've even created a whole new site based exclusively on this content split entirely from the old but several months on still no change in volume of type of organic referral from dear old google.
It is nice to see webmasters make the hard move and change their sites that have been working well in the past. But it is scary to see how Google may perceive that change.
Have you ever done this?
It would be like me taking this ten-year old search marketing site and start writing about fishing tips and techniques. Hmmm... Should I?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Image credit to BigStockPhoto for direction change dart
