3 builders who never spoke to each other · contested
Decide whether organic traffic is yours or rented
Owning the domain feels like independence, and large publishers turn out to depend on organic traffic to almost exactly the same degree an independent site does. Whether that is safety or exposure is the argument: one operator counts a falling share of visits from search as progress once platform risk starts to matter.
What both sides agree on
- Do not assume big publishers have diversified away from search: they lean on organic traffic to almost exactly the same degree an independent site does.
Where this splits
Justin Welsh treats search traffic to a site he owns as insurance against a social network changing its rules, while Jakob Greenfeld argues one ranking change can wipe you out just as fast and the independence is an illusion.
2 claims against 1
Glen Allsopp · Jakob Greenfeld
Search traffic is rented, one change wipes it out
- 01Running on organic search traffic does not make you independent the way owning the site suggests, because one ranking algorithm change at Google or Facebook can wipe out your traffic overnight.
- 02Read a falling share of visits from search as progress once you are big enough for platform risk to matter.
Traffic to a site you own is insurance
Treat search traffic to your own site as insurance against platform risk, on the basis that a social network can change its rules or disappear.
What it returned
- 2023
Future told its 2023 earnings call that search had gone from 72 percent of traffic three years earlier to 58 percent and framed that as good; Glen Allsopp's own check of 20 sites per company put the average at 61 percent, from 45.4 percent at Vox Media up to 71.8 percent at Hearst.
- 100
Similarweb estimates across the top 100 media-owned and top 100 independent sites came out at 67.6% and 67.2% of traffic from organic search, a gap of 0.4%.
Sources
- How 16 Companies are Dominating the World's Google Search Results (2024 Edition) - Detailed.comGlen Allsopp · detailed.com · Here’s How Reliant They Are On Search Traffic (Based on Checking 200 Sites) · 2023-03-07
- The State of Content SERPs: A 250,000 Keyword Analysis - Detailed.comGlen Allsopp · detailed.com · Media Brands & Independently-Owned Sites Are Just As Reliant on Search Traffic · 2023-10-04
- ⭐️ The different kinds of humble businesses you can build – Jakob GreenfeldJakob Greenfeld · jakobgreenfeld.com · Full-control product vs. product for a marketplace with existing demand · 2020-07-20
- Why I Changed My Entire Brand (and what you can learn from it…)Justin Welsh · justinwelsh.me · Reason 3: Improving SEO · 2023-12-02 · dissenting
the second source
Three plays a week, for the phase you are in
No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.
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