To the parent commenter - have you set up google search console and reviewed what pages and keywords were affected? There could be other reasons why your pages aren't being indexed properly. If it's a small site, it could have been something as simple as changing an image or page title.
But this isn't about “images of X”. Nor is it, likely, about whatever "listicle" links OP's site has[1]. It's about people serching for info about, say, "Day at Nürburgring". And OP didn't remove that, now did they? And I bet most of them don't specify either with or without listicles.
So if people were searching for "Day at Nürburgring" and used to find OP's site, then Google changed their algorithm, and now when people search for "Day at Nürburgring" they don't find OP's site, how is that not Google’s fault?
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[1]: And Bog knows Google serves me up enough sites with those on...
You can't say what it's about without seeing exactly where the traffic and rankings decreased and looking at the Google search console. I'm happy to take a look out of curiosity if the OP wants to share.
I agree with your general point that it should not be the responsibility of the website to change to make a search engine happy.
I disagree with your specific point that Google should fix anything. Google can choose their own behaviors and motivations. Users can choose to rely on Google or trust them at all, or not.
Remember when Google was a successful business competing against the likes of Yahoo and AltaVista? Back when it was ok to be a successful small business? When you didn't count a millions users as a failure?
Nobody seems to believe anymore that you can operate a successful search company without having a trillion dollar war chest. Few people are willing to give alternative engines a try. They'd rather stick to Google like glue.
I'd like to declare the 28th as "Try something different day." On the 28th of each month people should try a different browser for the entire day. Or a different search engine. Or a different tooth paste. Every month, one day a month, take a different route to work, or maybe even a different mode of transportation. Use a Colemak keyboard. Go to a different church. You don't have to do the same different thing each month. Just start building some experience with shaking up your routine.
When you try something different and it turns out ok, share your positive experience with others.
I have not used Google search or Bing for years and it has worked out pretty well. I started with DDG, but have had good experiences with other search engines, too. Some may argue that DDG is not different enough. So perhaps next month I should try qwant.com for a day.
I have never found search console useful for anything other than random 404's and one-off server errors.
When a site is hit by an algorithmic penalty there is never any clue as to why.
This is my experience as well. If someone could mention how to examine the console to improve a site after an algo change, I would absolutely love to hear it .
I also find it mystifying and I’m not a SEO expert, but one way I use it is to compare ranking positions over time for specific pages and queries. That will help you identify where exactly the traffic came from and where you lost it. A lot of times this has to do with gaining or losing the #1 spot to a competitor.
If you don’t see a ranking change, it could also indicate seasonality in your visitors or external events. If your website is brand new, this could be hard to detect otherwise. For example, recently I saw a traffic spike for a random blog article, and search console help me see that people were searching for that topic because Elon Musk tweeted about it the day before.
Another helpful feature is to inspect particular URLs and make sure they are indexed—sometimes if you have multiple similar pages and set the canonical URL incorrectly, Google will try to de-dupe the results.
> could have been something as simple as changing an image
Or something nefarious like Google skewing their algo to favor websites with more placeholders for google's ads.
You know the consistent allegations against Google on this topic from long time insiders and my personal experience of terrible search results does not allow me to apply Occam's razor at all. Instead its the inverse of assuming malice.
