Blogs Stopped Getting Traffic After AI Rewrote Search
Bloggers across various niches are experiencing difficulty attracting and retaining an audience, despite consistent effort and sometimes, adherence to SEO best practices. Many feel their content is lost in the noise, and are questioning the effectiveness of current strategies, alongside concerns about content quality and language barriers.
SOURCES (60)
“I've been working in digital and content marketing for about 18 years now. The thing to understand about demographics and their information is that there is such a thing as too much focus. A lot of people focus on subpar metrics or vanity metrics that…”
I’m not sure if I can tag my pages, but if anyone is willing to look and give honest feedback. I’m needing to know what I’m doing right and wrong. Message me…
“Thought I'd share a small win because I know this sub is full of people wondering whether content sites are completely dead. A few months ago I bought a pet niche website for $199 from NicheBlogZone. Nothing special. It had content already published and a bit of traffic, but it definitely wasn't one of those sites that looked like a goldmine. Honestly, I almost didn't buy it. After taking it over, I mostly just cleaned things up. The site already had affiliate links, so I just fixed”
Reddit Post (Grammar-Corrected) TL;DR: I've run a food blog for ~7 years (7K monthly uniques, down from double that). I'm a certified nutrition coach, but 1:1 and group coaching haven't worked for…
“I used to write and publish blog articles manually — one by one. Between researching, writing, formatting, and posting, it was taking hours every single day. That time could've gone into growing the business, but instead it was stuck in repetitive tasks. More time spent = more money lost. I built a local n8n workflow to automate the repetitive parts of the process. Now, it helps me research topics, structure the articles, and send them directly to my blog as drafts. Instead of doing everythi”
“Agree with this. Is there an audience persona that would like the topics you cover? Think about who watches both computer videos and travel vlogs. It makes me think about a younger, digital nomad viewer. When you create your videos, draft your scripts with that viewer in mind.”
just a little friday evening rant again from my side. so back in the day i was a big DR believer. and i made a new website and i thought i would…
“Im trying to wrap my head around online business. I’m trying to wrap my head around.. what are valuable opportunities? Im suffering from shiny object syndrome. I have a blog but writing into nothingness. It is hard to determine whether this will pay off and if AI threatens this opportunity. submitted by /u/SnooSquirrels9906 [link] [comments]”
“I am learning SEO lately. To get hands on experience I am planning to launch my website and publish blog content on the site. My niche is to cover news regarding Ai. Guidance needed regarding this. Thanks in advance submitted by /u/Used-Evidence5428 [link] [comments]”
“Hey everyone, I recently added Adsterra ad codes to my blog. Right after putting the scripts in, my Blogger dashboard views plummeted. Yesterday I had around 266 views, and today it’s showing almost nothing (under 10 views). Is it normal for Blogger’s internal stats to drop drastically or change how they count views after introducing an external ad script? Could the script be slowing down the page layout tracking, or is Blogger just filtering out traffic differently now? Any insights or advice f”
“I received an interesting SEO suggestion today and wanted to get the community's opinion. I manage the SEO and marketing team for a UK company, and one of our junior team members suggested setting the canonical URL of related blog posts to their corresponding service pages. From my understanding, this doesn't seem like a best practice because the search intent is completely different. A service page targets transactional intent, while a blog post is informational. Using a canonical tag i”
“mostly writing into the void, a handful of regulars, traffic that barely moves. but writing weekly made me a genuinely better writer, the few comments I get are real, and a post from month 2 finally started ranking in month 10 — SEO is a long game. stopped chasing trending topics, just write what I want now. anyone else in year one feeling like they're shouting into the void? What's kept you going? submitted by /u/Past-Ad2067 [link] [comments]”
“The moment I stopped writing blogs, THE PERFORMANCE DIPPED SO FAST. Why would this happen? Should I keep writing blogs? submitted by /u/KOgenie [link] [comments]”
So hashtags don’t matter at all but descriptions are good.
“I was wondering for those of you who have extensive experience in doing social media; what is your strategy / rationale is for posting with your personal account vs a company one? Do you do different kinds of posts depending on the account? Do you post to both with equal frequency? I've tried both and it seems like I get more direct engagement by using my personal accounts, but I also want to build a longer-term following for the company. Any advice / insight is greatly appreciated. su”
“Long time lurker, first time poster (I think). I have a blog. No monetization, no email campaigns, just a digital journal and scrapbook of sorts but niche and has a central theme. As I’ve started sharing my writing, I’ve started to get a lot of, “is this AI?” which really bothers me. I hit a tipping point and decided to add a page and brief essay that I’ve titled “How I Write” where I essentially address the question. Posting here out of curiosity, has anyone else run into this? Are you equally”
“I want to restart my blog as basically an interesting online magazine style publication. I hope to work with other (non-publication or content centered) small businesses in my niche to post articles about their work. However, I feel…. insecure, for lack of a better word. All of my posts are 2+ years old. I dabbled a bit in affiliate marketing but never made any money. I am worried that if I approach companies or individuals who I’d like to collaborate with that my blog will look unprofessional.”
“Is anyone started blogging in 2026 and earned from it? Because I really want to start it but because of AI overviews and video format getting more common, I'm stopping myself. Need some reality check! submitted by /u/iambhavnajain [link] [comments]”
“Pat Walls ran A/B tests on Starter Story - Conclusion - Adding a table of contents or a TL;DR at the top of each article multiplied session duration by 2.6x. Because when people stay on your page instead of bouncing back to Google, that's a signal your content answered the question. Readers don't want to commit to your article blind. Show them the map first, and they'll take the journey. Do you have any tips yourself? submitted by /u/sumizeit [link] [comments]”
“I noticed the same. When a post gets a little activity early on, it does not feel like it is being ignored, even if the content is already good.”
“If your blog's about programming do you monetize it? If so, could you describe how in details? How many times do you post a week? What's your frequency of posting? submitted by /u/zetabyte00 [link] [comments]”
“You owner of blogs are you also freelancers? Is that main reason because you own and run a blog? submitted by /u/zetabyte00 [link] [comments]”
“I’ve been spending lots of time filming content and am planning to schedule out posts. I’m wondering how others schedule out posts. Do you post daily? How often are you posting pictures/video clips/longer videos? submitted by /u/Fit_Paramedic_3616 [link] [comments]”
“Ranking is one thing but clicks is the real game. I had same issue with my small blog back in the day, all the impressions and no clicks because the title was just... boring. You already figured it out faster than most people do. For your question about vs competitor pages, from what I seen they mostly attract people in research phase, not buying phase. They will read your comparison then go buy the other thing anyway because that's what they searched for originally. Maybe keep one if it'”
“Hi everyone, One thing I've been thinking about lately is how often I should publish new blog posts . I used to aim for one post every day, but now I'm wondering if publishing 3–4 high-quality posts per week might be a better long-term strategy. I'd love to hear how other bloggers approach this. How many posts do you publish each week on average? Have you kept the same publishing schedule since you started? Do you prioritize publishing frequency or content quality? Have you noticed a”
“Started an Instagram for my education business a few days ago. If you've grown a business account organically, what was the biggest factor? Reels? Carousels? Consistency? Engagement? Curious to hear what actually worked for you instead of the usual "post consistently" advice. submitted by /u/SheCodesSoftly [link] [comments]”
“Ever since the AI overview has come out, so many websites have seen drops in clicks onto their website since people get what they need on the main page. My website is mainly how-to articles which means people can get that in the AI without needing to search for website answers. Personally, I don't want to necessarily optimize my website to be picked up by the AI overview UNLESS it has a high CTR to get people to my website.. So just curious how people are changing their blogs - are you chang”
“Hello, I am working on an old blog. It was ranked great many years ago, but eventually positions are lost (no work on site for years). So now I am fixing stuff to meed modern day SEO criteria. Besides speed tweaking, the main areas of rework are: - content clustering under pillar pages - removal of pages that can result in cannibalization So my question and guidance needed is on the next: Should I just work on these changes (at least a month of work regarding my calculations and speed) on a live”
“My blog is mainly for me to express my personal insights on various media—film, music, videogames (perhaps even science) and I plan on including stuff like critiques, literary analysis of themes and motifs, hot takes etc. Hence I've decided on "Artessellate" as the blog is a tessellation, or a mozaic, of all the artforms I enjoy. But I'm worried people might find it difficult to spell or pronounce or get a completely different vibe. What do you guys think? Everything else inclu”
“I'm making more money by allowing other companies to guest post or advertise on my book summary website. But a ton of the content is behind a paywall. I've been wondering whether I should make most of the content free - then more people will come, and that will allow me to make more advertising money. Most of the money comes from corporate partnerships and advertising. We make money through normal user subscriptions, but not like before. The market is heavily saturated, and people are ge”
“I have a blog that I’ve inconsistently posted on and go back and forth on whether or not it’s worth getting more serious about growing it. Is it worth trying to grow a traditional blog these days, or are the days of blogging behind us? submitted by /u/AbaloneUnlikely6565 [link] [comments]”
“Does anyone in high school or middle school write a blog? I need some inspo on what to write about and how to format it, like what a blog post actually looks like. So far, I haven't really found anyone around middle or high school who blogs. If any of you have a blog, I'd love to check it out! I'm trying to get a feel for how other students write and what they share. Drop your link on my dm or just tell me what your blog is about. I'd really appreciate it Thank you submitte”
“That's a good tip! I just did that on a few of my pages... until I got a quota exceeded message 🫠 I was getting impatient waiting for google to re-index after I updated my sitemap.”
“building an audience from absolute zero is so slow and i spent six months posting daily to complete silence before one random video finally got some traction”
“Maybe I’m being too sensitive! 😅 I run a BookTok where I post little book reviews and my own book content. There’s one author who keeps commenting on my videos just to promote their own books and it’s usually on a video where it’s about me being an author or promoting my book. 😅 None of my other author friends do this, and I’d never do it myself. Is this normal? I’m probably overthinking it but I’m finding really really rude and annoying. submitted by /u/TangerineTimely9393 [link]”
“I’ve been running my OF for about a year now, but I’m really struggling to find the right "vibe" for my content. I feel like I’m constantly torn between being very explicit and keeping it more "closed off." It’s either completely nude or just lingerie. When I post in lingerie, I feel like it’s too generic—like everyone is doing it, and maybe there's too much mystery, making it boring for subscribers in such a saturated market. But when I go fully nude, it feels like it cr”
“Lately I've realized the creating part isn't what slows me down anymore. It's everything after. Renaming files, keeping track of what's been posted where, resizing for different platforms, scheduling, making sure I don't accidentally reuse something too soon, and trying to stay consistent. Some weeks it feels like I spend more time managing content than making it. I wonder if that's just part of the job now, or if other creators have found a workflow that keeps all of tha”
“I started making YouTube videos 9years ago about learning spanish and posted some vlogs too. I haven’t posted in 3years. I want to start posting again but different content , more lifestyle content and possibly videos about ADHD. I’ll probs still make videos in Spanish. Should I make a brand new channel or just post to the same channel? I’m not sure what to do I grew the page to 2.7k subscribers but in between those 9 years I had a few year long breaks so it’s down to 1.8k subs now and every tim”
“Maybe it's just me, but it feels like it's getting harder and harder to find sources of information that (a) don't try to sell something, (b) have a high SNR, (c) are not entirely generated or rewritten by LLMs. Here are some recent findings from me that match the criteria: * https://brandur.org/ This is a great blog from Brandur Leach who writes a lot about Go, Ruby, and Postgres. Brandur used to work at Heroku and Stripe, and now he works on his own project. * https://increment.com”
“I’ve been researching how similar pages can be before Google starts treating them as repetitive or low-value. One rough guideline I found was: 0–20% unique: high risk 20–40% unique: weak 40–60% unique: generally safe 60%+ unique: ideal I realize Google doesn’t publish an official percentage, and meaning and search intent probably matter more than a raw text score. My problem is that several pages reuse legitimate sections such as reviews, trust signals, FAQs, and “why choose us” content. Those s”
“This is not a low impact decision for me. In our niche SEO is very important, and this is me focusing on growing my business. The native blog function is fine if blogging won’t be one of your main channels and you’ll publish for the sake of publishing, OR if you’ll build a custom app on top of it as olcaey here suggested. I won’t do any of those. I listed all the limitations in a separate reply (SEO, CRO, collaboration…), and in the end I managed to solve them with an app. I do agree that qualit”
“I used to buy content sites between 2011-2025 as an investment, but it's now almost impossible to buy a high-quality website for less than 36x monthly earnings. What's the point when most of the websites for sale are dying sites because there were so many Google updates, AI, etc. that buying a site is almost a guaranteed bad investment. 36x monthly earnings means you will have to wait at least 3 years to get back your investment. And you usually have to work on the website, otherwise it”
“So I know absolutely nothing about promotion and I'm concerned about monetization. Is monetizing my blog how I get more views? For me and my blog its about documenting The Break Away Experience. Nothing else. I really feel like making money off of my blog would completely defeat the entire purpose of it. But the thing is that I would love for this journey to be seen. I want it known that weirdos, druggies, homekess gutter rat jail birds can turn it around despite heart break, shit behavior,”
“Hey everyone, I hope you're having a wonderful day. I've been a writer and editor for 6+ years, with 1500+ articles published under my name for some popular publications and brands. However, in my honest opinion, this career path in itself is pretty much extinct, and every opening I come across is usually along the lines of "SEO content writer" or "SEO specialist." I think it's great that roles are evolving as AI continues to slowly destroy humanity <3 But, unt”
“Turns out it's the actual website that wears me down. I'll sit down to write for like an hour and somehow end up fixing a layout issue instead, or messing with spacing that changed for no reason, or updating some plugin, or trying to tweak one tiny design thing and accidentally breaking three others. Half the time I feel like I'm running a part time IT job and blogging is just the side project. Anyone else dealing with this? What's the thing that eats up your time the most that h”
“There are so many blogging tips that get repeated over and over that it's easy to dismiss them. Was there anything you thought was overrated at first but eventually realized actually made a difference? Could be about SEO, writing, consistency, monetization, or anything else. submitted by /u/Efficient-Put-6200 [link] [comments]”
“I've been wondering this for a while, so I figured I'd ask here. About a month ago, I gave Fiverr a proper shot. I kept optimizing my gigs over and over. I changed the titles, thumbnails, descriptions, keywords, pricing, pretty much everything. A few of my gigs started getting impressions (around 400+) in one to two days, but they barely got many clicks, and of course I got the usual spam messages. I still have 2–3 gigs live, but they're basically just sitting there. So I'm curio”
“I've been wondering this for a while, so I figured I'd ask here. About a month ago, I gave Fiverr a proper shot. I kept optimizing my gigs over and over. I changed the titles, thumbnails, descriptions, keywords, pricing, pretty much everything. A few of my gigs started getting impressions (around 400+) in one to two days, but they barely got many clicks, and of course I got the usual spam messages. I still have 2–3 gigs live, but they're basically just sitting there. So I'm curio”
“Is anyone else sitting in front of the camera and talking on their pages? Writing scripts on what you will say and such? A lot of the pages I’m seeing people create and post about are things like video games, potentially a-eye, shots of scenery, reused car content, reused cat content, dog content. Um…is anyone else out there actually talking in front of the camera and making original content..? I feel like maybe what I’m doing isn’t taking off well because I’m making a form of content that is no”
“I'm a technical and programmatic SEO expert working on various niche, but mainly in heavy industries, health and automotive. And I have some free time to help the community. So let me help you solve your SEO problem, the more specific the better. But i don't mind basic SEO questions either. You can comment below, and I will answer your question, help troubleshoot your site SEO problem, do a quick site audit, and help you get better ranking and more traffic to your site. Only share your U”
“I started my blog as a side project with zero expectations. Two years in, I want to share what genuinely made a difference because I wasted a lot of time on things that did not. The biggest shift came when I stopped trying to write for everyone and picked a really specific niche angle. Generic content gets buried. Specific, experiencebased posts that answer one clear question tend to rank and actually get shared. The second thing that helped was internal linking. I ignored it forever and then sp”