Is Anybody Out There?

So, is anybody actually reading this?  Can anybody even find this blog via searches any more?  I ask because, over the past few days, it has been registering zero traffic on at least one of the stats services I use.  In reality, I know that it has had a handful of visits which have shown up elsewhere but, after yet another Google update this weekend (Google these days having a virtual monopoly on web search as most web users seem to have forgotten the existence of alternatives that deliver more relevant results), traffic to both here and The Sleaze has flatlined.  This really is the worst that it has ever been.  Google is giving nothing in terms of traffic, (not surprising when you see a typical results page for just about any search term: most of it consists of ads and paid listings rather than actual results).  Like vast numbers of other sites, we're down to a smattering of hits from search engines like Bing, Escosia and DuckDuckGo, or from countries like Russia and China, where Google isn't dominant.  Actually, DuckDuckGo is proving a decent source of traffic (in current terms, that is).  Unfortunately, thanks to its idea of 'privacy' being to block web tracking cookies, these hits frequently don't register on regular stats services - I only know of their existence via the server logs.  

Bitter experience tells me that if I sit tight, then traffic will likely start to return, s Google fiddles with its alogrithm.  Frustratingly, it was in the process of doing that before this last weekend's update.  The fact that it has wiped out traffic to this, a Blogger based blog, one of Google's own platforms, indicates that it is likely to be adjusted sooner rather than later - Google doesn't like to disadvantage its own properties too much or for too long.  Of course, the steady, inexorable decline in organic traffic from Google for more than a decade now has already done real damage to the diversity on the web - deprived of new audiences so many smaller, independent sites have given up the ghost.  This is particularly true for satire sites - I've seen the number of sites decimated, with very few of the old Humorfeed listed sites active any more.  But who can blame them?  It is hugely disheartening to realise that, no matter how high the quality of your material, nobody is going to read it thanks to Google's algorithm effectively blocking potential readers from finding it.  It is certainly how I'm feeling right now, watching the tumbleweed blow through here.  Right now, I have zero enthusiasm for producing original content that will likely never be read by anyone.  I am left wondering just how long I'm prepared to carry on with my sites under these circumstances.  I mean, it isn't as if I can't find other, probably more productive, not to mention rewarding, uses for my time.