CCN, a popular cryptocurrency news website shut down on June 10, 2019, blaming its close on the most recent “Google June 2019 Core Update” which significantly impacted on its daily traffic. As a result, it is currently unable to cater to its team of 60 journalists due to the sudden decline in its daily revenue.
CNN Publicizes its Decision to Close Down
In a report on June 10, 2019, CCN, an independent news organization which was founded on June 5, 2013, announced that it has shut down its operations. The website which is primarily focused on cryptocurrency, politics and business news attributed its shut down to Google’s most recent update in its search algorithm.
According to the media, Google’s June 2019 Core Update which was implemented on June 3, 2019, led to over a 71 percent drop in its mobile traffic. Sistrix, an SEO analyzer it had used revealed that CNN’s search visibility on Google had moved from 1.2 to less than 0.6. As such, it negatively impacted on its daily revenue by over 90 percent.
CNN Decides Not to Lay Off Some Workers
On the other hand, CCN noted that it had experienced such low search visibility in the past and was able to cope with it. However, its team has grown to 60 full-time and part-time journalists and as such, it means more expenses have to be made to meet their income. There is also a set back because it mainly relies on the income generated through advertisements to run the site and there are no external sources of income.
While throwing more light on the impact of Google’s algorithm on other cryptocurrency sites, it noted that news outlet like Coindesk and CoinTelegraph had 34.6 percent and 21.1 percent drop in their mobile traffic, respectively. For this reason, it has led to the impression that cryptocurrency sites were the major target.
Media Outlets in Other Niches Also Get Impacted
Nonetheless, the air has been cleared that this may have not been the case since other websites not focused on cryptocurrency have also been negatively affected. Some of these are Mercola (50%), Daily Mail (43%), Nuffield health (35%), Humblebundle (34%), Draxe (31%) and Mindbodygreen (30%).
To that effect, CCN has decided to move to another URL where it claims it will still have to rely on Google webmaster, Google Analytics, Google AdSense and a whole range of products offered by the search engine giant. The media has also made some demands to Google and this includes informing website owners three months before an algorithm update and the potential effect the update will have.
