Google has killed the creator economy with the March updates

There was a time, not so long ago, that if you had some knowledge about a particular subject, or just wanted to have a bit of fun, you could create a living for yourself writing a blog or creating what you deemed to be a useful website. However, over the last 12 months, and in particular now, with Google’s March algorithm updates, this seems to have all but put an end to the creator economy.

As Google tries to tackle web spam and the influx of AI content, it is quickly destroying what was left of the small, independent websites that provided exceptional value to users searching on their topic. Reading the comments on forums and on news sites of website owners who have practically lost of all of their traffic with the recent updates, it’s heartbreaking to realise the serious effects that these updates can have on people’s livelihoods.

Many people depend on Google’s traffic to pay the bills and as always happens with these large updates, good, useful and legitimate websites get caught up in the updates and they suffer unnecessarily. I’ve seen it happen over and over again during the past 20 years since I started being one of those creators.

The search results are now full of large authority websites, forums and so much other “noise” that it’s difficult for small creators to be seen. It’s not impossible, but Google’s just made it that much harder for everyone. It’s not something that is ever likely to be reversed now so they have effectively killed an economy which they practically created when they launched Adsense in 2003. However, the party isn’t quite over…it’s just a different sort of party now!

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