Why HCU-HIT Websites May Never Recover?

[Encrypted]

Happy new year Guys!

I had this conversation with my business partner today and i wanted to also share my thoughts here as a reality check for some people that may need it.

My thoughts are below:

- HCU was a deliberate obliteration of small & medium web publishers. This is further backed by the numerous core updates post-HCU that has continued to punish content publishers despite the obvious massive collateral damage and vocal call for a reversal.

- This was a pre-planned (since the first HCU update) strategic change that was needed to usher a new AI-focused direction for Google as they look to adapt and compete on this front. The "HCU" vanished shortly after as they rolled it into the core algorithm: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-helpful-content-update-gone-37196.html

- The demolition of small & mid publishers has had 0 impact on Google's revenue and profits. If anything, they've recorded their highest ever stock price since HCU in September 2023. They'll be more motivated to improve things if it affected their bottom line.

- Its been quite sometime since HCU was released and as more time passes, it makes little sense for them to release websites from this "Jail". Many sites have shutdown or completely stopped working on the content. I don't think that Google would want to release a lot of 2023 "stale" content/websites in a 2025 world.

That said, I feel strongly that there'll be another window of opportunity for "niche sites" to flourish again. But, It'll not be a full HCU recovery as many people hope. It'll be a window for people that would be willing to make new websites again. Will it be the same content style/format as before? I don't know.

But as for HCU sites, the best case is that they recover slightly, maybe 20% 30% or even 40% - 50%. The worst and most likely case is that they never fully recover again. It'll be a Miracle to see FULL recovery, at least not any sooner than the first half of this year.

What does this mean for HCU-HIT website owners?:

It means that the land is simply not fertile for this kind of websites at this time. It'll be unwise to keep pouring time and money investments here. Look elsewhere for traffic or go do something else.

The good news is that HCU + AI content has opened up opportunities for people that are willing to play the new game. You see, organic search traffic is a zero-sum game. The search demand does not automatically reduce or disappear because of a Google search update. 4,000 people searching for fish tank in September 2023 are still searching for the same thing today. The only change is that the traffic is now going to a completely different set of websites now vs 2023 due to the update. If anything, the SERPS became weaker for some niches post-HCU and spam "dirty tactics" can win.

Take a look at the keyword below. The demand/search volume remained the same but keyword difficult dropped from mid-50s to 0 post-HCU. For some niches, the money is still there. It's just how to get it that changed.

If you're willing to figure out the new "how" then maybe still make some money here. Otherwise, its time to move to another business.

 

[Jesse]

Happy New Year.

The HCU wasn't some crusade of the big corporation against the little guy. It happened because the garbage these so-called web publishers were putting out was so bad that Google was losing ground to their competition.

People have been told for years and years to diversify where they're getting their traffic from, especially with social media. They won't take action, but they will lash out and act weird when you bring it up (which is a part of why people who know what they're doing don't talk about it much).

Social media has been beating Google for years, but it's 2025, and people are still fixated on their crap sites that got nuked a year and a half ago and the tools that were used to help build them.

 

[Ryuzaki]

I've been ringing this alarm bell for three years now I think, before the HCU was released. It was clear where it was headed.

I was saying all the same things on this forum:

• "Read Who Moved My Cheese? and realize you're losing time and money by continuing to run the same maze. Yes, you've memorized it and it became easy. Doesn't matter. The cheese not only moved, but it was lifted out of this rat maze and moved to an entirely different maze altogether."
• "This is undoubtedly deliberate and won't be reverse. Google needs to train its users to begin adopting AI results. It doesn't want to be a search engine. It wants to be an answer engine. And it wants revenge against the players it could never fully beat. Google has quite literally took its ball home and quit playing."
• "Google has essentially white listed mass-content sites from big players like Dot Dash Meredith, whose content is no better than yours. Too bad, they aren't playing fair. Google lost the SEO war and has admitted it by going scorched earth. Too bad, they own the stadium and the playing field."
• "Indexation and algorithmic ranking has become a problem. The solution isn't plugging holes in an algorithm we'll exploit next month. The answer is simple, one we thought Google would never do, since PageRank is their bread and butter. The answer is to simply stop indexing (and thus ranking) most of the net, like Bing always has done."
• "Update after update they're showing us that they're further entrenching themselves into the HCU. And EEAT was an insurmountable goal of theirs, so they then used it as a smokescreen to destroy the rest of us."
• "Content sites are using Mediavine and Raptive/Ad Thrive to monetize. While Adsense does provide a lot of the ad fills for those networks, Adsense is one of like 13 of the giant networks taking money away from Google. They don't want the other 1/12th of the revenue. They just don't want everyone else having it. And the end result is Adwords budgets do go up."

So on and so forth. I can't remember all the other points I was pushing. But the bottom line is that Google is evil and (separately) Google is self-interested. They were embarrassed time and again personally by individuals like myself, @Grind, etc. We caused them to create updates to deal with the crap we were doing to them, the tactics we were selling, which would ultimately spread out and become a mass-infestation.

And they took it personally. They once not only created an update to target something I was selling in another community in the past, but they then eradicated every site I had or had ever owned. They dug up my butt with a fine-toothed comb and wiped out sites from 5 years earlier that had no relation to what I was currently doing, even wiping out sites that I had sold and no longer owned. It's personal, evil, and motivated. You have to wonder how they tied all that together... because data is the name of the game and they track everything, including things like the innocuous Google Font built into your theme and all the IP addresses pulling it down.

But yeah, we all know the internet is becoming smaller. And Google has made attempts to make it smaller, such as ranking Reddit for everything to fill in the void for all the other sites they wiped out, when traditionally UGC and crap content would never rank. The fewer portals their are to the internet, the more those portals profit.

There aren't many left... Google, Facebook, Reddit, Amazon, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. Maybe I missed one but that's down to the wire. They each own some facet... Search/Answers, Socializing, Sub-Niche In-Depth Conversation, Shopping, Superficial Micro-Conversation, Superficiality in Photo Form, Superficiality in Video Form, In-Depth Exploration of Micro-Niches in Video Form (all respective to the previous list).

It's well beyond the HCU and Google's surface-level motivations of revenge and ease-of-algorithm development. It's about the fundamental shift in the internet that's coming. @CCarter has harped on for years about video being the current/next thing and he was right. Who wants to read (this long ass post) when AI can summarize or spit out answers. Quality explanations come in video form. Quality entertainment comes in video form.

Video is up next, and what's after that is the Metaverse of live-action, interactive, on-the-fly AI generated socialization and entertainment specifically tailored to your exact demands. Augmented Reality will come first, followed by Virtual Reality ultimately.

That's way out in the distance but we're at the start of the next Industrial Revolution. Might as well call it the Digital Revolution. If the entire fundamental "thing" of the internet is shifting rapidly, then of course websites are being fucked. Let alone Google enjoying their revenge they could never obtain like honorable combatants.

And that's why the HCU happened and why it'll never be reversed. The cheese moved 3 years ago.

On a side note, I heard a radio ad in the car while traveling during the holidays. John Hopkins or some giant medical company was saying they've used AI to detect pulmonary heart issues by listening to sound, timbre, cadence of breathing. Things that aren't related as far as humans can detect...

The AI digital revolution will affect every industry, including the medical, every type of engineering, and so forth. It only affected the digital world first, which makes sense, as that's where it was born and trained.

 

[secretagentdad]

A monopoly so dominant that by defacto independent websites are part of their network.

Goal number one of ad words is to sell you your own brand equity and pretend they sold you a conversion.

 

[BakerStreet]

Accept it. Google changed their algorithm and there is no going back. It’s foolish to wish for others to change. The only thing you can do is change yourself. Adapt. Learn something new and pivot. Execute the new thing and move on. Faster you do, richer you will be.

 

[Nonbeardedman]

I've been ringing this alarm bell for three years now I think, before the HCU was released. It was clear where it was headed.

I was saying all the same things on this forum:

• "Read Who Moved My Cheese? and realize you're losing time and money by continuing to run the same maze. Yes, you've memorized it and it became easy. Doesn't matter. The cheese not only moved, but it was lifted out of this rat maze and moved to an entirely different maze altogether."
• "This is undoubtedly deliberate and won't be reverse. Google needs to train its users to begin adopting AI results. It doesn't want to be a search engine. It wants to be an answer engine. And it wants revenge against the players it could never fully beat. Google has quite literally took its ball home and quit playing."
• "Google has essentially white listed mass-content sites from big players like Dot Dash Meredith, whose content is no better than yours. Too bad, they aren't playing fair. Google lost the SEO war and has admitted it by going scorched earth. Too bad, they own the stadium and the playing field."
• "Indexation and algorithmic ranking has become a problem. The solution isn't plugging holes in an algorithm we'll exploit next month. The answer is simple, one we thought Google would never do, since PageRank is their bread and butter. The answer is to simply stop indexing (and thus ranking) most of the net, like Bing always has done."
• "Update after update they're showing us that they're further entrenching themselves into the HCU. And EEAT was an insurmountable goal of theirs, so they then used it as a smokescreen to destroy the rest of us."
• "Content sites are using Mediavine and Raptive/Ad Thrive to monetize. While Adsense does provide a lot of the ad fills for those networks, Adsense is one of like 13 of the giant networks taking money away from Google. They don't want the other 1/12th of the revenue. They just don't want everyone else having it. And the end result is Adwords budgets do go up."

So on and so forth. I can't remember all the other points I was pushing. But the bottom line is that Google is evil and (separately) Google is self-interested. They were embarrassed time and again personally by individuals like myself, @Grind, etc. We caused them to create updates to deal with the crap we were doing to them, the tactics we were selling, which would ultimately spread out and become a mass-infestation.

And they took it personally. They once not only created an update to target something I was selling in another community in the past, but they then eradicated every site I had or had ever owned. They dug up my butt with a fine-toothed comb and wiped out sites from 5 years earlier that had no relation to what I was currently doing, even wiping out sites that I had sold and no longer owned. It's personal, evil, and motivated. You have to wonder how they tied all that together... because data is the name of the game and they track everything, including things like the innocuous Google Font built into your theme and all the IP addresses pulling it down.

But yeah, we all know the internet is becoming smaller. And Google has made attempts to make it smaller, such as ranking Reddit for everything to fill in the void for all the other sites they wiped out, when traditionally UGC and crap content would never rank. The fewer portals their are to the internet, the more those portals profit.

There aren't many left... Google, Facebook, Reddit, Amazon, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. Maybe I missed one but that's down to the wire. They each own some facet... Search/Answers, Socializing, Sub-Niche In-Depth Conversation, Shopping, Superficial Micro-Conversation, Superficiality in Photo Form, Superficiality in Video Form, In-Depth Exploration of Micro-Niches in Video Form (all respective to the previous list).

It's well beyond the HCU and Google's surface-level motivations of revenge and ease-of-algorithm development. It's about the fundamental shift in the internet that's coming. @CCarter has harped on for years about video being the current/next thing and he was right. Who wants to read (this long ass post) when AI can summarize or spit out answers. Quality explanations come in video form. Quality entertainment comes in video form.

Video is up next, and what's after that is the Metaverse of live-action, interactive, on-the-fly AI generated socialization and entertainment specifically tailored to your exact demands. Augmented Reality will come first, followed by Virtual Reality ultimately.

That's way out in the distance but we're at the start of the next Industrial Revolution. Might as well call it the Digital Revolution. If the entire fundamental "thing" of the internet is shifting rapidly, then of course websites are being fucked. Let alone Google enjoying their revenge they could never obtain like honorable combatants.

And that's why the HCU happened and why it'll never be reversed. The cheese moved 3 years ago.

On a side note, I heard a radio ad in the car while traveling during the holidays. John Hopkins or some giant medical company was saying they've used AI to detect pulmonary heart issues by listening to sound, timbre, cadence of breathing. Things that aren't related as far as humans can detect...

The AI digital revolution will affect every industry, including the medical, every type of engineering, and so forth. It only affected the digital world first, which makes sense, as that's where it was born and trained.

I sense this is one of your insomnia-induced, not-had-my-coffee-yet, type of posts judging from the rare use of swear words and the pessimism.

Although most of what you said is true, it sounds like you seem to think that these big players are going to ruin the internet by cashing out leaving everything in a dumpster fire (for the smaller, independent guys at least).

I don't think that's true. There are many industries that have followed the same pattern of:

Decentralization --> Centralization --> Re-Decentralization

Some examples off the top of my head include:

• Gaming Industry:
  
  • Decentralization: Many small developers and publishers were creating games and experimenting with emerging technologies.
  • Centralization: In the 2000s, the gaming industry was dominated by big players like EA, Activision, Ubisoft, etc. Consoles were also in the hands of Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo
  • Re-Decentralization: In recent years, Indie developers have gained a lot of popularity, to the point where they are winning game of the year awards, etc. Also, people are much more supportive of indie and solo developers, as well as small game studios. This has made crowdfunding popular. Newer, emerging business models have also helped game developers, that previously could not even compete, to rise above the giants. There are also many platforms to showcase your game, apart from Sony, MS, and Nintendo
• Banking and Finance:
  
  • Decentralization: Local banks, with multiple types of banks, catered to specific groups or people functioning independently
  • Centralization: National and global banking giants like JPMorgan, Chase, HSBC, etc. Regulations by Federal Banks further centralized control through policy changes
  • Re-Decentralization: Fintech rose due to better, more secure digital channels. Currently, PayPal, Stripe dominate these. But due to improvements in blockchain technology, many more Decentralized Finance (DeFi) platforms are coming into the market. Crypto also seems to be a solution for a specific type of people, tho I'm not aware of how efficient it is.

These are examples of just two industries. There are many other industries like the Energy Industry, Healthcare Industry, Publishing Industry, and more that are experiencing the same pattern of recovery.

The past resembles the future more than one drop of water resembles another.​

- Ibn Khaldun​

Yes, the internet is shrinking. Yes, it's limited within the grasps of a few greedy monopolies. But it's not to say that there aren't people, companies, organizations, and other entities working towards taking that power out of their hands and back to the people.

We can adapt sure, but adapting doesn't usually mean to "give in" to something that doesn't sit right with us. If you're goal is to make money sure, cash in, push out those AI-Generated, Brainrot videos en masse, but there are many who's goal is far greater than that, and they will render their low-effort attempts at a cash grab useless.

There have been many communities, including the Art community, Animation community, and the Writing Community who have been fighting against big bad Google since years now. Many of them are successful, that is, if you don't define success by how much cash is in your wallet. They have retired into their small space, with their modest, supportive audience, doing a mix of what they like to do and what the audience wants to see. Multiply these kinds of people by the millions, and you've got the internet.

I think it was @CCarter who gave this analogy once. It went something like: "There's a man out there in the trenches honing his skills and techniques in his cave, waiting one day to come out" and when he does he'll outshine everyone's power and make everyone regret staying in their comfort zone. Or at least that was my interpretation of it.

I believe those are the people who'll make a change, and people like me will be there to support them.

He who finds a new path is a pathfinder, even if the trail has to be found again by others; and he who walks far ahead of his contemporaries is a leader, even though centuries pass before he is recognized as such. - Ibn Khaldun​

I'm sure you've seen worse given your experience, so don't let your light fade! It's guiding some of us to the end of the tunnel...

 

[harrytwatter]

I don't deny Google's monopolistic wrath but I'm inclined to agree there is and will be space for indie web publishers into the future.

Personally, I get pumped when I stumble upon decent personal longform blogs in the wild, from industry stuff like what Glen Allsopp puts out at Detailed to simple men's fashion sites like what Simon Crompton is doing at Permanent Style.

Maybe I'm crazy but I feel like I can sense "AI fatigue" brewing among the masses, a steadily growing thirst for personal opinion, metaphor, and humor instead of the same old machine regurgitated, often inaccurate, AI garbage we're being force-fed.

 

[chubes]

Maybe I'm crazy but I feel like I can sense "AI fatigue" brewing among the masses, a steadily growing thirst for personal opinion, metaphor, and humor instead of the same old machine regurgitated, often inaccurate, AI garbage we're being force-fed.

I think you're right. The problem isn't exactly people's desire for real good writing, though. The problem is obtaining an audience. Google has made that incredibly difficult, to the point where it is hardly worth pursuing right now.

I know you all talk about "Video is King" but there are people who would prefer to read a quick article or transcript than sit through an entire 15 minute video watching some jackass explain something.

Not only that, but the upfront work of making a video is a massive pain in the fucking ass. It's a completely different set of skills from writing. Let me write the script and get someone else to act on camera. That costs money. I can produce words for free and with my own brain.

Social media also blows. Content is so short-lived you are forced to constantly churn it out to maintain traction. And then you get caught up in all the dopamine hit shit and it's just not where I want to be. Again, a completely different skill set from writing.

Hopefully there emerges some other way to obtain an audience with the written word. Maybe Google continues down this path, and then loses a subset of their audience to some yet-to-be-launched newcomer who focuses on connecting the web like Google used to do.

 

[Nonbeardedman]

@harrytwatter, @chubes both of your perspectives aren't far-fetched at all. And AI fatigue seems to be already setting in, although many people exist that still don't realize the difference between AI and human content.

Many people are already fed up with AI-generated stuff. People seem to be actively calling out and making documentaries against AI-generated "brainrot" videos. Researchers have also started to examine the effects of this type of content on people, particularly children. And as every major corporation knows, the last people you want to be picking a fight with is parents, because in a world where people judge more by emotions than rationale, parents often have the perfect leverage to bend a corp's knees.

---

Also, many popular communities, more specifically creatives, are clearly fed up.

Twitch's AI-Generated Emote Controversy​

Below is a universal emote that Twitch released on 6th Dec, 2024:

It was pretty clear at first instant that this was AI-generated. And Twitch having a huge artist community, was thrashed for its use of AI to generate an emote. They were also called out by popular creators on YouTube, Twitch, and other platforms:

Twitch removed the emote within 24 hours.

The same has happened with many companies. What I'm noticing is that many companies are currently "testing the waters" with AI and seeing how much they can get away with.

From my POV, some of them are succeeding, but they still require a lot of human supervision (so at the end of the day it's a win-win).

At the same time, many are getting slammed.

Audiences Support Creators (Alternative to Ad Revenue)​

There are also many animators and artists, who aren't dependent on algorithims and ad revenue for money. They have a Patreon or some other platform, and are running purely on donations, and their donations keep on rising.

I've seen many animators I used to watch years before, and they're big shots now. They still have the same kind of content and are often demonetized by YouTube for showing graphic violence or swearing openly, but they're being supported by their audience, and their making good money to get by.

This is another example of people not "giving in" to the shifts from human to AI content. They haven't thought to themselves "Oh well, if Google wants me to make XYZ type of content, then I'll make that"

Some Positive Stats for Human-Generated Content​

Substack​

Substack has grown pretty huge.

• Substack has more than 20 million monthly active subscribers.
• Substack hit 2 million paid subscriptions.
• More than 17,000 writers get paid on Substack.
• The top 10 authors on Substack collectively make $25 million per year

(Source: Backlinko)

Medium​

Medium is pretty huge, and is still huge, even after many authors started restricting their content behind a paywall. It has over a million users, and is supported by millions of users - the authors are supported by their audiences.

Medium also emphasises that it values human content after the whole AI influx. Can Medium, like Google, suddenly change its policy and freely allow AI content?

Yes, but then people will move to another platform...

Twitter Breakdown​

Millions of users left X (Twitter) after it announced that the content will be used for training its AI model Grok.

"One major reason people are deleting X is because the Elon Musk-owned platform’s new terms of service, effective Friday, Nov. 15, are bad for users’ privacy. These state that all users must agree to let their posts be trained by artificial intelligence, including X’s own service, Grok. It was previously possible to opt out from this."​

(Source: Forbes)​

Can you guess which types of people were the first ones to leave the platform? Artists and Writers.

Instagram Breakdown​

After Meta announced that user's posts will be used to train Meta's AI models, Instagram lost 600,000 users in a week to an app called Cara.

Cara is literally serving the same purpose as Instagram. The only difference between Cara and any other social media platform? Cara specifcally states that it doesn't allow AI-generated images and it's an "artist's social platform". That's it.

If the only thing you have to do to sell your product is to say "We don't support or encourage AI" then yes, I believe that many people are getting fed up with AI.

DevaintArt Breakdown​

At one point, DevaintArt was known as the most well-known artist's platform. But then, DevaintArt announced that it will be collaborating with AI companies, created and boosted AI-generated artists, and then used AI bots to engage with them - it was a shitshow all around.

"DeviantArt partnered with the startup Stability A.I. to roll out an internal image-generation tool called DreamUp, which had the ability to scrape “every single piece of art on the platform” for training purposes."​

(Source: Slate)​

​

DevaintArt had tried about 3 times to integrate some new and fancy tech in their platform, without caring for users' needs, and got slammed each time. NFTs failed, AI-Generated Art failed, and then even AI Agents failed. They were also hit with lawsuit after lawsuit by influential, you guessed it, artists.

Millions of artists left the platform, including artists who used to and still work at companies like, Disney, Illumination Studios, Marvel and many other big studios. Interestingly, the one who did win the lawsuit against Stability AI, was also the creator of Cara.

Imagine throwing away your 23-year old reputation as THE Artist's Platform on the internet by pissing off your users.

---

There are many other examples of these. And many small time creators on YouTube (I use YouTube most, so I talk about that) have started to rise again.

 

[bernard]

If you're in niches that are not politically very contentious, a little is ok, you should get on X and Substack.

X seems to really be a great platform for publishers, you can publish directly on it, mix up memes with shitpoasting and linking your content on Substack and Youtube.

Blogging has basically moved to X and to Substack. X for the shorter teaser and Substack to get people the full thing and pay for it. Substack has basically revitalized blogging like in the old days.

What's missing is the content site, the evergreen content, the expert niche content etc. I don't know where that goes in the current internet, but I'm sure there will be some platform that will cater to that soon.