Cryptocurrency publication CCN.com announced that it is closing its digital doors after experiencing a collapse in mobile traffic following Google’s Core Update on June 3, 2019.
In an editorial written by Hawkfish AS and CNN Markets founder Jonas Borchgrevink, he revealed that CCN’s mobile traffic crashed by more than 71% overnight and its Google visibility dropped from 1.2 to less than 0.6. He also revealed that its daily revenue plummeted by more than 90%.
“You might say we ought not to face any issues since we’ve been at those levels and lower, in the past. What you need to realize is that we have added more people to the team, both full-timers and part-timers,” he said.
Since downsizing the current team of 60 people is not a part of its solution, Borchgrevink said the entire team will be moved to its sister site HVY.com, a news platform made by and for journalists.
In addition, Borchgrevink has also called on media organizations to oppose Google’s attempts to “control the world’s news consumption” and a future “Googlemocracy,” hoping to stop Google’s “hideous practice… that basically can, with a snap of its fingers, decide who will thrive and who will die within a matter of minutes.”
According to CCN, other major cryptocurrency sites have also experienced significant losses, as CoinDesk and Cointelegraph sustained visibility also dropped by more than 20%.
Borchgrevink also included a list of demands, including a three-month notice to webmasters, an explanation if a new update will put sites at risk of losing over 20% of their search traffic, and the involvement of the national governments to organize apolitical task forces to examine search changes.
Earlier, crypto publication Breaker Magazine also shut down, although its reason was not related to Google’s new update but to high burn rate and lack of viable business plans from the owner’s perspective.
Comment 16