Social Media

Google temporarily de-indexes Wix sites

Wix site owners have enjoyed ease of use, but with Google de-indexing them, many are reconsidering their position on virtually renting versus owning their site and their destiny.

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Published

2 years ago

October 26, 2015

Hannah Schilling

wix

Wix users get hit with the Google stick

If your business website was built with the online website builder tool, Wix, you may be noticing a recent dip in user activity. In fact, it’s likely that you are experiencing a major decline in activity due to a recent issue causing numerous sites powered by Wix to drop off the Google index.

Read also: Ghost is an alternative to WordPress you may enjoy

The appeal of Wix lies in its affordability and ease. Wix’s easy-to-use site building process eliminates the need to hire web development experts, making it an attractive option for start up businesses hoping to save money. Unfortunately, because all Wix sites use one main platform, individual webmasters experience much less flexibility and control than they would with a personalized platform. And, when one Wix site starts having problems, all Wix sites are likely to suffer a similar fate.

Forums have been flooded on this topic

Google Webmaster Help forums have been littered with discussions over the last two weeks about Wix sites that have disappeared from the index. The search engine has issued an apology for the hassle, and told Wix users that they’ve taken another thorough look at the set-up of Wix sites. There may be a delay, but Google is working to resolve the issue on their end by reprocessing all affected sites.

For any Wix users unsure if your site has been affected, now is the time to take a look at your site’s search data for anything fishy. Ask yourself: Is there decline in index counts in your Google Search Console? Is there a sudden decrease in traffic from Google Search? You might also try performing your own Google search to see if your website can be accessed.

Don’t lose valuable business

If your Wix site has indeed fallen off the Google index, you are losing valuable business each day. Even worse—there is nothing to do but wait for Google to start reindexing, which they are in the process of doing.

Building your own platform through web management tools like WordPress is a great alternative to sites like Wix that hinder individualization and give you limited control. Even as new brands, its invaluable to have a strong website that allows you to own your own content, and your own destiny.

#SadWix

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Hannah Schilling

Hannah is currently a writer and student in Colorado Springs, pursuing her master's degree in Creative Writing at the University of Denver. Before becoming a Staff Writer for the American Genius, Hannah wrote website content and grant applications for a law office in central Minnesota.

51 Comments

Pingback: Google désindexe les sites WIX
Jacobus Lavooij

October 27, 2015 at 6:14 am

I have no clue why business people use Wix. Yes, easy, but when you are doing business, keep to your core business and have someone else build your website. Anyway, Hannah, thanks for pointing it out. I hadn’t heard of the problem yet. Always good to know and another tool for the ones that sell websites to close the client to use something else (like WP).

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James

October 27, 2015 at 10:45 am

Can you post some of the sources to this? I’m not finding much else aside from this article.

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Phil Simon

October 27, 2015 at 11:50 am

In a word, wow. That type of thing could puncture Wix’s business model, certainly for new clients.

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Andrew Anderson

October 27, 2015 at 1:59 pm

The truth is Free Website builders are never free. They in fact can cost you your whole business. Get yourself a hosted WordPress site and be done with it. Why put your financial future in someone else’s hands like that? If you have a real business then you need a real website.

Cheers,
Andrew Anderson
ContinualCustomer.com

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Andrew

October 27, 2015 at 5:52 pm

Does anyone know specifically what caused the deindex, whether it was Wix’s actions or a fluke?

Not arguing for them in any way, but the article does seem a little biased against them.

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Kansas City

October 27, 2015 at 6:25 pm

Proof positive that you need to own your own asset as much as possible. WIX, Weebly, these could go belly up at any time (and Wix has, essentially). Only your own site can prevent these kinds of penalties (unless, of course, you use spammy SEO tactics)

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Bryan Rempel

October 27, 2015 at 11:43 pm

Great article. I have been talking about this for months after learning WordPress, and still having about a dozen sites on a similar website builder to Wix. I have been with this unnamed company for over a dozen years (starting with Home and ending with Stead), and they have been punishing their customers with an upgrade over the last two weeks, making thousands of sites un-editable. If you are with such a company you cannot migrate your years of work and hundreds of hours of development to a new website service provider. You are a “renter” not an “owner” of your website. I have replaced about half my sites over the past year with WordPress sites that I can pack up and move to a different host whenever I want. I now “own” my work and can control it. These so-called free websites are like Hotel California, “You can check out any time you want, but you can never leave.” I am now working on the rest of my sites to get them out of website purgatory.

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ryan

October 28, 2015 at 12:01 am

Ive always hated wix. It ruins businesses as people are cheap and always go for whats cheap and easy. But, like most things, you get what you pay for. Maybe our industry will get a bit busier now 😀

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Alexis Kasperavicius

October 28, 2015 at 7:38 am

You kind of made the argument for using Wix: Google is paying attention, they will fix it. Do you think Google would fix a bug in their ranking code, much less respond to you if it was only affecting your site?

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arun

October 28, 2015 at 9:49 am

sometimes im fear because iahve one site in wix

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Tyler

October 28, 2015 at 3:46 pm

I’ve transferred a few client sites from Wix to WordPress so I got a chance to see the backend of Wix. It is actually a decent platform for simple sites, but falls short when it comes to complex CMS, advanced services, and complete customization. One problem, as seen today, is all these sites are squeezed onto the same servers. I’d imagine it has to be quite a task to keep that server clean from spammy sites.

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Larry Launstein Jr.

November 6, 2015 at 1:47 pm

Not a fan of Wix at all. Too limited in design options and a SEO nightmare. Prefer WordPress and HTML-CSS better. Even with so many templates in each format, you can take them and call them your own, especially the premium templates.

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David C. Brandon

December 18, 2015 at 3:52 pm

Wow, thats a huge hit right there. Why would G specifically target these?
Generally speaking and regardless to this ‘update’, Wix users are not thrilled with their online presence on search engines.

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John

February 22, 2016 at 11:25 am

Although it’s odd that Google would penalize Wix user sites as a whole, I can tell you from dealing with users of free website builder services like Wix, there has been a decline in user satisfaction as a whole.

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Michael

June 1, 2016 at 8:11 am

Where is the truth in this I have 20 wix sites and none have suffered any penalty.

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- Lani Rosales
  
  June 1, 2016 at 12:22 pm
  
  You’re right – it was a temporary de-indexing, and many felt no impact whatsoever.
  
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Social Media

Facebook’s Résumé takes another shot at LinkedIn

(SOCIAL MEDIA) Facebook took another swipe at LinkedIn by introducing a new Résumé feature.

Published

5 days ago

October 17, 2017

Ashe Segovia

resume On This Day load bob alice terrorism trends fine spam facebook advertising jobs earnings

Any job hunter is likely familiar with the little section somewhere during the application process where you’re asked to enter in social media information. Thankfully, Facebook is usually an optional field.

While I try to keep what the public can see of my social media profiles toned down enough as to not cause my grandmother to blush, I’m still not quite comfortable sharing my profile with prospective employers.

I’m sure many out there feel the same, and Facebook knows this.

Tinfoil hat theories aside, LinkedIn may be shaking in their boots as Facebook begins to advance their growth in the professional sector in their pursuit of social media domination.

Facebook has begun experimenting with a new Résumé/CV feature that works as an extension of your standard “Work and Education” section on a Facebook profile page, allowing users to share work experience in more detail with friends and family but most importantly: potential employers.

Luckily, the new Résumé/CV feature won’t be sharing personal photos or status updates, but will rather combine all the relevant information into a single, professional-looking package.

So far this feature appears to be rolled out to a small number of users, and it’s unclear when it will be officially launched, but this isn’t the first time Facebook has dipped their toes in the waters of the job sector, or took a jab at LinkedIn.

Several months ago, Jobs was launched, a feature that allows Business Pages to post job openings through the status composer, and keep track of them on their Page’s Jobs tab.

A Facebook spokesperson commented on the intent behind the new Résumé/CV feature, “At Facebook, we’re always building and testing new products and services.

We’re currently testing a work histories feature to continue to help people find and businesses hire for jobs on Facebook,” and so this is just the beginning of Facebook’s plan to become a one-stop-shop and create a more seamless way for people to find and get jobs.

Social Media

Tag photos, connect with friends, order food?

(SOCIAL MEDIA) Facebook seems to be sprawling into every nook and cranny of life and now, they’re infiltrating food delivery.

Published

6 days ago

October 16, 2017

Natalie Earhart

Facebook is now bringing you food! Although, no one was really asking them to.

In the age of Instagram and Snapchat, Facebook is attempting to transform into more than just a social media platform. They have partnered up with food delivery services to help users order food directly from their site.

They hope to streamline the process by giving users a chance to research, get recommendations and order food without ever leaving the site.

Facebook has partnered with their existing delivery services including EatStreet, Delivery.com, DoorDash, ChowNow and Olo in addition to restaurants to fast track the process.

The scenario they imagine is that while scrolling through the newsfeed, users would feel an urge to eat and look to Facebook for their options.

After chatting up friends via Facebook Messenger to ask for the best place to go, users would visit the restaurant’s page directly, explore their menu and decide to order. When ordering, you will have the option to use one of the partnered delivery services either with an existing account or by creating a new one.

The benefit is you stay on one site the entire time. With the time you save, the food can get to you faster, which is a plus for everyone.

Assuming that people already live on Facebook 24/7, this seems like a great update. If you like getting recommendations from your favorite social media resources, it’s even better.

The problem is that in recent years their younger audiences have dropped off in favor of other sites. Regardless of what they think, not everyone is flocking to Facebook for their every need.

My guess is that this service will benefit those already using Facebook, but is less likely to draw new audiences in.

Adding more services may not be the key to success if Facebook can’t refine their other features. They have already been criticized for their ad reporting practices, though they seem to fix everything with a new algorithm.

Facebook has continued to stray away from their original intent, and food delivery won’t be their last update.

Facebook wants to be everything, but not everyone may want the same.

Social Media

Hate Facebook’s mid-roll ads? So does everyone else

(SOCIAL MEDIA) Those pesky ads that pop up in the middle of that Facebook video, aka mid-roll, seem to be grinding everyone’s gears.

Published

2 weeks ago

October 9, 2017

Connor Wrenn

In an ongoing effort to monetize content, Facebook recently introduced “mid-roll” ads into videos by certain publishers, and it has now been testing that format for six months. If you aren’t a big fan of those ads interrupting your content consumption experience, you aren’t alone; publishers aren’t crazy about them either.

In a report on the program, five publishers working with Facebook’s new mid-roll ad program were sourced and all five publishers found that the program wasn’t generating the expected revenue.

One program partner made as little as $500 dollars with mid-roll ads while generating tens of millions of views on their content.

Two other partners wouldn’t specify exact revenue number, but they did acknowledge that the ad performance is below expectations. As far as cost goes, certain publishers mentioned CPMs between 15 cents and 75 cents.

That range is large because a lot of the data isn’t clear enough to evaluate their return on investment. According to the Digiday report, publishers receive data on total revenue, along with raw data on things like the number of videos that served an ad to viewers.

The lack of certain data points, along with the confusing structure of the data, makes it difficult to assess the number of monetized views and the revenue by video. For context, YouTube, as arguably the biggest player in video monetization, provides all these metrics.

Another issue is that licensing deals are cutting into margins. Facebook pays publishers, via a licensing fee, to produce and publish a certain number of videos each month. In exchange, Facebook keeps all money until it recoups the fee, after which revenue is split 55/45 between the publisher and Facebook.

While these challenges doesn’t change the fact that revenue is low, it does make it difficult to dissect costs in a meaningful way.

Why is revenue so low to begin with?

For starters, a newsfeed with enough content to feed an infinite scroll probably isn’t the best format for these kinds of ads. As a user, when I’m watching the videos and the ad interrupts the experience, I’ve always scrolled right on through to the next item on my feed. It’s a sentiment echoed by one of the publishers in the Digiday story.

Because of that, Facebook’s new Watch program, which creates a content exclusivity not found on the news feed, might produce better results in the future. Either way, Facebook will need to solve this revenue challenge for publishers, or they might pull out of the programs altogether.