Google employee John Mueller stated on Reddit that sometimes there is no SEO solution that would make a site rank better.
Mueller wrote about this in a discussion on whether to hire an SEO expert to identify problems with the site and help improve its ranking in search results. The author of the question said that he lost all traffic six years ago. “I just posted blog posts, didn’t add any code, etc. and didn’t do link building.”
In response, Mueller noted that SEO does not help in all cases. Given that the site lost all traffic a few years ago, SEO is unlikely to help, Google says.
He suggested that the site strategy was outdated. A lot has changed in six years, and the site may simply not correspond to the current reality.
“Sometimes it’s not a technical problem, not something that can be improved just by buying a batch of links, sometimes it’s just because the site strategy is already outdated,” explained Mueller.
Over the years, the information posted on the site may have lost its relevance. If the site owner posts content that no one else is interested in, then SEO is unlikely to help. A site can use SEO best practices, but it doesn’t matter if no one is looking for it, notes NIXSolutions.
“You can have a fantastic site, super fast, with ‘high authority and reliability’ (whatever you call it), but if you sell VHS tapes, you’re going to have bad times. This is more obvious when it comes to a physical product, but if content is your product, then so is it,” wrote Mueller.
Google is rarely skeptical about SEO, which makes Mueller’s comment particularly noteworthy.