Forbes Advisor faces significant drop in Google search rankings

On September 30, 2024, data from SEO experts revealed a significant drop in Google search rankings for Forbes Advisor, the affiliate marketing arm of Forbes. This decline comes just days after a scathing exposé on the company's SEO practices and amid updates to Google's site reputation abuse policy.

According to SEO analyst Glenn Gabe, Forbes Advisor experienced a substantial decrease in search visibility starting September 25, 2024. Gabe reported on social media platform X that "1.7M queries have dropped in rank (or are lost)" for the site. The decline affected multiple sections of Forbes Advisor, including health, credit cards, banking, and car insurance.

This downturn follows a September 18 article by Lars Lofgren, titled Forbes Marketplace: The Parasite SEO Company Trying to Devour Its Host. In his piece, Lofgren detailed how Forbes Marketplace, a separate entity from Forbes, had rapidly expanded its presence in Google search results across various niches since 2020.

According to Lofgren's investigation, Forbes Marketplace operates under the Forbes Advisor brand but is a distinct company with Forbes owning only a minority stake. Lofgren estimated that Forbes Marketplace could be generating between $300-400 million in annual revenue from its SEO efforts.

The timing of the rankings drop coincides with Google's recent update to its spam guidelines, which now provide more detail about site reputation abuse. This policy aims to prevent third parties from exploiting the reputation of established domains to manipulate search rankings.

Barry Schwartz, a prominent SEO expert, speculated that Forbes Advisor might have been hit with a manual action by Google. Manual actions are penalties applied by Google's team when a site is found to violate the search engine's guidelines.

Google's Search Liaison, Danny Sullivan, previously stated that the site reputation abuse policy would be manually enforced "for a long time." This suggests that Google may be taking direct action against sites it believes are violating this policy.

The decline in Forbes Advisor's search visibility raises questions about the sustainability of certain SEO strategies and the potential risks of relying heavily on a single domain's authority across multiple niches.

As of September 30, 2024, neither Forbes nor Google had publicly commented on the situation. It remains unclear whether this drop in rankings is temporary or if it signals a longer-term shift in Google's treatment of Forbes Advisor content.

Key facts

• Forbes Advisor experienced a significant drop in Google search rankings starting September 25, 2024
• The decline affected multiple sections, including health, credit cards, banking, and car insurance
• This follows a September 18 exposé on Forbes Marketplace's SEO practices
• Google recently updated its spam guidelines with more details on site reputation abuse
• SEO experts speculate this could be a manual action by Google
• Forbes Marketplace is estimated to generate $300-400 million in annual revenue from its SEO efforts