News Outlet Giant Freakin’ Robot Shuts Down Amidst Google Troubles

The publisher primarily relied on programmatic advertising and very occasionally affiliate links. Google algorithm changes tanked the site’s visibility and in turn, its revenue.

Yet another independent publisher has ceased operations on its official website, due to plunging Google traffic. The entertainment news outlet Giant Freakin’ Robot has announced it will be shutting down, after seeing traffic plummet from 20 million views per month to just a few thousand.

Last night, the site’s owner Josh Tyler posted an article explaining the decision. Like many publishers relying on Google SEO, Tyler had noticed a serious drop in traffic over the past year.

Tyler states that independent publishers like Giant Freakin’ Robot “don’t fit in with the search monopoly’s new business model” – a revelation he came to after being invited to the Google offices along with nineteen other publishers to discuss SEO problems.

Tyler’s humorous and borderline surreal account of the trip to Google’s HQ is a thoroughly interesting read. At this meeting, Google made it clear that it was prioritising larger brands in its search results. Googlers here did not advise how publishers could recover, instead offering ambiguous timelines around potential saviour updates in the distant future.

It seems that the disappointment of this meeting was the final nail in the coffin for the publisher, as the site’s closure was announced less than a week later.

Giant Freakin’ Robot appeared to generate revenue primarily through programmatic advertising, which was at least at one time leveraged via Playwire’s RAMP platform. Affiliate links were used sparingly, according to the site’s Terms of Use.

While Giant Freakin’ Robot will discontinue publishing on the website, it will continue on YouTube, which Tyler calls a “fantastic platform” and “one of the few that still rewards hard work and experience.”

What does this mean for affiliate/performance marketers?

As we’ve explored before, Google’s demolition of certain publishers this year is a result of various factors, including the Helpful Content Update, site reputation abuse policy, Reddit partnership, and expansion into AI search.

We’ve spoken to fintech publishers like Julien Brault, Founder of Hardbacon, who saw his site collapse after the updates; we’ve also talked to coupon publishers like Savings United, impacted by the site reputation abuse policy.

While some have struggled or fallen, others are performing very well in light of these changes. VoucherCodes, for example, has excelled not only in standard search results but also in AI-generated results.

SEO is a tricky game and the events of this year have made one thing certain – do not rely on it as your only source of traffic and definitely don’t rely on it for revenue.