Two months ago I posted a list of 61 QUBO formulations and cited every single one (which resulted in 33 links to papers) [0].
After seeing this post get crawled by Google, my traffic dropped permanently by more than 50%. It has also stopped growing (which it did before). Of course, afterwards I noticed my mistake (I suppose Google thought I had become somewhat of a 'link spamming' site?!). Hindsight is 20/20.
But I refuse to remove this page, since I find it extremely resourceful and use it all the time in projects (I work on a Quantum Computing startup) and to send that list to others.<p>I guess the point of this post is two-fold:<p>1. What does HN think about Google aggressively deranking people due to one simple mistake? Could others share their stories?<p>2. Is there anything I can do to get back my original traffic without removing this post? Should I remove the links and just keep the text citation? Did I fuck up permanently, with Google flagging my site or something?<p>Appreciate any input.<p>[0]: https://blog.xa0.de/post/List-of-QUBO-formulations/
You might try adding rel="nofollow", but I doubt it will change much. These are reputable sources you actually recommend, so this may not be the best solution. You can also try loading up on structured data.<p>The non-gamey way to approach this would be to expand your content by adding a summaries and comparisons. This is what I imagine Google wants to see. Aside from improving metrics like time on page and external links vs unique content, you'll be addressing the underlying factors they're trying to measure - unique, useful content which users can't get elsewhere.<p>GoogleBot can be fickle. Consistently publish more content, worry less about sudden variations.<p>You can also fix one webfont issue here:<p><a href="https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fblog.xa0.de%2Fpost%2FList-of-QUBO-formulations%2F" rel="nofollow">https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?url=...</a>