👩🏻‍💻 Here's a prediction for the future of my site...

Happy Monday, Reader

I hope your week is off to a good start! I wanted to talk about something different today: did you hear about the big Google data leak a few weeks ago?

I'm not surprised if you didn't; it wasn't big news outside the circles of people like me who run websites (or those who help people run websites). But it was big news within those circles, because it's the first time ever that information about how Google's search system actually works.

(If you want to dive deep, here are the two websites that broke the leak.)

Now I haven't shared it much, but I run a couple of different (smaller) sites about other travel topics. You might know this because I have a site dedicated to the same topic (astrotourism) that I wrote a book for Lonely Planet about. Or, you may have stumbled upon my sites dedicated to helping you visit London or Jordan. The important point here is that in the last 9 months, basically all of my sites have lost a lot of traffic – including this one (V&V). V&V has lost the least of any other site, but my traffic is now lower than at any point in 2023.

I've been trying to understand why this happened: arguably my site is bigger (covers more topics), better (in greater detail), and more helpful than ever. This is what Google says they want, but it hasn't been working.

Then the leak happened.

Turns out, Google has a number of ways of classifying sites like mine, including a tag they call "smallPersonalSite." Now I don't know if that tag is on any (or all) of my sites, but I can tell you that a lot of people in my situation have stopped blogging altogether as a result of how much traffic they've lost.

What about me? Well, at this point, I have about a year's worth of savings in my business bank account that will allow me to continue blogging, but I'm honestly not sure what the future will hold.

Google seems hell-bent on putting "smallPersonalSite" owners out of business by decreasing our traffic so much that we have to go find other means of making a living.

Now I don't want to stop running my blog. I love this site, and I love the community of people I've connected with through it. But I can't keep at it if it doesn't make enough to help keep a roof over my head and Baby V fed and cared for.

So what can we do? Here's what I've done, and I'd love your support in the same:

If you're not happy with the results you're seeing in Google lately, consider switching to a different search engine. I tried Bing first but found it too messy – I've really liked DuckDuckGo and it's easy to find my site (all of my sites!) if you search for topics I've covered there.
Connect with me in other ways. My Facebook page is a very vibrant spot, and my Instagram is growing too. On both, I share tons of Alaska travel content, just as I do here via email.
Please recommend my site to others. If you hear of someone who wants to visit Alaska (or anywhere else I cover), I'd really appreciate if you can recommend they check out my site. Even if they take your referral and go to Google and search "Alaska valerie and valise," that signals to Google that my site is helpful and maybe they'll give me more traffic again someday.

For now, I'm not going anywhere on this site – I'm committed to helping people visit Alaska and other parts of the American West for a long as I can responsibly do so and still help provide for my family.

But the future is uncertain, and I didn't want it to be a surprise if my plans changed someday.

Thanks for sticking with me – and trusting me – to help you plan your trip. Here's hoping for many more years of the same!

✌️❤️✈️,

P.S. If you just want some travel stories this week, here are three random ones from my archive:

Don't forget: you can find "weekly recap" post(s) on my Instagram or Facebook page; that's where I share links to all the stories I've posted in the last week(ish!).