In August, Canadian financial technology company Hardbacon announced that it had filed for bankruptcy.
A series of Google updates caused the site’s traffic to drop by more than 90%. The site relied heavily on affiliate marketing revenue and could not survive without traffic from Google, and it ceased operations not long after.
Founder Julian Brault shared this news LinkedInThe real problem, explained, is that a new update from Google caused Hardbacon’s traffic to quadruple immediately after declaring bankruptcy. And this sudden surge shows no signs of slowing down.
But by then, it was all “too little, too late” – just a cruelly ironic cherry on top of misfortune.
“To be honest, this bankruptcy is even more heartbreaking because I know that those who got Hardbacon at a ridiculously low price are going to get rich off the back of me and our 2,000 investors,” Brault wrote.
Unfortunately, this story has become almost commonplace over the past year, ever since Google introduced its Helpful Content Updates and Site Reputation Abuse Policy. In the same article, Brault said he wasn’t sure he had “what it takes to rebuild, even if our traffic resumes.”
Brooke SchaafFMTC CEO revealed that he had heard similar emotions From other affiliates who suffered the same fate.
I was eager to learn more about Brault’s experience, so I sat down with the entrepreneur for a 30-minute chat, in which he revealed how Google impacted his affiliate business and his thoughts on why this happened. Thoughts on the situation, and whether affiliate marketing still has momentum. In the tank.
“Google decided this is the end of affiliate marketing”
After the launch of the Helpful Content Update (HCU) in September 2023, Hardbacon noticed that its traffic was almost in free fall, declining rapidly.
To stave off bankruptcy, Brault and his team began producing more content for partners, sometimes offering content directly on partner sites.
“That kept us alive for almost a year,” Brault noted.
The second plan is to manage affiliated sections of unaffected media sites. But that was interrupted by an update on the site’s reputation abuse, which Brault described as “a big bombshell.”