In August, the Canadian fintech company Hardbacon announced that it would be filing for bankruptcy.
An enfilade of Google updates had tanked the site’s traffic by over 90%. Having largely relied on affiliate revenue, the site could not prevail without Google’s traffic, and it didn’t take long for operations to cease.
Founder Julien Brault shared the news on LinkedIn, explaining the real kicker was that immediately after declaring bankruptcy, a new Google update caused Hardbacon’s traffic to quadruple. And this sudden surge has shown no sign of slowing down.
But by that point, it was “too little too late” – just a cruelly ironic cherry on top of the misfortune.
“To be honest, this bankruptcy is even more heartbreaking knowing that those who get their hands on Hardbacon at a ridiculously low price will get rich on my back and that of our 2000 investors,” Brault wrote.
Unfortunately, it’s a story that has become almost commonplace over the past year, since Google launched its helpful content update and site reputation abuse policy. In the same post, Brault stated that he was not sure if he has “what it takes to rebuild, even if our traffic returns.”
Brook Schaaf, CEO of FMTC, revealed he had heard similar sentiments from other affiliates suffering the same fate.
Curious to hear more about Brault’s experiences, I sat down for a 30-minute chat with the entrepreneur, in which he divulged all about how Google impacted his affiliate business, his thoughts on why this is happening, and whether affiliate marketing has any fuel left in the tank.
“Google decided it was the end of affiliate”
Following the Helpful Content Update (HCU) rollout in September 2023, Hardbacon noticed that its traffic was virtually in freefall, declining at a rapid rate.
In order to avoid bankruptcy, Brault and his team began working on more content for partners, sometimes delivering the content directly on the partner site.
“That allowed us to survive for almost a year,” Brault notes.
The second plan was to manage the affiliate sections of media sites that had not been affected. But this was interrupted by the site reputation abuse update, which Brault describes as “a big bomb.”