Update, or wither

The Internet isn’t just a valuable tool for businesses and organizations. Nowadays, the Internet can actually become a make-or-break situation.

Case in point is the National Historic Route 66 Federation. It played a role in the passage of the National Route 66 Corridor Preservation Act in 1999. It sells maps, guidebooks and collectibles of the Mother Road. Until a few years ago, it organized an annual Route 66 festival. The Federation exists as one of Route 66’s most-crucial organizations.

However, Federation Executive Director David Knudson explained in a recent letter to members that its quarterly Federation News magazine would go on hiatus for several issues. Knudson said the Federation has seen a “significant” drop in income over the past year. Part of the reason, he said, is “people aren’t purchasing like they used to” on its website.

Another reason for the income drop, Knudson said, was the website’s “antiquated technology” has caused it to lose “first-page” ranking on Google searches of “Route 66.” So he is hiring a top website designer in an effort to rectify the situation — “a gentleman who will design it to capture significantly more sales from all of those visitors and reposition it on search engines.” That “very expensive” outlay is why publication of the Federation News is suspended.

In an e-mail, Knudson explained that the Federation’s Google ranking ebbed in the past year. He said the site once received 80,000 to 100,000 page views a month. It’s down to 20,000. That has to hurt the bottom line.

I’ve surfed Route 66 sites for well over a decade. Ten years ago, the National Historic Route 66 Federation consistently ranked in the top three for “Route 66” queries of any search engine you can name, including Google’s.

I typed “Route 66” into a Google search over the weekend, and was shocked to find the Federation’s website had dropped to the second page of the rankings and into the 20s overall.

The situation didn’t prove to be any better at Bing, where the Federation’s website wasn’t listed until the fourth page. It was far worse at Yahoo!, where I couldn’t find the Federation even after 20 pages.

Google commands two-thirds of Internet searches. Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft searches make up nearly 95 percent of the market. So, if you have a website and you’re doing poorly in search engine rankings, you’ve got problems.

As a person who’s in the Internet retail and marketing business, here in my opinion is what happened to the Federation:

  1. Route 66 has become a lot more competitive as a search term. Ten years ago, a “Route 66” search in Google brought up 110,000 results. Today, the total is more than 16 million. It’s tougher to rank near the top.
  2. The National Historic Route 66 Federation website hasn’t been substantially updated in years. Google and the other search engines value freshness (how often the site is updated) and relevance (i.e., the number of sites that link to a site). If a site isn’t updated often, its rankings in both criteria will invariably suffer.
  3. One way to boost relevance with Google is to set up social-media sites bringing in links, such as Facebook,  Twitter and a blog. The Federation owns a Facebook account, but no new posts have been written there since August. The Federation isn’t on Twitter, and it doesn’t have a blog.

I hope the Federation’s new webmaster straightens out its problems. Once a site drops in the Google rankings, it’s a tough slog to get back near the top. The Federation serves a valuable function for Route 66; we want it to prosper.

This grave situation serves as a cautionary tale for anyone who has a presence on the World Wide Web: You must update your content, or Google can make an already-stagnant website literally wither away.

7 thoughts on “Update, or wither

  1. There are some great points raised here, especially in the last paragraph; I’ve learned from my own experience the importance of website updating.

    As it concerns the Feds, my gut feeling leads me to believe that their involvement with 66 was done begrudgingly (as in “if we have the money, the time, and nothing better to do).

    After all, the Interstate system was and still is “the way forward,” period.

    And thus, in the spirit of keeping the politics aside, I come to this Route 66 blog looking for a way around the marginalization that the Mother Road has been given by Officialdom and its lacky media.

  2. First of all, THE #1 reason for their pitfalls and many others, is relevant content, and consistently updated! If you’re not willing to put the effort into constantly updated content, you’re absolutely doomed on the internet today. Ratings, rankings and popularity change on an almost daily basis now on the internet. You can waste a lot of money paying big bucks for so-called website or web-builder experts, but in the end it’s YOUR website, and YOU have to be the one constantly updating it with content relevant to your targeted audience.

    Next is your search engine keywords, in what are called meta tags or meta names, and help to direct your site to it’s intended readers or customers.

    You could have the coolest, hippest, most expensive website on the internet, but in the end, if YOU don’t keep it relevant and updated, someone will come along with a very cheap or even free website, and out page rank you every single time. And time is what you must spend!

    1. This is an educated guess on my part, RT, but I suspect that David doesn’t know HOW to update his website. If so, it would explain a lot.

  3. The National Historic Route 66 Federation was my first stop when I got interested in the road for personal and professional reasons. I joined at a level higher than necessary, and was an avid supporter, and it is with no ill will and some sadness that I realized it was pretty much irrelevant from day one.

    The only updates to the site were to add the latest book/DVD to the shopping section, or details on the next convention they sponsored. That’s understandable. I don’t think David ever claimed to be a journalist, or web guru, or anything other than a guy who really loved the road and had both the time and money to set the organization up for the good of us all.

    As interest in Route 66, and the number of dollars spent accordingly, has grown, the Federation has remained pretty stagnant, and in fact retreated a bit by not producing the Steinbeck awards banquets, and from what you say, not even publishing the newsletter/magazine any more.

    IMHO, the 66 News was the Federation’s greatest asset. It combined wonderful oral histories with some incredibly well researched and written pieces (Yeah, I am talking about you Dave Clark) that serve as important datapoints and documents for future scholars. I’m just guessing here, but I would assume the only pay involved for these writers was a year’s subscription, and that is both sad and wrong on a lot of levels. No disrespect to David, but the world moved on, and for all his good intentions, when it comes to all things 66, he is pretty much like me. “Oh yeah, that guy.”

    Others, if I may pat you on the ass and call you Sally a bit, have picked up the gauntlet and ran with it. I have told you several times that this site is the BEST one stop shop for anyone looking for up to date info on Route 66, whether it is driving directions, dining recommendations, or just getting swung hip to knowing a bridge is out until Tuesday in god knows where Oklahoma. I refer people here almost every day, and frequently drop your name with grad students in bars, and I gotta tell you, that shit just ain’t working out the way I figured.

    I hope the Federation can continue on its heartfelt and self financed mission, and I wish David nothing but the best. I swear what they need right now is an intern with a really bad Starbucks habit.

  4. Well, I don’t know if it’s a pride thing or not, but if asked, I’m sure there’s plenty of people out there that could help for almost nothing?

    Mix it up with open collaboration and a much wider display of offered items on a regular basis. There’s plenty of different t-shirts, hats and other items that could be on there, and the more you can offer, the more likely people will purchase at least one of those items.

    As a reoccuring theme they could add a news page, with updates on preservation efforts or projects, which would add needed updated content. An event calendar is another way to continually add updated content. As you know, all of these things could be done with the site they already have, instead of having to revamp the entire thing or paying for a big bucks type site. But in the end, someone has to DO the work, even if they have to learn more to be able to do it, and not just pay someone else that may not have a long term vested interest in the project? I wish them well, but if it’s their personal interest, I hope they take the time to learn how to do it themselves along the way somehow, or find one of their members to volunteer the time on their own, that already may have the know how…

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