What happened to Cointelegraph?

[Pmalek]

Google attacked the iGaming and betting sector last year and put many affiliate companies out of business because their content no longer ranked. Perhaps we are seeing more focus on crypto content with Google's recent core upgrades. What happened to Cointelegraph is probably the result of several things, including algorithmic changes but also a manual penalty of some sort. Whatever it was that Cointelegraph was doing, someone at Google considered it too dangerous, too spammy, and too unnatural.

I wonder if sites and companies impacted negatively by Google can ask the company for support and clarification on how to remove the shadow bans and de-rankings? Something tells me that Google wouldn't help in such cases and would only point to their rules.     

[dkbit98]

Oh I am sure g00gle is just messing around with their algorithm again and they are increasing censorship yet again
I don't follow Cointelegraph or any other crypto news website specifically, but you can probably sign up to newsletter on their website.
It's also a good idea to use some alternative search engine, maybe brave search, qwant, startpage, etc.

[shield132]

I think it has nothing to do with SEO. Even if you enter site:cointelegraph.com you won't get anything in search results. Don't know I'm using right term to call this situation, but it more looks like shadow ban from Google. You can like Cointelegraph or not, but such things from Google isn't something good.
BTW, does people actually use Bing as their main search engine? I remember trying it longtime ago and it was terrible so I never looked back.

Are you sure? I type site:cointelegraph.com and I can see Cointelegraph and its subdomains in Google's search engine but I can't see anything besides subdomains. Here is the screen btw.

I actually use DuckDuckGo, where many of the search result comes from Bing[1]. The result is good enough for what i need, although i occasionally had to use google search when result i can't find what i look from on DuckDuckGo. I also notice more people use Edge (windows default browser) and Bing these days.

[1] https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/sources

I don't use DuckDuckGo because it never gives me good search results. First of all, there aren't local websites in DuckDuckGo but there are global ones, which is good for English information but it gives very bad results even for English information. Google is still the best choice to my mind.

Oh I am sure g00gle is just messing around with their algorithm again and they are increasing censorship yet again

Google is definitely messing up with their algorithm. I asked Google's Gemini about it and as it told me, Google has de-indexed Cointelegraph's pages from Google's search engine and the probable cause is that Google's algoriwth prioritizes E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness). The crypto media has a low E-E-A-T according to Google.
Btw if this is true, then there shouldn't be Coindesk, Cryptonews, CNBC and other crypto news websites too.

I wonder how their Google Search Console looks like and why it takes them so long to fix this problem.

[avp2306]

Oh I am sure g00gle is just messing around with their algorithm again and they are increasing censorship yet again
I don't follow Cointelegraph or any other crypto news website specifically, but you can probably sign up to newsletter on their website.
It's also a good idea to use some alternative search engine, maybe brave search, qwant, startpage, etc.

I think this is one of the reason on why that situation happened to cointelegraph SEO Manipulation Report: Allegations of Finixio and Clickout Media Exploiting CoinTelegraph’s Authority and Misleading Regulators

Infairness to cointelegraph they are doing all those things they can especially for removing their Igaming content and also distancing their site to those blackhat SEO practices.

Looks like it will take lots of time before cointelegraph can fix the current issue they are facing.

[LTU_btc]

Are you sure? I type site:cointelegraph.com and I can see Cointelegraph and its subdomains in Google's search engine but I can't see anything besides subdomains. Here is the screen btw.

Yes, I'm sure because I checked it before posting, but now I see similar results like you got. Strange.

I don't use DuckDuckGo because it never gives me good search results. First of all, there aren't local websites in DuckDuckGo but there are global ones, which is good for English information but it gives very bad results even for English information. Google is still the best choice to my mind.

Yeah, that's probably main reason why I also don't use DuckDuckGo. It's ok when you're using it in English, but when you try to use it in different language, it's difficult to find what you're looking for.

I also notice more people use Edge (windows default browser) and Bing these days.

[1] https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/sources

Didn't knew that, for me it seems that probably 99% of people use Chrome nowadays and Edge sounds like very niche browser.

[albon]

I think this is one of the reason on why that situation happened to cointelegraph SEO Manipulation Report: Allegations of Finixio and Clickout Media Exploiting CoinTelegraph’s Authority and Misleading Regulators

Infairness to cointelegraph they are doing all those things they can especially for removing their Igaming content and also distancing their site to those blackhat SEO practices.

Looks like it will take lots of time before cointelegraph can fix the current issue they are facing.

What the Cointelegraph team did constitutes numerous violations of Google's policies.. If they cared about keeping their website at the top they would have adhered to Google's policies and avoided violating them. The cloaking technique they used was as the article mentioned, one of the main reasons their site disappeared from the search engine, along with manipulative SEO tactics.

Cointelegraph was one of the strong platforms I regularly followed for news and content, and I didn't notice what happened to them in the search engine because I had their website bookmarked and didn’t need to search for it.

I advise everyone to do the same, as phishing sites impersonating them might appear in the search results during their absence. It's also good that many alternatives crypto-news platforms are available in the search engine, so I don't see what happened as an obstacle for the cryptocurrency community.

[AakZaki]

I found information related to Cointelegraph in my local language Indonesian. The News published on June 23, 2025, stated that the Cointelegraph website had been hacked, that the front end of the website had been compromised.
It also stated that the Cointelegraph advertising system contained malicious code.
Then, thinking that it would be easier for my friends here to read, I also looked for information. I searched for the English version and found similar News here.
https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2025/06/23/coinmarketcap-cointelegraph-compromised-to-serve-pop-ups-to-drain-crypto-wallets/

It seems that this is also the cause or Google deliberately set a limit so that it is not visited for the safety of many people.

[Lucius]

For me it's not bad news at all - because I haven't forgotten how they paid shills to spam their links on this forum. Besides, their portal is full of clickbait headlines, half-truths, and all sorts of nonsense, so I don't even understand what people are looking for there? It's not that there aren't other sources from which you can get information in a much better and more professional way.

[ultrloa]

For me it's not bad news at all - because I haven't forgotten how they paid shills to spam their links on this forum. Besides, their portal is full of clickbait headlines, half-truths, and all sorts of nonsense, so I don't even understand what people are looking for there? It's not that there aren't other sources from which you can get information in a much better and more professional way.

And that is part of the illegal practices they made that's why its not surprising to see them experiencing this issue.

But still its important for people to know this situation happened, so they will not fall on phising sites. Since they might find those clone sites offering giveaway if they deposit certain amount which is classic schemes or even other things that can harm those vulnerable individual. Cointelegrap is somehow a big site and lots of people search their site to find latest news about crypto.

[FinneysTrueVision]

Most of the crypto media today is clickbait and AI slop. Cointelegraph is far from being the worst actor when it comes to crypto news websites, but apparently they were doing something shady that went against Google’s rules.

The only part of their website that had some really interesting content was the Magazine subcategory. For everything else, you can get the same news on may other sites. I don’t think such a well known site will completely disappear just like that, but it may take a while before they are allowed back in search results.

I tried to see if they were also excluded from results in AI chatbots and the only one that had Cointelegraph was Grok, while Perplexity only showed results from their Facebook page.

[joniboini]

I just found out from this thread that CT has issues. I guess that's natural, given that I no longer read news from their websites. It looks like Coindesk still appears on the first page, though. If anything, I noticed new websites that I had never seen before in Google search results when I typed in 'crypto news' or something similar. Can't comment on their quality, but it's probably the same quality as other crypto news. Heck, even a single unsourced tweet is reported these days.

I tried to see if they were also excluded from results in AI chatbots and the only one that had Cointelegraph was Grok, while Perplexity only showed results from their Facebook page.

Are they using gemma or other models? If it's gemma or anything related to Google, shouldn't that be expected?

[coin-investor]

I copied one of their headlines and pasted it into Google search; unfortunately, not even their headlines are showing up. This isn't good from the advertiser’s perspective; they only consider platforms with a strong search engine presence, because these visitors are targeted. 
Whatever happened to their search engine ranking, their webmasters should fix it as early as possible, or people will forget what Cointelegraph is and may look for other alternatives.

[shield132]

For me it's not bad news at all - because I haven't forgotten how they paid shills to spam their links on this forum. Besides, their portal is full of clickbait headlines, half-truths, and all sorts of nonsense, so I don't even understand what people are looking for there? It's not that there aren't other sources from which you can get information in a much better and more professional way.

Did they really pay money to shills to spam their links on Bitcointalk? I'm on this forum since 2016 but I've been visiting it since probably 2013-2014, I've never noticed anyone wearing a Cointelegraph's signature. I've noticed that few people have been opening threads with Cointelegraph's articles but I've never thought those were paid posts.

To be fair, I completely agree with you, Cointelegraph is full of clickbait and half-truths but it was the first crypto news website that I discovered in my crypto journey and it became a habit for me to visit it. It's also a widely known crypto news website. I hugely dislike some of their content, especially their market analysis, because 90% of the time it's completely wrong and they change their mind in the next analysis like it was nothing.

[Lucius]

Did they really pay money to shills to spam their links on Bitcointalk? I'm on this forum since 2016 but I've been visiting it since probably 2013-2014, I've never noticed anyone wearing a Cointelegraph's signature. I've noticed that few people have been opening threads with Cointelegraph's articles but I've never thought those were paid posts.
~snip~

There were no sig campaigns, but they paid people who spammed their links, especially in the Press board - and one of them publicly admitted that he was paid to do that. I often see posts that contain their link, but honestly I haven't checked whether someone is doing it systematically or just has a habit of visiting that portal like you.

You may know about Bitcoinmagazine, but if you don't, I think it's a good alternative for news from the world of cryptocurrency.

[avp2306]

Did they really pay money to shills to spam their links on Bitcointalk? I'm on this forum since 2016 but I've been visiting it since probably 2013-2014, I've never noticed anyone wearing a Cointelegraph's signature. I've noticed that few people have been opening threads with Cointelegraph's articles but I've never thought those were paid posts.
~snip~

There were no sig campaigns, but they paid people who spammed their links, especially in the Press board - and one of them publicly admitted that he was paid to do that. I often see posts that contain their link, but honestly I haven't checked whether someone is doing it systematically or just has a habit of visiting that portal like you.

You may know about Bitcoinmagazine, but if you don't, I think it's a good alternative for news from the world of cryptocurrency.

I didn't know about those actions they made in this forum, but looking at what they do towards SEO exploitation they have done before it seems that those things has really a basis that's why Cointelegraph now suffering from the penalties given by google to them.

Cointelegraph decline traffic badly decline as what we can see here Cointelegraph Traffic Collapse last October as the effect of this situation happens to them

Bitcoinmagazine is indeed a great alternative aside from cointelegraph since they are also good source information.

[shield132]

You may know about Bitcoinmagazine, but if you don't, I think it's a good alternative for news from the world of cryptocurrency.

I've heard Bitcoinmanagine but I was never their user. I'm mostly visiting to decrypt.co, coindesk and cointelegraph. Btw do you remember CCN? In 2017 it became very popular and then it quickly faded away.

I didn't know about those actions they made in this forum, but looking at what they do towards SEO exploitation they have done before it seems that those things has really a basis that's why Cointelegraph now suffering from the penalties given by google to them.

What did they do to exploit SEO? Were they doing blackhat seo? I highly doubt that they were buying guest posts and other types of backlinks. Btw it's very strange that company, that probably gets half of its traffic from Google, doesn't make a public announcement about what happened to them in Google and despite the fact that months have passed, a company with hundreds of employees still hasn't fixed the problem. I wonder who is their SEO specialist and why there is no action from them.

P.S. Guys, please don't post here if you don't have any important news regarding Cointelegraph.

[Lucius]

I've heard Bitcoinmanagine but I was never their user. I'm mostly visiting to decrypt.co, coindesk and cointelegraph. Btw do you remember CCN? In 2017 it became very popular and then it quickly faded away.
~snip~

I remember that news portal, especially since its name reminded me of a popular US portal/TV channel. Decrypt is also a good source of information, I sometimes read a good article there. Honestly, I don't see much point in reading more than two such portals, because realistically, when you look at it, they mostly like repetitive content, but you just have to determine who is the fastest in publishing the article. Websites that have one or two authors can hardly compete with those that have 5+ authors.

[Zwei]

I didn't know about those actions they made in this forum, but looking at what they do towards SEO exploitation they have done before it seems that those things has really a basis that's why Cointelegraph now suffering from the penalties given by google to them.

Cointelegraph decline traffic badly decline as what we can see here Cointelegraph Traffic Collapse last October as the effect of this situation happens to them

they fucked around with all the gambling affiliates spam shit and found out.
and if my memory is not failing me, last year google went after authority websites that were gaming the ranking by sposored articles filled with affiliates links.

this entire thing should remind people whose business model depends on google traffic, you are 100% at their mercy, one algorithm update or a penalty and you are fucked.

What did they do to exploit SEO? Were they doing blackhat seo? I highly doubt that they were buying guest posts and other types of backlinks.

my guess is all the gambling affiliates spam they had, i mean, if that wasn't what got them here, they would not have nuked off their website. that's the only explanation i can think of with the info we have.

I wonder who is their SEO specialist and why there is no action from them.

cointelegraph probably fired him, lol.

[avp2306]

I didn't know about those actions they made in this forum, but looking at what they do towards SEO exploitation they have done before it seems that those things has really a basis that's why Cointelegraph now suffering from the penalties given by google to them.

What did they do to exploit SEO? Were they doing blackhat seo? I highly doubt that they were buying guest posts and other types of backlinks. Btw it's very strange that company, that probably gets half of its traffic from Google, doesn't make a public announcement about what happened to them in Google and despite the fact that months have passed, a company with hundreds of employees still hasn't fixed the problem. I wonder who is their SEO specialist and why there is no action from them.

P.S. Guys, please don't post here if you don't have any important news regarding Cointelegraph.

Yes they do that blackhat SEO schemes which involve iGaming and manipulative redirects.

They tried to fix their issue by cutting out their ties with exploitive partners and erase their gambling related contents.

But it seems they struggle to solve that issue because the problem is not technical but rather their reputation on Google has been damage, that's why they still experiencing these issues. This case now is up to Google now if there's re-evaluation happens. Also if cointelegraph can maintain their site clean maybe by this time Google will return everything back to normal.

[shield132]

they fucked around with all the gambling affiliates spam shit and found out.
and if my memory is not failing me, last year google went after authority websites that were gaming the ranking by sposored articles filled with affiliates links.

this entire thing should remind people whose business model depends on google traffic, you are 100% at their mercy, one algorithm update or a penalty and you are fucked.

Which crypto casinos were they promoting? Btw aren't all of the crypto casino review websites full of sponsored articles filled with affiliate links? I checked casino guru and a few other similar websites, they aren't banned in the Google search engine.

P.S Update
I did deep research today about Cointelegraph and its effective removal from Google. Cointelegraph partnered with Clickout Media to manage the iGaming section on the website. Cointelegraph took advantage of its website's ranking and published third-party pages to abuse the search rankings of Clickout Media. Cointelegraph didn't become a victim of Google's algorithm update. Most likely, Google enforced Site Reputation Abuse violations against Cointelegraph through manual actions.

Despite the fact that they quickly removed iGaming from their website, they are still punished by Google.