Organic Search dropped 50% Wednesday and has not recovered
-
I've included two charts below. 1. Our organic search results for the last year and, 2. Results for the last 6 weeks.
We were up to about 350 visits per day in June 2011. In late june we added affiliate links to our site and took a hit down to about 120 a day.
At the end of august we moved the affiliate links behind a login. Only registered users saw them. And we started moving back up.
Last week January 8-14 we were averaging about 550 per day.
Then this Wednesday we dropped to 287. Thursday 268. And today is under 100.
We have not updated our website at all. No changes.
Does anyone have any idea what might have caused this plunge. Has anyone else seen their traffic drop in half.
Thanks for your help.
-
Looks a bit like panda too, that sharp drop. How is your content? thin, duplicated, templated, non-unique?
edit: you didnt do anything but you did move affiliate links behind logins? Better go double check you didnt screw something else up unintentionally when doing that
What does you IIS/Xenu crawl say?
S
-
I bet its becuase you have ads above the fold.
Quite a few websites got hit becuase of this, and I setup two websites a few months back one with ads below content and one with above. the one above the fold got stuck down!
-
I agree with Kieran. Don't panic over one day change, but do check your bandwidth usage, in case there was a problem at your ISP you are not aware of. Also, check your analytics or logs. There may be a deadspot due to connectivity. Did you update any software? add or change a plugin? Do you have ads or other external javascript from other sites that may have hung your pages and stopped visitors coming?
-
Hi James
A big drop in a few days indeed but it might just be a temporary thing. I would give it a few more days and see if ti continues then send on a link and maybe we can help you dig. have your rankings dropped as significantly?
-
Do you have a lot of ads above the fold? Google released a new update yesterday and you may be in the 1%.
-
Hi James,
Couple of questions which might help us..
What does your backlink profile look like?
You mentioned you havent updated your website. When was the last website update? And how often do you add new content?
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Blog-posts pages are dominating in search console "Internal Links". Only home-page at top!
Hi all, Ours is WordPress website and we have a blog...website.com/blog/. All the important pages in the website are well linked from top and footer menu. But in our webmasters...internal links section, only homepage is at the top. Blog-posts are others followed by homepage. I wonder why blog pages are dominating our website pages. Please give your suggestions on this. Do you think Google will give more priority for the blog-posts than website pages as they are more linked technically? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz1 -
Bounce rate seems to decrease as site climbs the SERP but SERP ranking always drops down after a few days - WHY ?
Like quite a few sites recently we've seen some large fluctuations for our domain the SERPs over the past 6 or so weeks. One thing ive noticed, is that when the site seems to rank higher in the SERPs we get a lower bounce rate. If the sites average across all of its main keywords in #5 the bounce rate is c. 40% (this site is a creative portfolio site, so i guess the niche has a slightly higher bounce rate than normal as you will get some people who click through an notice straight away that the style of the portfolio isnt what they where looking for) But when the sites ranking averages #2-3 the bounce rate tends to be about 25%. (The thing is that we tend to always drop back down after a fews days or so) Has any one else noticed this ?
Algorithm Updates | | jpeg801 -
Can a page be 100% topically relevant to a search query?
Today's YouMoz post, Accidental SEO Tests: When On-Page Optimization Ceases to Matter, explores the theory that there is an on-page optimization saturation point, "beyond which further on-page optimization no longer improves your ability to rank" for the keywords/keyword topics you are targeting. In other words, you can optimize your page for search to the point that it is 100% topically relevant to query and intent. Do you believe there exists such a thing as a page that is 100% topically relevant? What are your thoughts regarding there being an on-page optimization saturation point, beyond which further on-page optimization no longer improves your ability to rank? Let's discuss!
Algorithm Updates | | Christy-Correll1 -
My site dropped from 1st to 5th Pagna google br
My site dropped from 1st to 5th Pagna google br mented in the key word, how can I find out why at and what to do to get back? He fell after he put the google analytic code on all pages of the site, it may have acid? Meu site caiu da 1º para a 5º Pagna do google br em tadas as palavra chaves, como posso descobrir o motivo e oque fazer para voltar ? Ele caiu depois que coloquei o codigo do google analytic em todas as paginas do site, pode ter cido isso ?
Algorithm Updates | | Guedes0 -
Website dance on Google Map results and organic seo results
My website is daily showing different position on maps.google.com and for the last few days like yesterday it was on 21st position on some keyword and today it is no where and same with other keywords. Is this a Google Dance ?? what can be its period ? and what is tyhe solution to handle it ??
Algorithm Updates | | mnkpso0 -
Ranking drop Feb 2013?
I'm trying to get to the bottom of why Directholidays.co.uk suffered a drop in rankings for the term "cheap holidays" in February 2013. Im looking at this recently and as an outsider so I haven't got access to Webmaster tools and I haven't been tracking rankings/link profiling. They moved from 2nd to 10th temporarily and then recovered at 7th the new 10th! I've looked at keywords improved/declined on, keywords lost/gained, traffic, traffic price but im failing to see exactly what I can use to show whether Panda #24 (officially 22nd of January) had a significant effect. Can anyone shed any light on this? It would be massively appreciated!
Algorithm Updates | | eolithicproductions0 -
What is the most reliable source for search engine market share?
I would like to look at data or sources to get the most accurate measure I can on search engine market share. Does anyone have reliable sources on search engine volume/market share etc?
Algorithm Updates | | MarloSchneider0 -
Recovered From The Panda Update?
Does anyone know if there are websites that have recovered from the Panda update?
Algorithm Updates | | dirkla0