A switch from Search to Direct traffic from Feb 2012
-
I have read about the Google algorithm updates galore in 2012. I would therefore be inclined to suspect a sudden sharp drop in Search traffic this year to be caused by such updates. However, I am seeing what appears to be a direct switch from 'Search' to 'Direct' traffic as of about February 16th this year.
There are no specific brand-building exercises or general advertising campaigns happening around this time for the site in question. It seems very UN-explainable?
I wondered if there are any thoughts from the various lurking gurus? I have attached GA screenshot..
-
for sure, all the best
-
It looks as though the site lost most of its LongTail traffic... Feb 1st-15th showing 131 different keyterms and Feb 16th-28th showing just 35. At the same time the traffic from branded search terms reduced significantly across the many variations.
For the mentioned time periods, Direct Traffic was virtually double in the second period.
With the drop in search/longtail and the perfectly coinciding jump in direct traffic, as a whole the site traffic remained roughly on trend. Very strange! It has remained this way ever since.
Thanks for the advice - Keyword analysis suggests some work could be done to re-introduce what has been lost there. As for that coinciding Direct traffic jump... I need to dig into that some more to fathom it. Wish me luck.
-
Do some keyword analysis. Drill down in the analytics reports and review the keyword data to see any trends. Also take a look at where the traffic is coming from (Geo target). We had a similar situation where the direct traffic spiked for a client and it was because the development team was based in that location and they were accessing the site a lot. If that is the case you can filter that traffic using the IP's.
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
-
Paid traffic or "Paid Search" is not showing in my Google Analytics
Hi, I have two campaigns running in Google Adwords or Google Ads now and I saw in Google Ads account that I had 5 clicks today (09/18/2018) but when I try to search for this clicks in my Google Analytics in ACQUISITION > All Traffic > Channels I don't find nothing about "Paid Search" or something like that. Bellow is a picture of my Google Analytics account to prove it. The accounts are linked and I can find the 2 campaigns in the Analytics. How can I interpret this picture? Where the paid traffic is showing? or not showing there? Thanks Leandro uvAtrsg
Reporting & Analytics | | lmoraes0 -
Search traffic hit after switching magazine to subdomain
Hi there, I'm fairly new at all of this and would appreciate any help with understanding why our website has taken a hit in traffic. We curate an online magazine, which was previously accessible through: forensicoutreach.com. It was receiving about 2,000+ unique visitors per day up until a week ago, when we changed a few things. However, the magazine doesn't reflect what our business does, so we created a product-focused web presence on forensicoutreach.com, and moved the magazine (which everyone loved) to library.forensicoutreach.com (DA 37, PA 1). We thought separating the properties was a good idea, but now I'm not so sure. Our traffic on library.forensicoutreach.com is 1,500 (so 500 less than usual!) and our main property has about 56 unique visits a day. It's pretty substantial. A few questions: 1. If we move the library to forensicoutreach.com/library, will that make any difference? 2. Where did we go wrong here and how can we fix it? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
Reporting & Analytics | | shivaniseos1 -
How to get multiple pages to appear under main url in search - photo attached
How do you get a site to have an organized site map under the main url when it is searched as in the example photo? SIte-map.png
Reporting & Analytics | | marketingmediamanagement0 -
Universal Analytics: Why does Google Organic appear as Direct traffic?
Hi there, When I enter the site via Google Search and follow myself via Real-Time Analytics I appear an organic visitor (which is good). When I browse and visit the site I still am an organic visitor. However, as soon as I fill in the contact form (gravity forms) and land on the "thank you page" I appear as a direct visitor with Google as the source. Since I have the thank you page set-up as a goal, Analytics incorrectly attributes these conversions to the direct medium instead of the organic medium. The tracking code has been installed on all the pages and all conversions are being recorded. What is going on?
Reporting & Analytics | | Robbern0 -
Why would our client's site be receiving significant levels of organic traffic for a keyword they do not rank for?
We have a client that has received 100+ organic visits for the keyword 'airport transfers', yet the site does not rank in the top 100 search results for this keyword. We have checked that it is not untagged PPC traffic. Truly baffling. Can anybody help?
Reporting & Analytics | | mrdavidingram0 -
Why is my traffic dropping so hard?
Hi guys, My traffic has been dropping pretty hard from just over 3k to around 250 in the last few days. I've ran a few tests using Google webmaster tools and Open Site Explorer, as well as answering a pretty cool quiz that was created by an SEO to determine if I'm the victim of any Google updates etc, and everything is looking okay... What do you think could be causing this issue? We're only just gearing up to start on a SEO campaign. At the moment no SEO is being done other than just casual blogging. CcZoXP7.png
Reporting & Analytics | | featherseo0 -
GA stopped tracking traffic, suddenly, why¿? :-/
2 days ago GA stopped receiving data. It only stopped for one account of all my projects. At this moment there are 5 persons navigating the site and these days there where numerous visitors as they contacted the support team thru the site. GA says that it's receiving the code, hw, I checked it twice. The tracking code is located below the footer, in the body. It was there for few years.... I also checked if there is some js conflict, negative. Is there something that could make the tracking to stop? Does anybody experienced similar problems¿? Should I be worried...¿? (and with SEOmoz server with issues not sure when will see new results.......) EDIT: In Web Master Tools I see results for indexing, with yesterday date, so I assume that the site crawling is ok and must be GA issue.
Reporting & Analytics | | MilosMilcom0 -
Google Places Over Reporting Directions Requests to a Business
I posted a screenshot of a client's Google Places profile reporting strange statistics for driving/direction requests to my website. The post is here: http://www.hoodwebmanagement.com/2054/weird-google-places-statistics/. Full info is there but I have attached a screenshot here as well. I'm wondering if anyone has seen this error with another local business - especially a local business that shares its exact address with another business, since I think that is the cause. weird-google-places-statistics.png?d407e3 weird-google-places-statistics.png?d407e3
Reporting & Analytics | | KaneJamison0