When my new website went live I saw a huge spike in traffic for 3 weeks but then it halved again. Why would this happen?
-
My new website went live on 13th April and the organic traffic levels increased by 110%, staying at that level for 3 weeks. Then exactly 3 weeks later the organic traffic halved again, going back to the same level as the old site.
Has anyone seen this happen before or worked out why?!
Thanks
Viki
-
Thanks George, I'll give all the things you've mentioned a try.
-
Sorry I know it was a but vague but I was just hoping to convey the big spike! The traffic shown was just organic traffic so this source does seem to be the issue, unless traffic sources are being incorrectly allocated in Analytics.
-
Hi Michael
Thanks for coming back to me, I've been going round in circles with this. I've been looking at the Google Search Console traffic queries and there are some keywords which were getting, for example, 148 impressions towards the end of April that have had none in May but when I look at keyword clicks there are no obvious keywords with less traffic. A lot of the click queries are just down by 1 or 2 clicks.
The Ecommerce conversion rate of the traffic has stayed the same and is higher than the overall site average.
Looking at the landing pages has identified a few pages that were getting 50ish clicks at the end of April but now aren't so I'll look at those more closely.
Thanks again
-
To analyze properly, I'd need organic landing page report, keyword report (from GA and Search Console), and logs for 404s.
Things to check:
- 404 adjustment - did you do something with your GA tracking as it relates to 404 pages that could have been getting organic traffic?
- Seasonal impact - what happened last year at this time, is there a weird holiday here for you? (Happy Garlic Day 4/19!)
- Brand confusion, were brand keywords possibly driving interest due to changes made, showing up as organic
I think the answer is hiding in your organic landing pages. Good Luck!
Best,
george + WholeWhale Team -
The Graph that you attached doesn't say enough. You probably want to provide more information around what traffic sources were bringing in traffic during that time. Because of tat you hopefully will get some insights where the drop is coming from and where not. It could very well be that the traffic isn't even declining from SEO in your case (based on the data that we have from the graph).
-
Try to dig deeper into where that traffic was from, check for increases from one city during this time. Do you have Google Search Console connected? Also look at where that traffic was landing and what, if any actions it was taking.
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
-
Why would on-site search queries show up as referral traffic?
The site analytics have been set up for over a year and suddenly last month there was a huge spike in referral traffic (1100+ sessions). Upon further investigation, the majority of it was coming directly from internally, either as mysite.com or search.mysite.com and the landing pages from the referrals are all /search.html?query=* This was never an issue before so I'm trying to understand what could have changed. I'm following up with the client to find out if their dev team may have changed anything related to their search engine but I'm wondering if there may be another explanation. A few notes: previously mysite.com / search.mysite.com were not in the Referral Exclusion list. I've added them now but this was never an issue before. Thanks in advance!
Reporting & Analytics | | SEMnMs0 -
Why only a few pages of my website are being indexed by google
Our website www.navisyachts.com has in its sitemap over 3000 pages of information, and this is all unique content written by our team. Now Google Webmaster central shows only 100 urls indexed from 3500 submitted. Can you help me understand why and how I can fix this issue? The website has 4 years old, is a Joomla 3.3 up to date. It has part of the content in the Joomla core content systems and part in K2. Thank you. Pablo
Reporting & Analytics | | FWC_SEO0 -
How does Google Maps/G+ traffic show up in Analytics?
Hi Moz Community, I've been trying to figure out how traffic from Google Maps (and G+) shows up in Google Analytics and am struggling to find a good answer online. If someone finds a business through Google Maps and then clicks on the website in the Maps listing, does that show up as a referral from Google Maps? Our site shows virtually zero traffic from Google Maps even though we have a number of listing. Two related questions: if someone clicks through to a G+ page from a Maps result and then visits our website from the G+ page, does that show up in Analytics as a referral from G+? Is traffic from Google Maps or G+ ALSO counted as organic traffic? (Would it be possible to accidentally double-count a visit as both organic and a referral from Maps/G+? Thanks everybody!
Reporting & Analytics | | JohnGroves0 -
Universal cookie loss specific traffic
Hi there, A month ago we have installed the Universal Analytics tracking code on our website (www.smartphonehoesjes.nl). Since that time, direct traffic has risen unnaturally and organic traffic dropped unnaturally. I dived into this problem and I discovered there is a cookie loss on when visitors are switching from /cart to the first step checking out. The problem is that not all browsers cause these cookie issues, only Safari and IE older versions (9 and older) and some cases of Chrome. All iPads cause cookie issues (50% of all cases). iPhones cause not a single problem because we are using a separate mobile (m.) site which does not cause cookie problems. We don't have a mobile site for tablets yet, soon it will come. My biggest question is: how can I fix the Safari desktop cookie loss after switching domains from /cart to the first step of the chckout process? Olders versions of IE will slowly fade out and the iPad problem will be fixed when the mobile website is available for tablets. I hope someone can help me.
Reporting & Analytics | | MarcelMoz
Thanks in advance. Marcel0 -
Can anyone diagnose drop in organic traffic? (Screenshot attached)
I have an unexplained drop in google traffic on the 9th July. There are no messages in webmaster tools and no onsite or link building had taken place. In fact there were no changes at all. The only possible thing I can think of is that for some time I have had a problem where the bounce rate for my site was 95% plus in analytics. That data is wrong as the website is converting 1in 10 visitors and for them to convert the bounce rate would 90% (If EVERY other visitor bounced) as they have to visit several pages to do so. Any help appreciated! b457MPe.png
Reporting & Analytics | | SamCUK0 -
Mobile Website Analytics Code and Button Tracking / Event Tracking
How to track the action on the mobile version. Action by pressing the "add comment" this code: onclick = "_gaq.push (['_trackEvent', 'comments', 'pressed'])
Reporting & Analytics | | meteorr
- Not suitable for mobile version Please help.0 -
Why does Google Analytics think PPC traffic is organic?
I have a bastard of a problem... Google Analytics is incorrectly tracking PPC traffic as SEO which is screwing up all my reporting . I don't care for rankings, I care for actual SEO traffic and I can't be sure that what i am seeing is correct which is driving me nuts. Any ideas?
Reporting & Analytics | | Red_Mud_Rookie1 -
Will having a subdomain cause referral traffic from the domain name?
Hi! One of our clients has a site with the store on a subdomain: store.example.com. When we've set up goals for order confirmation pages, we often see most of the sources attributed to example.com. Is this because of the subdomain issue? How would we correct it so that we would see as the referring source for the goal the site that sent to the root domain originally, and not the site that sent to the subdomain? Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | debi_zyx0