Researching search volume drop
-
I am seeing a pretty precipitous drop in search volume traffic (see link). My keyword rankings don't seem to have suffered too much over this period. In fact, my #1 keyword have actually increased slightly in this timeframe.
Two questions...
- Is there some way to assess overall search volume across my tracked keywords (to see if this is just a case of overall searches dropping)?
- Is there a recommended plan of attack for investigating drops like this - beyond overall search volume, what other data might be important in identifying the cause of this. In short, I'm looking for some logic/structure for how I investigate this, using Moz tools and reports.
Thanks.
Mark
-
Awesome responses everyone - really appreciate this. It seems I have my work cut out across the various tools to try to identify root cause. At first, quick glance I don't see anything obvious popping up (for example to organic vs. direct) but I have more to check, based on the excellent input from the three of you. Thank you again!
Mark
-
Have you checked on WMT's? For Impressions for those keywords and CTR? That is the starting point in my view. If you CTR is steady and your impressions have dropped significantly you have to work out what pages you have dropped off - it may not necessarily be the main keyword.
I would start on WMT's..
-
If you wanted to look at relative search volume, you can look at Google Trends https://www.google.com/trends/ I would also see if you notice any trends in Google Search Console under Search Traffic > Search Analytics > Impressions
What your graph has me wondering is if this is an attribution issue with GA? On the grey line, Moz is simply taking your GA traffic that is tagged as organic and showing it in the graph. If you have an attribution issue in GA, organic traffic may be showing up as direct traffic. If there is anything wonky in the traffic attribution, GA will put it as Direct. You have this classic article by Groupon that was a good example of how organic can be attributed incorrectly. http://searchengineland.com/60-direct-traffic-actually-seo-195415
Look at your overall traffic in GA and then add a segment for organic traffic and then direct traffic. If your overall traffic is constant and you see organic going down while direct traffic is going up, you have your answer. As I understand it, this phenomenon is due to browser issues, so see if you have had more traffic recently from a given browser and that may give you another clue.
Another thing to check, you should be able to look at your organic traffic in GA and see if it is the same as Moz, or not. If not, ping the Moz folks to make sure your data from GA is coming in properly. May be some data import issues there.
My other guess here is that your ranking is ok, but your click rate has been jacked. Google Search console will show you CTR over time, and that may help. Look and see, did you change meta descriptions? Did you change up your schema markup so previously you had rich snippets in the SERP, but now you do not. You could potentially keep ranking, but loose CTR.
These are all things I would look at, but at this point, your guess is as good as mine. Looking through the above will probably prompt you to check other things that might give you an answer.
Good luck!
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
-
Search Causing Duplicate Content
I use Opencart and have found that a lot of my duplicate content (mainly from Products) which is caused by the Search function. Is there a simple way to tell Google to ignore the Search function pathway? Or is this particular action not recommended? Here are two examples: http://thespacecollective.com/index.php?route=product/search&tag=cloth http://thespacecollective.com/index.php?route=product/search
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | moon-boots0 -
How to Submit My new Website in All Search Engines
Hello Everyone, Can Any body help to suggest Good software, or Any other to easily Submit my website , to All Search Engines ? ? Any expert Can help please, Thanx in Advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | falguniinnovative0 -
URL Spoof Issue in Search Results
Hello! We could use some assistance diagnosing an issue. In order to avoid asking a convoluted question, I will try to break it down below: 1. A random foreign site is hacked and a subdirectory is added that is completely irrelevant to the root. a). i.e. http://www.um.org/prom_dresses/ 2. http://www.um.org/prom_dresses/ is just a phishing prom dress page 3. When you search "prom dress shop", the website that used to rank first (for good reason) was www.promdressshop.com. 4. www.promdressshop.com's home page has now been replaced by: um.org/prom_dresses/ – who is using prom dress shop's title tag and meta description. How is it possible that this hacked page (on um.org) is not only ranking above us, but is also starting to replace www.promdressshop.com's pages in search results. We do not believe www.promdressshop.com has been hacked but are open to any ideas. Please let me know if you would like any additional info. Thanks in advance! new
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | LogicalMediaGroup0 -
Redirect Search Results to Category Pages
I am planning redirect the search results to it's matching category page to avoid having two indexed pages of essentially the same content. Example http://www.example.com/search/?kw=sunglasses
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WizardOfMoz
wil be redirected to
http://www.example.com/category/sunglasses/ Is this a good idea? What are the possible negative effect if I go this route? Thanks.0 -
How to get google to categorize a website in search results?
Hello everyone and thanks in advance for your time. I have a good understanding about SEO, backlinks etc but nowhere near to professional! A good friend of mine has an online store made with opencart e commerce platform he would like to have have category view when his company name is searched on google. Does anyone has any idea how can this be achieved?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | superofelia0 -
Drop in indexed pages!
Hi everybody! I've been working on http://thewilddeckcompany.co.uk/ for a little while now. Until recently, everything was great - good rankings for the key terms of 'bird hides' and 'pond dipping platforms'. However, rankings have tanked over the past few days. I can't point my finger at it yet, but a site:thewilddeckcompany.co.uk search shows only three pages have been indexed. There's only 10 on the site, and it was fine beforehand. Any advice would be much appreciated,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Blink-SEO0 -
Branded Searches -- Should I Name My Products Differently?
I know that branded searches are a large component of whether sites were hit by Panda or not, and I wonder if moving forward, I should always include the name of my site (domain) in the name of the product. For example, if I have a product with a unique name such as 'history maps' should I change the name to include my brand name, i.e '[domain] history maps'? Or, if users search for the unique product name, is that sufficient?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline1 -
Sudden drop in page rank
Hi One of our client websites has had a sudden drop in rankings, and also in page rank. We have obviously been off for 2 weeks, so havent been blogging daily etc as we normally would have. Would this cause such a drop? Some keywords have lost from position 2/3 to page 7 over night, and we havent change the strategy! Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEOwins0