undefined
Skip to content
Moz logo Menu open Menu close
  • Products
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Pro Home
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Home
    • STAT
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Home
    • Compare SEO Products
    • Moz Data
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis
    • Keyword Explorer
    • Link Explorer
    • Competitive Research
    • MozBar
    • More Free SEO Tools
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
    • SEO Learning Center
    • Moz Academy
    • SEO Q&A
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Digital Marketers
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • The Moz Story
    • New Releases
  • Log in
  • Log out
  • Products
    • Moz Pro

      Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

    • Moz Local

      Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

    • STAT

      SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

    • Moz API

      Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

    • Compare SEO Products

      See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

    • Moz Data

      Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis

      Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

    • Keyword Explorer

      Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

    • Link Explorer

      Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

    • Competitive Research

      Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

    • MozBar

      See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

    • More Free SEO Tools

      Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO

      The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

    • SEO Learning Center

      Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

    • On-Demand Webinars

      Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

    • How-To Guides

      Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

    • Moz Academy

      Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

    • MozCon

      Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Digital Marketers

      Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

    • Small Business Solutions

      Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

    • Agency Solutions

      Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

    • Enterprise Solutions

      Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

    • The Moz Story

      Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

    • New Releases

      Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

    Surface actionable competitive intel
    New Feature

    Surface actionable competitive intel

    Learn More
  • Log in
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Dashboard
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Dashboard
    • Moz Academy
  • Avatar
    • Moz Home
    • Notifications
    • Account & Billing
    • Manage Users
    • Community Profile
    • My Q&A
    • My Videos
    • Log Out

The Moz Q&A Forum

  • Forum
  • Questions
  • Users
  • Ask the Community

Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

  1. Home
  2. SEO Tactics
  3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
  4. My direct traffic went up and my organic traffic went down. Help!

Moz Q&A is closed.

After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

My direct traffic went up and my organic traffic went down. Help!

Intermediate & Advanced SEO
5
12
3.7k
Loading More Posts
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as question
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
  • Eric_OWPP
    Eric_OWPP last edited by Nov 16, 2016, 2:34 AM

    So on Oct. 21, our direct traffic increased 3x and our organic traffic decreased 3x. And it has been that way ever since. Almost like they flip flopped. Additionally, that was the same day I started retargeting to our site. I have tagged all the links from the ads and they're being counted as google paid clicks in GA. And our accounts are linked. I am just dumbfounded as to how this could happen.

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
    • douglasfaria10
      douglasfaria10 last edited by Nov 4, 2019, 11:55 AM Nov 4, 2019, 11:55 AM

      Hey Arnold Ambiel,
      cheguei a esse tópico porque estava tendo um problema como o seu. O tráfego orgânico e direto foram revertidos. Vi que você tinha esse problema em 2016 e o ​​meu ocorreu em junho.
      Você encontrou alguma solução para esse problema?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • topic:timeago_earlier,3 years
      • Eric_OWPP
        Eric_OWPP @TrentonGreener last edited by Dec 8, 2016, 10:31 PM Dec 8, 2016, 10:31 PM

        haven't checked yet but did find this article about serp sitelink changes on the exact day i saw traffic drop.

        http://searchengineland.com/recent-changes-organic-sitelinks-cause-major-drops-impressions-gsc-264424

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • TrentonGreener
          TrentonGreener @Eric_OWPP last edited by Dec 7, 2016, 4:28 PM Dec 7, 2016, 4:28 PM

          Awh, shucks! Thanks for the kind words!

          I look forward to seeing what you find! Let me know if I can help any further!

          Regards,
          Trenton

          Eric_OWPP 1 Reply Last reply Dec 8, 2016, 10:31 PM Reply Quote 0
          • Eric_OWPP
            Eric_OWPP @TrentonGreener last edited by Dec 7, 2016, 1:47 PM Dec 7, 2016, 1:47 PM

            It's contributions like Trenton's above that make me love the Moz community. I will check all that you suggested and report back. 🙂

            TrentonGreener 1 Reply Last reply Dec 7, 2016, 4:28 PM Reply Quote 1
            • topic:timeago_earlier,19 days
            • TrentonGreener
              TrentonGreener @Eric_OWPP last edited by Nov 18, 2016, 10:23 PM Nov 18, 2016, 10:13 PM

              I'm going to chime in here as the conversation has already started from which I want to reference a few items.

              While Sean is correct that there is a redirect on page load, - which is weird & not likely optimal - the redirect isn't causing the UTM parameters to be dropped here.
              If you check the Network tab of the debug console of Chrome you'll see the two requests for the URI you listed above. If you click the requested file (in the network tab) & navigate to the 'Headers' tab you will see that Query String Parameters are still there & being passed.
              Now let's circle back to the original problem & see if we can't get to the bottom of it!

              I checked out the graph you linked and while it does seem that there's an inverse correlation there, I wouldn't assume too quickly that they switched. I would encourage you to dive into the data a little bit more. Specifically:

              • I would use Google Search Console's Search Analytics (the actual interface, not the section in Google Analytics) & look to see if the number of clicks around that same time changed much.

              • If there is a noticeable change, dive into the keywords & Landing Pages that saw the shift

              • If there is not a noticeable change, we can cross an actual organic change off our list.

              • I would also look at the change over that period in GA's landing page report. Look to see if there are any pages that saw a gain/loss over the period in question.

              • If there is, add a secondary dimension of medium & see where the change lies

              • If not, mark it off

              • The final door I would check is the changes that were made for remarketing

              • What if any changes were made within Google Analytics? Specifically the admin portion, while I'd check all changes you may have made here, I'm specifically curious if you may have added the URL Query Parameters as exclusions?

              • Were any tags, tracking codes, etc added during this time & are the implementations correct?

              If you dive into these and summarize your findings here, I'll be more than happy to help you further. Though, I have a hunch that the answer is behind one of these doors.

              Good luck!
              Trenton

              Eric_OWPP 1 Reply Last reply Dec 7, 2016, 1:47 PM Reply Quote 2
              • Eric_OWPP
                Eric_OWPP @Eric_OWPP last edited by Nov 17, 2016, 5:39 PM Nov 17, 2016, 5:39 PM

                thought i'd add the GA graph that shows the switch

                xv9pBw5

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • Eric_OWPP
                  Eric_OWPP @seanginnaw last edited by Nov 17, 2016, 4:23 PM Nov 17, 2016, 4:23 PM

                  so would a JS redirect make the session count as direct traffic?

                  Eric_OWPP TrentonGreener 2 Replies Last reply Nov 18, 2016, 10:13 PM Reply Quote 0
                  • seanginnaw
                    seanginnaw @Eric_OWPP last edited by Nov 17, 2016, 6:55 AM Nov 17, 2016, 6:55 AM

                    Hey,

                    It looks like there was a JS redirect in place that redirects users to a fresh page view of the same page - don't know if this might be something having an effect?

                    I used Ayima Redirect Tool for chrome to find this - see the screenshot attached.

                    Hope this helps,

                    Sean

                    7A12I

                    Eric_OWPP 1 Reply Last reply Nov 17, 2016, 4:23 PM Reply Quote 0
                    • Eric_OWPP
                      Eric_OWPP last edited by Nov 16, 2016, 3:46 PM Nov 16, 2016, 3:46 PM

                      Thanks Sean!

                      Here is the final URL:
                      http://www.oneworldplayproject.com/buy-bulk-soccer-balls/?utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=bulk&utm_content=bulk10&utm_term=300

                      Here is the URL in the ad that people could type in. This is a redirect to the www. version:
                      oneworldplayproject.com

                      Also, these are only image ads so there is no display URL being shown.

                      I am also curious why Organic would drop though. But let's play this out first.

                      seanginnaw 1 Reply Last reply Nov 17, 2016, 6:55 AM Reply Quote 0
                      • seanginnaw
                        seanginnaw last edited by Nov 16, 2016, 1:05 PM Nov 16, 2016, 1:05 PM

                        Hi there,

                        Although you say you've tagged your ad traffic correctly, it sounds like your UTM tracking isn't set up correctly - 95% of the time wrong tracking from ads forces a sudden unnatural increase in Direct traffic. The other possibility is that you're sending traffic to a page that's then redirecting to your site which may trim off the UTM tagging and force the traffic as 'Direct'.

                        Give me an example of one of the URLs you've tagged up and I'll see if anything is going wrong.

                        All the best,

                        Sean

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • TheSymmetran
                          TheSymmetran last edited by Nov 16, 2016, 3:16 AM Nov 16, 2016, 3:16 AM

                          direct traffic can be from bookmarks and such, as well as it could depend on proper implementation of ads and retargetting too.

                          That does seem a bit odd of a coincidence though, I have never dealt with such a switch scenario like that and to that degree, I have only seen more negligible or at least less worrisome amount of such changes in the past which we ended up not spending time to find out what was the underlying sitch with it as it corrected itself as a trend after a short period of time.

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                          • 1 / 1
                          1 out of 12
                          • First post
                            1/12
                            Last post

                          Got a burning SEO question?

                          Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                          Start my free trial


                          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.

                          • See all categories

                          Related Questions

                          • nkennett

                            Need some help understanding SEO - Please help before I lose [pull out] all my hair

                            technical seo getting beaten sites with no seo ranking 1

                            I'm new to SEO, and am stubbornly trying to educate myself. I have a telescope shop in Canada, it's a small business that we run on the side. We're driving lots of traffic through FB and our outreach programs but I really want to increase our presence on search. We released a new website back in January and it killed some of our rankings. We're working our way back with a very specific set of efforts on regular SEO: Metadata and titles, although it seems that's not super relevant Building high quality backlinks and eliminating any spammy backlinks Rewriting product listings so that they are original content though I'm not sure how important this is in e-commerce Writing high quality articles and blog posts Working relevant keywords into our product pages and titles I understand that good SEO is about pushing on all the levers, and trying to make sure that your site is as valuable to the end user as possible. We're making some good progress, but I'm puzzled by the #1 shop in Canada. They don't put any apparent effort into SEO and they still rank #1 on every key product we compete with them on. I've worked with two separate, highly ranked and regarded SEO firms on this and neither has been able to tell my why this other site ranks so highly. Here's a specific example on a popular product that we both sell, the Celestron NexStar 8SE. Here’s the link to Telescope Canada’s page for their Celestron 8SE: https://telescopescanada.ca/products/celestron-nexstar-8se-computerized-telescope-11069 Here’s a link to the Celestron 8SE page from the manufacturer website: https://www.celestron.com/products/nexstar-8se-computerized-telescope Telescopes Canada has just copied and pasted. There is no original content aside from adding the shipping and return policy to the tab, and having some options for selecting accessories on the page. Here is our page: https://all-startelescope.com/products/celestron-nexstar-8se We have higher page authority, higher domain authority, and they keyword analyzer in moz says that our page is higher quality than the Telescopes Canada page. I can’t find a single metric on any tool (ubbersuggest, Moz, ahrefs, semrush) that says Telescopes Canada is a better site, or has a better NexStar 8SE product page. But they keep ranking ahead of us, and right at the top of google search. Our titles are good, our metadata is good (but I don’t think that’s been a serious ranking factor for about ten years). Our text is original, it’s relevant, we have healthy internal links to the page. According to Moz's page ranker it's 20 points higher than Telescope Canada's page. We have invensted in some excellent blog content, we’re adding new products to the website so that we rank for more keywords. All of those things are helping, but I fundamentally don’t understand why Telescopes Canada is #1 almost across the board on every key product in our market. There is something that I’m not seeing here. Can you see any metric, any tool in your toolbox that indicates why they rank at the top, or even higher than we do for in these search terms specific to that product: Celestron NexStar 8SE
                            NexStar 8SE
                            Celestron NexStar 8SE Canada
                            NexStar 8SE Canada I have a feeling it's something technical that I'm missing, but I'm not sure how obvious it is with two 'professional' firms not finding it. I'd really appreciate any help or insight that you can offer.

                            Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Oct 20, 2023, 4:19 PM | nkennett
                            0
                          • Dennis1992038

                            Huge organic traffic drom after a perfect domain migration. What to do?

                            Hi, I already asked the question on different places. But so far nobody could help me. 
                            Hope someone can help me out. If possible.
                            I migrated my website https://vihara.nl to https://meditatieinstituut.nl and lost about 80% traffic (see printscreens). It's over more than a month ago now and there is no sign of getting it back up. Maybe there is nothing to do and
                            1. I have to be patient and traffic comes back in a few months. 
                            or
                            2. There is nothing to do and I've lost everything I've build up in the last years. Start over again to get the rankings back.
                            or maybe, maybe
                            3. I just forgot something that I still need to do to get the rankings back up. Or there is something I did not think of... This is done: The website is migrated 1 on 1. No changes in content, url, code, etc. Everything is exactly the same as on the previous domain. 301 redirects whole domain (via htaccess a bulk redirect). All the old pages, without exceptions, lead to the exact new page. The new domain is running from CDN (Cloudflare) with the same settings as the previous domain. SSL is installed in the exact same way. Domain migration set up in Search console (working). Uploaded new sitemap (working). Updated internal links. Changed the most important external links (where I could get contact after reaching out) In meanwhile received some new external links and also posted new content Anybody knows what to do? Or do I just have to be more patient and will it come back in a few months by itself? Looking forward to suggetions. Thanks! Gerjan Migratie-Meditatie-Instituut-2048x786.jpg verloop-sinds-de-start-2048x355.jpg

                            Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jun 12, 2020, 6:06 PM | Dennis1992038
                            0
                          • Easigrass

                            Help with force redirect HTTP to HTTPS

                            Hi, I'm unsure of where I should be putting the following code for one of my Wordpress websites so that they redirect all HTTP requests to HTTPS. RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301] This is my current htaccess file: *missing

                            Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Oct 23, 2017, 9:48 AM | Easigrass
                            0
                          • tbps

                            Help article / Knowledge base SEO consideration

                            Hi everyone, I am in the process of building the knowledge base for our SaaS product and I am afraid it could impact us negatively on the SEO side because of: Thin content on pages containing short answers to specific questions Keyword cannibalisation between some of our blog articles and the knowledge base articles I didn't find much on the impact of knowledge bases on SEO when I searched on Google. So I'm hoping we can use this thread to share a few thoughts and best practices on this topic. Below is a bit more details on the issues I face, any tips on how to address them would be most welcome. 1. Thin content: Some articles will have thin content by design: the H1 will be a specific question and there will be only 2 or 3 lines of text answering it in the article. I think creating a dedicated article per question is better than grouping 20 questions on one article from a UX point of view, because this will enable us to direct users more quickly to the answer when they use the live search function inside the software (help widget) or on the knowledge base (saves them the need to scrolling a long article to find the answer). Now the issue is that this will result in lots of pages with thin content. A workaround could be to have both a detailed FAQ style page with all the questions and answers, and individual articles for each question on top of that. The FAQ style page could be indexed in Google while the individual articles would have either a noIndex directive or a rel canonical to the FAQ style page. Have any of you faced similar issues when setting-up your knowledge base? Which approach would you recommend? 2.Keyword cannibalisation: There will be, to some extend, a level of keyword cannibalisation between our blog articles (which rank well) and some of the knowledge base articles. While we want both types of articles to appear in search, we don't want the "How to do XYZ" blog article containing practical tips to compete with the "How to do XYZ in the software" knowledge base article. Do you have any advice on how to achieve that? Having a specific Schema.org (or equivalent) type of markup to differentiate between the 2 types of articles would have been ideal but I couldn't find anything relating to help articles specifically when I searched.

                            Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jul 10, 2016, 1:11 PM | tbps
                            0
                          • EcommerceSite

                            Why is my Bing traffic dropping?

                            In the middle of September we launched a redesigned version of our site. The urls all stayed the same. Since site launch traffic in Google has steadily increased but Bing traffic has dropped by about 50%. Any ideas on what I should look at?

                            Intermediate & Advanced SEO | May 5, 2016, 4:08 PM | EcommerceSite
                            0
                          • AWCthreads

                            Regular Expressions for Filtering BOT Traffic?

                            I've set up a filter to remove bot traffic from Analytics. I relied on regular expressions posted in an article that eliminates what appears to be most of them. However, there are other bots I would like to filter but I'm having a hard time determining the regular expressions for them. How do I determine what the regular expression is for additional bots so I can apply them to the filter? I read an Analytics "how to" but its over my head and I'm hoping for some "dumbed down" guidance. 🙂

                            Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Sep 30, 2013, 6:14 PM | AWCthreads
                            1
                          • Townpages

                            .htaccess 301 Redirect Help! Specific Redirects and Blanket Rule

                            Hi there, I have the following domains: OLD DOMAIN: domain1.co.uk NEW DOMAIN: domain2.co.uk I need to create a .htaccess file that 301 redirects specific, individual pages on domain1.co.uk to domain2.co.uk I've searched for hours to try and find a solution, but I can't find anything that will do what I need. The pages on domain1.co.uk are all kinds of filenames and extensions, but they will be redirected to a Wordpress website that has a clean folder structure. Some example URL's to be redirected from the old website: http://www.domain1.co.uk/charitypage.php?charity=357 http://www.domain1.co.uk/adopt.php http://www.domain1.co.uk/register/?type=2 These will need to be redirected to the following URL types on the new domain: http://www.domain2.co.uk/charities/ http://www.domain2.co.uk/adopt/ http://www.domain2.co.uk/register/ I would also like a blanket/catch-all redirect from anything else on www.domain1.co.uk to the homepage of www.domain2.co.uk if there isn't a specific individual redirect in place. I'm literally tearing my hair out with this, so any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks

                            Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Sep 16, 2013, 2:42 PM | Townpages
                            0
                          • TECHeGO

                            Getting Google to Correct a Misspelled Site Link...Help!

                            My company website recently got its site links in google search... WooHoo! However, when you type TECHeGO into Google Search one of the links is spelled incorrectly. Instead of 'CONversion Optimization' its 'COversion Optimization'. At first I thought there was a misspelling on that page somewhere but there is not and have come to the conclusion that Google has made a mistake. I know that I can block the page in webmaster tools (No Thanks) but how in the crap can I get them to correct the spelling when no one really knows how to get them to appear in the first place? Riddle Me That Folks! sitelink.jpg

                            Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Apr 25, 2011, 2:31 PM | TECHeGO
                            0

                          Get started with Moz Pro!

                          Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                          Start my free trial
                          Products
                          • Moz Pro
                          • Moz Local
                          • Moz API
                          • Moz Data
                          • STAT
                          • Product Updates
                          Moz Solutions
                          • SMB Solutions
                          • Agency Solutions
                          • Enterprise Solutions
                          Free SEO Tools
                          • Domain Authority Checker
                          • Link Explorer
                          • Keyword Explorer
                          • Competitive Research
                          • Brand Authority Checker
                          • Local Citation Checker
                          • MozBar Extension
                          • MozCast
                          Resources
                          • Blog
                          • SEO Learning Center
                          • Help Hub
                          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                          • How-to Guides
                          • Moz Academy
                          • API Docs
                          About Moz
                          • About
                          • Team
                          • Careers
                          • Contact
                          Why Moz
                          • Case Studies
                          • Testimonials
                          Get Involved
                          • Become an Affiliate
                          • MozCon
                          • Webinars
                          • Practical Marketer Series
                          • MozPod
                          Connect with us

                          Contact the Help team

                          Join our newsletter
                          Moz logo
                          © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                          • Accessibility
                          • Terms of Use
                          • Privacy

                          Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.