Sudden drop in traffic to my site

[naveen_reloaded]

Hi guys i am running a site say blog...

prev week i had a average of 1.5k visitors (source : google analyticals ) .. and prev week i dodnt update my blog..
this week its hit a low of ju8st 200 ... for the past 4 days ... wht could be the reason..??

more over .. my main source of traffic were thru google ( organic )[source : google analytical]

wht could be the reason...??

wht should i do ???

please help..

[rohan_shenoy]

Did you lose SERPs?
There was a recent page rank update.

[naveen_reloaded]

serp`s ???

i dont know .. but i know that before my page rank was 0 but now its 1

[rohan_shenoy]

And was your site down or something?

SERPS = Search Engine Ranking pages

[naveen_reloaded]

no.. its actuaaly on blolgspot....

[mayanks_098]

Whoa...great coincidence.
You know i also had a unbelievable drop in traffic,almost during the same period.
Almost exactly the same thing happened to me,only difference,mine was worse.
I was doing at ~2.1k/week and suddenly it dropped to ~300/week.Now its picking up again. I too could not guess what was happening.


Anybody else.

[remrow]

you see it could probably happen when you don't upadate your blog or website frequently. When a user views your website/blog for the first time he may have found a good post and read it. And when the user comes back the other day for more he gets the same content that was yesterday. So if that lasts more days then he will get bored and get off your website/blog.

So this could be the reason of the drop of the website traffic.
More reasons might be less publicity, commenting problems, and more to go then http://problogger.com .

[naveen_reloaded]

no i dont think sooo its the case..

coz just for eg... my site which recieves 1,700 visits a DAY !!! now for the past three-four days recieves only <500 visits/day!!!!

i dont get it...

anyone having same problem...???

[T159]

my blog get 100 hits on an avg :)
Dunno why it has pagerank 4 ?
I post once in a blue moon :D

[naveen_reloaded]

i think page ranks are given coz of quality of the post....

mine mostly are cut and copy ( dont blame me.. i find little time to write a article .. so i C& P )

thats why mine is @ 1

anyway.. any news guys ?? why this happened to many ??? or say for two of us @ sam time

[ravi_9793]

What is source of major portion of your site traffic. Is it search engine??

[rohan_shenoy]

Page Rank is given depending upon the no. of backlinks the page has. Quality of backlinks also matters

[ravi_9793]

Pagerank doesnot matter much. Its traffic that matters. I can make PR3 of any site in 3 months.

[naveen_reloaded]

yes i as said my 80% of traffic is from google search engine ( organic )
ie = nearly 1000 visita/ day

but now for past few days ... that 80% is reduced dramatically....

wht shall i do... its affecting my adsense review.. very badly...

actually am posting many articles now... to make up for my lost traffic...

any suggestion or solution ???

[iMav]

ThinkDigit does have some really well written articles worth reading (http://www.thinkdigit.com/details.php?channel_id=7&article_id=2009&art_title=Get%20Noticed,%20Get%20Clicked&art_keyword=search%20engine,%20search%20engine%20o ptimization,%20SEO,%20google,)

[naveen_reloaded]

ya thanks for the link... but all iam asking is why is it now when i was having this 1.5+k visitors for past 5-6 months ???

http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/3639486-3-30.htm

more similar people having this problem....

[ravi_9793]

yes i as said my 80% of traffic is from google search engine ( organic )
ie = nearly 1000 visita/ day

but now for past few days ... that 80% is reduced dramatically....

wht shall i do... its affecting my adsense review.. very badly...

actually am posting many articles now... to make up for my lost traffic...

any suggestion or solution ???
Is your site new???

[naveen_reloaded]

having it for past 4-5 months...

why ??

[ravi_9793]

having it for past 4-5 months...

why ??
4-5 months old website should not have any problem.

Google has a policy to blacklist new sites. if your site is new, and gets large amount of traffic, than google may blacklist your site.

[naveen_reloaded]

is there a way to check if my site is black listeed...

coz mine is aboiut tricks/ tips/ hacks.. that sort of...

wht should i do now ????

[Kiran_tech_mania]

i think page ranks are given coz of quality of the post....

mine mostly are cut and copy ( dont blame me.. i find little time to write a article .. so i C& P )

thats why mine is @ 1

anyway.. any news guys ?? why this happened to many ??? or say for two of us @ sam time

Nope. Quality of posts have no influence on Page Rank. It is indication of number of backlinks to your website. More the number of backlinks, higher will the page rank.

[slugger]

cud it be possible that some other site on the same subject has acquired a higher PR than yours and so now when people search for those keywords for which your site appeared higher now get to see that site first?

since they are gettting all d info from that site they r not clicking on your anymore

if u r usin google's webmaster's tool then you could see your sites rankin for keywords typed in the search engine - if it has gone down this month compared to last months then u are likely to have lesser visits

[rohan_shenoy]

Can you give us the URL to your site?

[T159]

Nope. Quality of posts have no influence on Page Rank. It is indication of number of backlinks to your website. More the number of backlinks, higher will the page rank.
Does back link is directly proportional to the promotion of website ?
In that case I havent promoted mine till now, and there is one website which has just two posts and is having PR 3

[rohan_shenoy]

You may be having some strong backlinks of which you may be unaware.

[Deep]

Check the site in Google Webmasters' section and see whats up there, pass the site address so people can check more info on it.

4-5 months old website should not have any problem.

Google has a policy to blacklist new sites. if your site is new, and gets large amount of traffic, than google may blacklist your site.

I don't see why google should blacklist the site if it's getting more traffic? No logic there, the issue could be with some bad stuff / script in the code or good old sandbox or bad backlinks.. as mentioned earlier google webmaster section should give more info on it.

[naveen_reloaded]

No guys it seems google is playing with the page ranking system...as the link i gave you prev from webmaster.. You can see loads of people or site owners having problem...
Doesnt anyone having the same problem...

But my traffic grou increasing a bit...how to say whether its blacklisted or not?
My site shows in the search result and neither have problems with google crawlers or bots...

[ravi_9793]

I don't see why google should blacklist the site if it's getting more traffic? No logic there, the issue could be with some bad stuff / script in the code or good old sandbox or bad backlinks.. as mentioned earlier google webmaster section should give more info on it.
there is a logic dear. There are few blackhat SEO methods...and Google is well aware about it. And that is why, I never do much SEO of my new launched sites.

[slugger]

TOTALLY OFFTOPIC

@ Deep

nice sounding domain name u got www.whoisdeep.com :)

conveys a lot of meaning :)

[rohan_shenoy]

@naveen,
if your site is shows up in results, it is not blacklisted. So be happy.

Do this:
1. Open your google analytics and see which keywords brought traffic to your site.
2. Enter those keywords and see at what position is your site.

If your position has dropped down, this may be the reason.

Also consider the possibility that there might not have been as much searches for those words as they were before. This is common.

[Deep]

there is a logic dear. There are few blackhat SEO methods...and Google is well aware about it. And that is why, I never do much SEO of my new launched sites.

Hi,
I think if he knew blackhat stuff then you would have seen this post in those blackhat forums :). I am assuming that the thread starter has limited knowledge about SEO and working of search engines. So going step by step would give us hints to the actual problems. The stuff I mentioned (and some others too mentioned) were kind of first step to find out the cause.

@slugger - Thanks :) Yea, the blog has too deep roots ;)

Regards,
Deep

[ravi_9793]

Hi,
I think if he knew blackhat stuff then you would have seen this post in those blackhat forums :). I am assuming that the thread starter has limited knowledge about SEO and working of search engines. So going step by step would give us hints to the actual problems. The stuff I mentioned (and some others too mentioned) were kind of first step to find out the cause.

yes, I agree. He must not have tried any blackhat methods. But Google sometimes do such things with new sites. And after that, the site will appear in search result for old keywords, but will go down.


Do one things...........
1) Find out old keywords that gave you traffic.
2) Now find the position of those keywords for your site.


This will conform.

[naveen_reloaded]

Actually it seems my key word which brought many traffic is no more showing as top key words in my analytics... I found the problem ...
Now my traffic is picking up slowly...
It seems its totally google's fault or say they are the ones who is doing some changes to their algorithm....
Hope it gets me heavy traffic here after..

[Deep]

@naveen, your site might in sandbox period, though many people do not believe in sandbox but according to me, it's pretty logical to have new sites in sandbox period where google can test out the sites. In short, from seeing this, I do not see any reason to be worried of.

yes, I agree. He must not have tried any blackhat methods. But Google sometimes do such things with new sites. And after that, the site will appear in search result for old keywords, but will go down.


Yea, that is called Sandbox. But apart from that let me clear some basics about the new sites getting good amount links and the results in the search ranking.

Scenario 1:

You have a 2 month old tech blog with good stuff on it, you post some exclusive stuff, which gets you good amount of links. Say, in 2 months you get 100 quality 1 way links, logically these are too many links in such a short period of time BUT this is possible as the links are related to your site's theme and are from geniune sites (no bad neighbourhood). So google is never gonna ban your site, infact it will get the site ranking up and google will crawl your site more frequently.

Scenario 2:

You have a 2 month old tech blog, you have a links section where you have linked to various non-tech related sites. (4-5 is ok, I am talking about whole resources section) and you are getting many links from various non-tech related sites. Google will again not ban you but it will simply give less weight to those links and your site's position won't change.


Scenario 3:

You have a 2 month old tech blog, a clean site with good stuff. But you have got backlinks from various adult sites, med sites etc.. Google will again not ban you but it won't give importance to your site as well as to those links. (This will be alomsot same as Scenario 2)

Scenario 4:

You have a 2 month old tech blog, you play around with blackhat techniques, play with fake redirects, cloaking etc.. Now Google is pretty smart here and it will simply kick you out of the search engine. Now there might be few blackhat methods which might cheat google and get good ranking but these are not going to work for long time, some or other day Google will find it out and kick your site. (Or you have to be aware about Blackhat stuff and keep on roating the techniques)

I hope this clears up the basic of SE stuff. Also, Google is not some magical stuff. Google thinks like Human, so we need to think like Google not like any bot :)

Regards,
Deep

[narangz]

^^ WOW! Nice post! BTW- Congrats for iPod Touch ;)

Google Analytics is also having some problems & they will cover up most of the visits soon.

[naveen_reloaded]

That was really good post...deep...
Actually i dont link to any of med sites....
But my site is actually regarding hacks...but i see many good sites having the same article..,
But good thing is i am now doing 700+ yesterday..,
Hope it goes up from now...

[iinfi]

i dont have much knowledge abt this ... it cud be IPL ..... if you have visitors frm cricket playing nations ....

@Deep: nice to see you around after such a long time...

[naveen_reloaded]

What? Ipl?
Weird!

[iMav]

google analytics has this:

System Message: Analytics Processing Delay from April 30th to May 5th

Google Analytics experienced a data processing error from April 30th to May 5th. Almost all of the data has been recovered and is currently being reprocessed. The recovered data will be reflected in your reports within a few days. Please note that a small percentage of data, particularly in the area of e-commerce reporting, was not recoverable from those dates.

[naveen_reloaded]

ya... thats right..

if u just search... u can find that on MAY 9, 08 many lost traffic /take for example...

http://i31.tinypic.com/2872clx.jpg


as u can see... mine was doing 1000 a day prev month.. but after may 9 , 08... its all dark for my world...

now just picking up..

but all the keywords which used to point to my site... are gone...

i don't know how to retrieve it back..

more bad news is .. those keywords are now pointing to websites which are old for example 2005. 2006 articles....

very pathetic...

[T159]

don't worry every season is not the same

pay attention on quality too, if u r the genuine owner of an article, its mor likely that u will get persistent traffic for that one.

[naveen_reloaded]

actuaaly mine is regarding tips /tricks / software advice / review....

i dont knwo wht to do...

i mainly popularise mine by social bookmarking..
if i stop posting artilces.. traffic comes to halt.. prev it was not the case..

how to know google has got of my site.. i mean.. like links.. keywords.. etc..??

[Deep]

^^ Did u check google webmasters area?

[naveen_reloaded]

ya.. checked it.. but i want third party site to tell me what my site actually is.. i dont want to fully depend upon Google..here after...

i wan diversify on other search engines also...

[Deep]

Then use statcounter or w3counter

[naveen_reloaded]

ya.. using it too..
one question..

if google has updated its algorithm or lost its database.. how cana 2 year old site or article come up front.. ??/

[Pathik]

^ The chances of Google losing it's DB are tooooooo low. In case of a algorithm change, that may happen.

[naveen_reloaded]

yes ... but why old articles coming up on first page when my articles are latest ones ??

or say mine were on the first page.. now pushed back to 5-6th page...

[rohan_shenoy]

^
I have made an observation many times: When your content is just posted, it tends to be ranked higher, but as time passes, it loses its ranking.

[T159]

^^yeah now even my wordpress blog is coming at the top when i search for my site name

and my site comes at 5th-6th place

What I did was just posted a link in each post of my wordpress blog to the corresponding ones in my site. Is thats what caused this. I hav stopped writing in my wordpress blog now.

Its happenin in yahoo too :(

[naveen_reloaded]

^
I have made an observation many times: When your content is just posted, it tends to be ranked higher, but as time passes, it loses its ranking.

actually speaking .. after may 9 08 my blog jumped to PageRank 1.... ????

^^yeah now even my wordpress blog is coming at the top when i search for my site name

and my site comes at 5th-6th place

What I did was just posted a link in each post of my wordpress blog to the corresponding ones in my site. Is thats what caused this. I hav stopped writing in my wordpress blog now.

Its happenin in yahoo too :(


I dont get u ...

[blackpearl]

^
I have made an observation many times: When your content is just posted, it tends to be ranked higher, but as time passes, it loses its ranking.

Yup! that always happens. New contents are given a temporary SERP boost. If you are able to gain backlinks for your new content quickly, the rank stays. Other wise it drops as newer contents or contents with more backlinks come up.

To get high SERP ranking you need backlinks apart from contents.
There is joke for it:

Once a thief broke into Google's safe where the secrets to gain high ranking are stored. After breaking through numerous doors and locks he finally suceeds in opening the safe. Inside there was a piece of paper with only one line -"Get more backlinks"

Edit: another factor is whether visitors are clicking your link in the SERP page. For eg, say your site is at No 1 for a certain keyword. But more people are clicking No2 result than the No1. Then after sometime, your site will be dropped to No2 or even lower depending upon how other sites are faring and the No2 site will be promoted to No1.

[naveen_reloaded]

Answers

1) What happened?

Google Analytics experienced a data processing error from April 30 to May 5. Almost all of the data has been recovered and is currently being reprocessed. The recovered data will be reflected in your reports by May 14. Please note that a small percentage of data, particularly in the area of e-commerce reporting, was not recoverable from those dates.
We take this issue seriously and apologize for any inconvenience. We will do everything possible to prevent such disruptions from occurring in the future.

2) How does this affect me?

Most Analytics accounts were affected by the reporting error. Your data will be restored this week, and we've recovered the majority, though not all of it. A very small percentage of data, particularly relating to e-commerce transactions that occurred between April 30 and May 5, is not recoverable.

3) I don't use e-commerce. Does this affect me?

Analytics users who don't have e-commerce enabled may have seen a slight dip in traffic only between the dates April 30 to May 5. The data is being reprocessed and will be reflected in reports by May 14. Please note that a small percentage of data, particularly in the area of e-commerce reporting, may not be recoverable from those dates.

4) I do use e-commerce. How am I affected?

Analytics users who do use e-commerce would have noticed a decline in e-commerce transactions being reported starting from April 30 to May 5. The data is being reprocessed and will be reflected in reports by May 14. E-commerce transactions were affected more heavily than other metrics, and a small percentage of e-commerce data from those dates may not be recoverable. We apologize for any inconvenience that this has caused.

5) Is my AdWords data accurate?

Yes. AdWords data was not affected. However, ROI calculations within Analytics reporting may be slightly off from April 30 to May 5 due to missing e-commerce transactional data. This does not affect AdWords impression, clicks, billing or other AdWords data.


http://i31.tinypic.com/2872clx.jpg


Is it now ok ??? or my keywords lost forever ???

http://i27.tinypic.com/25a0ktj.jpg





This i got from benchmarking tool used to find the trned in all websites... ( avg )
as u can see they told they had prob in apr 30 - may 5 ... and it does show a deep dip for all sites in that period... after that it climbed... but mine started to ssink late..///


weird