Traffic suddenly plummet

[timothygk]

Hi Warriors,

I hope you guys can help me because I can't figure this one out.

I have an aquarium website at fish-tank-filters dot org for over a year. It has been averaging 300 visits per day from organic search. But since last week it has suddenly plummet to an average of 60 per day.

I'venot made any changes to the site and do post regularly. But I had once used a lot of Ezinearticles as posts with the authors links intact. Could this be the reason for the drop? If so, does it mean that if I remove those posts, then my visits will go up again?

Pls help, I am at my wits end.

Thanks

Tim

[LilBlackDress]

Google made some "tweaks" to their algorithm and there are plenty of sites that have lost or gained rankings in the process.

Do not remove your EZA links.

Just keep building links. And use a variety of different backlinks such as social bookmarking, article directories, web2.0 properties, blog commenting etc.

[Benjamin Ehinger]

Originally Posted by timothygk

Hi Warriors,

I hope you guys can help me because I can't figure this one out.

I have an aquarium website at fish-tank-filters dot org for over a year. It has been averaging 300 visits per day from organic search. But since last week it has suddenly plummet to an average of 60 per day.

I'venot made any changes to the site and do post regularly. But I had once used a lot of Ezinearticles as posts with the authors links intact. Could this be the reason for the drop? If so, does it mean that if I remove those posts, then my visits will go up again?

Pls help, I am at my wits end.

Thanks

Tim

This is just a growing pain and as long as you keep working hard you will gain your ranking back. Most likely some of your pages/posts dropped in ranking for one reason or another, but you can gain it back by continuing to work hard on your site.

Benjamin Ehinger

[SuzanneH]

If this happened around the 13th, it was most likely due to another Google Panda update. There's a discussion going on here: are you affected by Google Panda update Oct 13 2011

Suzanne

[timothygk]

Suzanne, that's exactly when it started to happen. Thanks a lot everyone. I'll be a good little engine and keep chugging along but I really hope it starts to turn around. It's badly affecting my Adsense at the moment. I'm really glad I posted this here because I was on the verge of deleting some of my Ezine posts.

[johneye]

Yes you could safely blame it on Google's Panda update. Some sites are reporting increase in traffic though, so in your case perhaps you need a change of strategy like more unique content (link bait worthy), and like other have said - continue with your link building campaign.

For me at least, I'll give priority on unique content.

Cheers!

[C Rebecca]

While searching over different reasons for the drop, I found this interesting video of Matt Cutts... He is talking about the various possibilities which may contribute in the drop.
Here you go...
What steps can I take to diagnose a drop in ranking? - YouTube

[LilBlackDress]

Originally Posted by C Rebecca

While searching over different reasons for the drop, I found this interesting video of Matt Cutts... He is talking about the various possibilities which may contribute in the drop.
Here you go...
What steps can I take to diagnose a drop in ranking? - YouTube

In the video, Matt mentions that they are sending more messages to Webmaster Tools. I don't have my sites in there.

Did anyone get messages on this latest change?

[bubbins1987]

Hey,

Do you use rank tracking software of any kind?
A drop in traffic usually means a drop in rankings but without checking you can't be sure.

Do you know where your traffic comes from? It's possible that a referring site that was sending you a lot of traffic, may have stopped referring traffic for some reason (removal of a link for example).

Also, with regards to your posts that are EzineArticles.... If I understand you correctly, you have re-posted other people's articles on your site, whilst keeping their resource box intact?

If this is the case, it could be a duplicate content penalty. You should consider writing unique content for your blog.

Hope that helps

Thanks
Eleanor

[mstewart]

Originally Posted by SuzanneH

If this happened around the 13th, it was most likely due to another Google Panda update. There's a discussion going on here:
Suzanne

it seems every time google updates their algo, numbers go down... does anyone know of a case where an update increased a website's traffic? i mean any website, even the major ones

[boxoun]

Traffic has to go somewhere so of course someone else traffic goes up. As far as ezine goes, I would recommend deleting those posts. No reason for Google to rank those over original source.

[packerfan]

You need to be tracking your keyword rankings so you can see where the loss of traffic is coming from. You might have some new competition that's outranking you now. Maybe your rankings dropped because of an algo change.

Unless you're tracking though you'll never know.

[SuzanneH]

Originally Posted by mstewart

it seems every time google updates their algo, numbers go down... does anyone know of a case where an update increased a website's traffic? i mean any website, even the major ones

Sure! For all those sites that have gone down, others have replaced them. So, those sites that have been pushed up have seen an increase, I would imagine (unless they saw a decrease with other keywords).

My site has not been effected and has seen an increase. *knocks on wood*

Suzanne