Anyone else seeing MASSIVE traffic drops lately?

[high_plains_drifter]

This is really starting to annoy me, traffic & rankings for all my sites are the same before the update, most of my sites gained traffic BUT i have a drop of approx 50% in adsense earnings across all my sites!

Does anyone know why?

[davidtong]

That's a bit easier to predict highplainsdrifter...

January = folks are done buying, most probably overspent, including advertisers... hence lower ad spending, lower buyer interest...

[MarathonMan]

Originally Posted by sandra98

MarathonMan - that's really cool. Congratulations on your success!

If you don't mind sharing, how many sites do you have to make five figures on Adsense? Do they usually have quite a number of posts (eg. 25 or more posts)? Thanks.

@MarketingFool as well, the reason my sites are so resilient is that they are not "authority sites" as a marketer would define them. They're not even blogs. I update the content every few months, and my best make me three digits a day in Adsense revenue.

I think most sites where you it down to grind out content or, worse, outsource it to someone who barely speaks English (and certainly doesn't know the content) will fall below Google's "quality control" level even if your intention is to make a good, useful site.

I spend more time researching my subject then I do coding the site, doing SEO, or anything else. That's the way it should be - and as a result, I can create one of the solid resource sites that will be cited by thousands and enjoy a good long-term relationship with Google.

So Sandra, if you want to create one of these sites for yourself get out of the mindset that you have to create X posts, do X optimization, etc. just make something useful that you're proud to show off and you will be rewarded.

[ricky pounting]

i have not feel any big difference. As you are experiencing.

[arcanex]

my adsense impressions from one of my site isn't counting, any help would be appreciated..

[davidtong]

what do you mean Adsense impression not counting?

[James-]

My traffic has halfed, or maybe i should say gone back to usual. December was an amazing month for me, i did twice what i did in November with all the xmas traffic. It seems i am on course to make what i did in November this month. Traffic started to drop back down as of 4th Jan.

[Marketing Fool]

Originally Posted by James-

My traffic has halfed, or maybe i should say gone back to usual. December was an amazing month for me, i did twice what i did in November with all the xmas traffic. It seems i am on course to make what i did in November this month. Traffic started to drop back down as of 4th Jan.

Hey James, December was an amazing month for me too. It usually is, but this one was better than I expected (with the economy the way it is).

I also expected traffic to drop back down to November or October levels after the holiday season. My problem is that they've dropped down much much further... but we'll have to see what happens!

In the mean time I'm cranking out new sites and they're pretty much starting to perform as I'd expect them too. So that's hopeful.

[SEOChemist]

You might have got hit by one of the Google January updates, they released a list of about 30 changes.

[outwest]

Traffic and sales should drop in January
MOST retails outlets restaurants Car sales etc etc etc Jan Feb are HORRIBLE sales months
its normal

[adionline]

Noticed a drop on the 13th for some of my sites.

[delfinparis]

My spots have all dropped from #1,#2,#3 to like 6,7,8 - very strange. And my niche is non-sales (just my personal blog). So, there's really no competition. The only thing I can think of is maybe private blog networks are getting nailed or devalued. That's really the only link building I'm doing. And no, I'm not talking about networks like UAW.

Anyone else doing mostly private network links and seeing a drop?

[Marketing Fool]

Originally Posted by delfinparis

My spots have all dropped from #1,#2,#3 to like 6,7,8 - very strange. And my niche is non-sales (just my personal blog). So, there's really no competition. The only thing I can think of is maybe private blog networks are getting nailed or devalued. That's really the only link building I'm doing. And no, I'm not talking about networks like UAW.

Anyone else doing mostly private network links and seeing a drop?

No, I don't do any private network linking at all....or any linking for that matter.

[guzpra]

yeah I experienced decreasing adsense income, but the traffic is increasing..

[Marketing Fool]

Originally Posted by guzpra

yeah I experienced decreasing adsense income, but the traffic is increasing..

Weird...that's not a bad problem to have though. Ad spending is down now (it seems) because advertisers just spent so much over the holidays...you'd expect a little pull back now...

But if your traffic is increasing, it's probably only a matter of time before your cpc rises too...

[aygabtu]

If I look at google webmaster tools, my impressions dropped by almost 90% on the 14th for one of my newer sites! I believe this is because google is not putting my pages on the first page from my personal search results.

Typically if you search for and frequent a site, those pages show up extremely high in your own search results. Right now that isn't happening for my newest site, although it is working that way for other, older sites.

[Marketing Fool]

Originally Posted by aygabtu

If I look at google webmaster tools, my impressions dropped by almost 90% on the 14th for one of my newer sites! I believe this is because google is not putting my pages on the first page from my personal search results.

Typically if you search for and frequent a site, those pages show up extremely high in your own search results. Right now that isn't happening for my newest site, although it is working that way for other, older sites.

What good is having a site show up high in your personal results? It doesn't show up in anyone else's personal results...

[aygabtu]

Originally Posted by Marketing Fool

What good is having a site show up high in your personal results? It doesn't show up in anyone else's personal results...

Extrapolate! Because it works that way for me, other people that visit the site will have it show on the first page also. But, unfortunately, it isn't working that way for me, right now, it probably isn't working that way for others which explains the huge drop in impressions.

People should check to see if their own sites are showing on page 1 now or not. If they aren't, then it probably isn't showing on the first page for other users which can explain where the traffic/impression drop is coming from.

Why google is no longer listing certain sites users frequent on page 1 is the real mystery.

[andrewkar]

Hi, my site is going down also. From position 7 to 46 last week and now is going down even more. Not sure why but I’m think Google made some major improvements to algorithms.

I know for sure my site is on 4th page because I can clearly see huge drop in traffic from webmaster tools.

However I’m not that surprised. It is website in very competitive niche where people are looking for precise products and type of content. Because my website is purely made for adsense in many aspects it doesn’t fit right into this niche.

All of the top websites in this niche are quite different so I have to make my site look and work similar (and it’s going to be a lot of work, and even worst, I don’t know this is going to improve my ranking or not…).

And maybe I will have to convert this site from adsense to affiliate one to get some money out of it.

Well, after all, for me it’s good lesson from Google We will see what will happen in next few months.

[Marketing Fool]

Originally Posted by aygabtu

Extrapolate! Because it works that way for me, other people that visit the site will have it show on the first page also. But, unfortunately, it isn't working that way for me, right now, it probably isn't working that way for others which explains the huge drop in impressions.

People should check to see if their own sites are showing on page 1 now or not. If they aren't, then it probably isn't showing on the first page for other users which can explain where the traffic/impression drop is coming from.

Why google is no longer listing certain sites users frequent on page 1 is the real mystery.

I'm sorry I still don't follow you...I don't care about people who have already been to my site not having my site show up *later* in their personal search...I care about people who have never been to the site finding me in the regular index the first time around...isn't that what we should be concerned with?

[Allex]

Sudden Drop in Traffic? Could be Google page layout algorithm update on Above the folds ads.

Recently Google made new update called "page layout algorithm improvement", update which targets website, blogs having excessive ads on Above the fold page area.

If you are experiencing sudden traffic drop from last Friday 20th January 2012 , you are most likely affected by Google page layout algorithm update.

This Recent Google search update is causing severe drop more than half of normal traffic to various sites and blogs which has two or three ads around header and above the fold area. Here are important points I have read and collected regarding Google page layout algorithm update and how it affecting various sites and blogs:


Google page layout algorithm update and Above the folds ads.


1) Google Page layout Algorithm improvement update was done around 19th- 20th January 2012. So if your website traffic is down or reducing from that period and you have ads above the fold you may be affected by this Google update.


2) Search engine rankings are reordered, no matter whether you are logged in or not, based on page layout algorithm update, so you see sites ranking down which has more ads on above the fold or there is absolute or minimal unique content above the fold.


3) How many ads are excessive, which positions are crucial is not very clear but what I read from matt cuts update all over
internet is that is not the number of ads above the fold but how the whole area above the fold is used matter. So if you have some ads but lot of unique content above the fold you may not be affected by this page layout algorithm update.


What to do if you have affected by Google page layout algorithm update:

As I said if you see traffic going down from last week around 19th - 20th January than chances are that you are affected with Google above the fold issue. here are few suggestion you can take which may work in your favour and get your site out of above the fold penalty Google page algorithm layout is imposing:


1) keep only one ad above the fold. you may keep two if your ad size are less (just an observation).
2) change your page layout so that more unique content is available above the fold.
3) Use browser tool to see how much content is available above the fold.
4) reduce header size.
5) if you have blog than make sure title of post should be clearly visible above the fold along with some content.


There are just my observation and worked well for some of my friends who were affected by Google Above the fold update and it may also work in your blog, please try and let us know if it works so that other blogger and publisher may benefit.


Matt cutt pointed out that once page layout is update , this algorithm takes that change when Google bot crawls your site and depends upon how many pages you have in your blog and website it may take few days or few weeks. My suggestion is update your page layout now and wait for Google bot crawling your site or blog and hope for best.


Open questions regarding Page layout algorithm update

There are lot of open questions relate to this recent Google algorithm update which I don't know answer and hopefully things will be more clear after few days when webmasters and publisher will write there experiences:


1) Does ads means only adsense or other other ad network also?
2) will text ads exempted ?
3) which side of page layout is more important for content. (my guess is left side for content and right side for ad)
4) how many ads are normal and how many are more ?
5) how Google is identifying does it looking for JavaScript code in html file ?
6) does position of JavaScript matters in html file or in template ? ( I guess yes and to safe than sorry have it on bottom).


let us know what's your thought on these questions and what is your experiment with recent Google page layout algorithm update andabove the fold ads issue.


read official Google page layout update post here
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2012/01/page-layout-algorithm-improvement.html

Originally Posted by Marketing Fool

Hey everyone.

During the first 4 days in January my adsense sites were bringing in an average of $133 a day off of about 16,000 page views (total) worth of traffic.

But the next 4 days of January have dropped to about $54 a day in earnings off of about 9,000 page views (total) worth of traffic.

It's understandable that traffic and earnings from adsense would drop off after the holiday season, but a 43% decrease in traffic and a 60% decrease in earnings seems excessive.

Is anyone else seeing similar drops? Could it be another Google algo change, or am I just unlucky? Or is it just seasonal, due to the end of the holidays?