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Websites traffic halved?

by MarkFreeman
20 replies
Hi,

I just checked why my sales were so low over the last week and found that a whole bunch of my sites have had thier traffic halved!

I have lost ranking in a big way for many keywords for some of my sites that have been steady for 4-6 months or more then all of a sudden - BAM - they are only generting a trickle.

Is this just me? Has anyone else had this happen due to an update form google or soemthing?

I am really depressed because I worked hard building those sites and now my dreams of doing this full time have suddently taken a massive step backwards.
#halved #traffic #websites
  • Profile picture of the author Jeff Hampton
    Originally Posted by MarkFreeman View Post

    Hi,

    I just checked why my sales were so low over the last week and found that a whole bunch of my sites have had thier traffic halved!

    I have lost ranking in a big way for many keywords for some of my sites that have been steady for 4-6 months or more then all of a sudden - BAM - they are only generting a trickle.

    Is this just me? Has anyone else had this happen due to an update form google or soemthing?

    I am really depressed because I worked hard building those sites and now my dreams of doing this full time have suddently taken a massive step backwards.
    Sounds like you might have been hit by the Panda Update. I would suggest searching here, and on Google, for info about Panda. I have read about cases where people made relatively small changes -- moving ads below the fold, for example -- that helped their site rebound pretty quickly.
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    • Profile picture of the author KenThompson
      Originally Posted by Jeff Hampton View Post

      moving ads below the fold, for example -- that helped their site rebound pretty quickly.

      That's interesting. Do you know what kind of ads? Any, or I'm wondering if
      Adsense above the fold is acceptable.


      Ken
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      • Profile picture of the author Jeff Hampton
        Originally Posted by KenThompson View Post

        That's interesting. Do you know what kind of ads? Any, or I'm wondering if
        Adsense above the fold is acceptable.
        Ken, believe it or not, this does apply to Adsense ads as well. Apparently the search team and the Adsense team don't communicate, so sites that were following Google's own guidelines for ad placement were hit!

        Google has now revised their guidelines and they recommend "highlighting content." My free WSO below has all the details.
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  • Profile picture of the author UMS
    The big Panda G has sneaked up on you and decided that your sites weren't as high quality as its cousin thought.
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  • Profile picture of the author addyj672
    I totally agree with Peter Sundstrom post. The Big Google panda is in action so improve your website contents....
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  • Profile picture of the author Alex Peltonen
    Originally Posted by MarkFreeman View Post

    Hi,

    I just checked why my sales were so low over the last week and found that a whole bunch of my sites have had thier traffic halved!

    I have lost ranking in a big way for many keywords for some of my sites that have been steady for 4-6 months or more then all of a sudden - BAM - they are only generting a trickle.

    Is this just me? Has anyone else had this happen due to an update form google or soemthing?

    I am really depressed because I worked hard building those sites and now my dreams of doing this full time have suddently taken a massive step backwards.
    Look up for "Google Panda Algorith Update".

    No doubt you've one of those who'd been hit by this update. Long-story short, this update made Google more strict in their terms of internet marketing. You can still get your usual ranking. I'm sure you just need to make some tweaks in your sites.
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  • Profile picture of the author webapex
    Lets hope it's a short term dance you recover from. Ecommerce site owners are more lucky having a known visitor value allow them to use paid traffic with predictable results, avoiding the organic search ups and downs, it's certainly easier to replace a paid source should one go bad.

    There have been a couple of recent worthwhile OfferVault webinars you can replay that touch on the Panda update, in the later one, Mark Ling harps on the idea of providing original, quality content. Perhaps a necessary step in rebuilding traffic.
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  • Profile picture of the author MarkFreeman
    Thank you for the infomration abotu Panda - I am researching it now.

    This page looks like it might help, linked below for anyone else who might be suffering the same.

    Google Panda update survival guide | Wordtracker

    The only problem is the time it is going to take to go through every little bit of detail. Hell i dotn understand half of it - the content on my site is nearly always original - but I have got a lot of links from crappy directories and so forth but I cannot change that so how the hell can I do anything about it ... i dont know.
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    • Profile picture of the author vitavee
      Originally Posted by Jeff Hampton View Post

      Ken, believe it or not, this does apply to Adsense ads as well. Apparently the search team and the Adsense team don't communicate, so sites that were following Google's own guidelines for ad placement were hit!

      Google has now revised their guidelines and they recommend "highlighting content." My free WSO below has all the details.
      I don't really agree with this one, granted I'm not a big player with adsense (I have only 1 adsense site, and this is an experimental one), my stats tell me that having adsense ads above the fold is not a problem, at least not in my case so it seems that it's not a problem in 100% of the cases.

      That site has about 15 articles, a mix between original ones and my Ultra Spinnable Articles.

      It has 2 adsense blocks on all the article pages, 1 big square above the fold, at the very beginning of the article and another big one after the article.

      I also have an optin box, but I have put it below the fold, after the second adsense block.

      For the promotion I'm using my Ultra Spinnable Articles with an SEO service that does daily submissions to several blog networks + article directories + web 2 sites etc...

      Traffic has grown as well as revenue, even though I have made a lot of the things NOT RECOMMENDED by many people post panda update.

      Here are my traffic stats (sorry my analytics show in french):



      Look at how almost all the traffic is coming from google search. It seems having good quality spinnable articles on a site and ads above the fold didn't cause any problem.

      And here is how the revenue evolved during that period:



      It almost tripled while the traffic "only" doubled. Google has not only sent me more traffic, it also increased my EPC.

      That's the only site I am using adsense on, but my other sites have also all passed the panda update - traffic either didn't change or increased. And there is not one single site for which I have not used spinnable articles... if not as content at least for the SEO campaigns.
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      • Profile picture of the author Jeff Hampton
        Originally Posted by vitavee View Post

        I don't really agree with this one, granted I'm not a big player with adsense (I have only 1 adsense site, and this is an experimental one), my stats tell me that having adsense ads above the fold is not a problem, at least not in my case so it seems that it's not a problem in 100% of the cases.
        You make an excellent point. Certainly not all sites that have ads above the fold -- even a ton of ads above the fold -- have been hit. I do not doubt your stats, and thanks for posting the info in such an informative way.

        From what I have gathered, sites aren't "penalized" for ads above the fold, it's just that you get "bonus points" if you if you have mostly content there. So it depends largely on your competition. If your competition have "clean" sites, they get a boost. This may or may not propel them above you in the SERPs.

        If you haven't taken a hit, it's probably not something to worry about, at least at this point. But in this case, where his site has seen a serious drop, it's something to take a look at. I have seen posts by a couple of people who moved ads below the fold and saw a rebound. And it is definitely true that Google has changed their recommended placement for Adsense.
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        • Profile picture of the author neojr
          You can learn more about the Google Panda Update and how to benefit from it at:
          Good luck!

          Neo
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        • Profile picture of the author vitavee
          Originally Posted by Jeff Hampton View Post

          You make an excellent point. Certainly not all sites that have ads above the fold -- even a ton of ads above the fold -- have been hit. I do not doubt your stats, and thanks for posting the info in such an informative way.

          From what I have gathered, sites aren't "penalized" for ads above the fold, it's just that you get "bonus points" if you if you have mostly content there. So it depends largely on your competition. If your competition have "clean" sites, they get a boost. This may or may not propel them above you in the SERPs.

          If you haven't taken a hit, it's probably not something to worry about, at least at this point. But in this case, where his site has seen a serious drop, it's something to take a look at. I have seen posts by a couple of people who moved ads below the fold and saw a rebound. And it is definitely true that Google has changed their recommended placement for Adsense.
          Hi Jeff

          You got me curious
          I will try to test this by removing the top ad and see if I get some boost.

          I first have to stop building links and wait a few weeks to be sure that I don't get ranked higher because of something else.
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  • Profile picture of the author Gregg
    I have been waiting for this. I have a couple sites actually getting more traffic but I haven't checked all of them.
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  • Profile picture of the author nealmorgan
    It's good to see some sites are getting more traffic, mine is but although it's a good percentage figure it only equates to an actual increase of 20 -30 visits a day.
    I am taking it that my content must be above the line now, keep up the good work and the rewards will come.
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  • Profile picture of the author Bruce99
    Originally Posted by MarkFreeman View Post

    Hi,

    I just checked why my sales were so low over the last week and found that a whole bunch of my sites have had thier traffic halved!
    I know I am in the presence of some heavy hitters in here, so I will keep it brief. Are you sure that the visitor search volumes for your core keywords are constant?

    While google trends is very useful for weekly stats, I am newly enjoying google webmaster tools to see actual page impressions I appeared on. Perhaps of your long tail keyword ranks have slipped down the pages?

    Anyway, just trying to be of help.
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    • Profile picture of the author KenThompson
      Originally Posted by Bruce99 View Post

      I know I am in the presence of some heavy hitters in here, so I will keep it brief. Are you sure that the visitor search volumes for your core keywords are constant?

      While google trends is very useful for weekly stats, I am newly enjoying google webmaster tools to see actual page impressions I appeared on. Perhaps of your long tail keyword ranks have slipped down the pages?

      Anyway, just trying to be of help.
      Hello Bruce,

      Are you also using G Analytics? Just curious and I presume you are. I know
      it is popular and full of features. But I have read some threads/posts in which
      people have noticed discrepancies between analytics and server logs.

      You may already be aware of if this since JS is used and that will account for
      the difference.

      Just curious.


      Ken
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  • Profile picture of the author Sun64
    Some sites have greatly benefited from this.
    The best you can do is improve your site, and most likely you will generate more sales.
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  • Profile picture of the author Giftys
    I noticed cuts to some of our sites before Panda. I think this really started in 2010.
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  • Profile picture of the author mavmav
    Maybe the other sites have improved their content and employed some neat SEO tricks.
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  • Profile picture of the author Lloyd Buchinski
    I just do not get it why 'above the fold' should be a problem. According to the Google heat map, the top left corner was the hottest and most recommended place to put ads.
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