Authority Site - Google Traffic Drop!

24 replies
  • SEO
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Hi,

I have an authority site that lost a ton of traffic since yesterday from Google. Since yesterday, I am now receiving less than half of the search traffic I was getting.

I have no idea why this is happening, because the site is 100% credible, no blackhat, unique and excellent useful content, huge social media followings, etc. This is not a scam site, rather a very popular blog.

After some research, I noticed that I wasn't ranking well anymore for some of my best keywords. My thought was that I have some Amazon affiliate links, but I also lost ranking on keywords to pages that didn't have any affiliate links whatsoever. What could be happening?

thanks!
#authority #drop #google #site #traffic
  • Profile picture of the author panic
    Just give it a bit of time. There is a lot of movement at the moment. Ride it out for a bit. As long as you are doing everything above board, you will come out okay.
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    • Profile picture of the author theactor19
      Originally Posted by panic View Post

      Just give it a bit of time. There is a lot of movement at the moment. Ride it out for a bit. As long as you are doing everything above board, you will come out okay.
      Its so difficult to ride this out.. especially because its my main money site. I really hope I come out the other side. I don't even know what to try by the end of this if I don't.. maybe taking out my amazon links?! But that is a good deal of my earnings right there.
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      • Profile picture of the author lhkorn99
        I also noticed a drop today for a keyword I had that was typically between 2-4 on the 1st page, now at #8.
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  • Profile picture of the author tech84
    If its a popular blog there's no need to worry about rankings.
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    • Profile picture of the author paulgl
      Originally Posted by tech84 View Post

      If its a popular blog there's no need to worry about rankings.
      Ahem. Couldn't have said it better myself.

      Who runs your "business," you or google? Or your fervent
      followers?

      Paul
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    • Profile picture of the author theactor19
      Originally Posted by tech84 View Post

      If its a popular blog there's no need to worry about rankings.
      I'm not saying its Mashable or something mega.. I mean, its popular enough that it has a decent following to earn decent money. So coupled with search traffic, it makes good money (since I do lots keyword research). Since Google is a good traffic source, it does carry a good chunk of change. So as you can imagine, I'd like to continue to keep google traffic in addition to the other traffic sources.
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      • Profile picture of the author PerformanceMan
        Originally Posted by theactor19 View Post

        I'm not saying its Mashable or something mega.. I mean, its popular enough that it has a decent following to earn decent money. So coupled with search traffic, it makes good money (since I do lots keyword research). Since Google is a good traffic source, it does carry a good chunk of change. So as you can imagine, I'd like to continue to keep google traffic in addition to the other traffic sources.
        It looks somebody forget to tell Google you were an authority

        If your site is under six months old I wouldn't worry just yet about a drop like this.
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        • Profile picture of the author daisy172
          Originally Posted by PerformanceMan View Post

          It looks somebody forget to tell Google you were an authority
          Google is very confused at the moment about who is an authority or not, and whether a backlink is natural or not. See the following:

          Google sends the BBC a notification of unnatural links - News - Bubblews
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        • Profile picture of the author shayman
          Originally Posted by PerformanceMan View Post

          It looks somebody forget to tell Google you were an authority
          Titter titter...
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  • Profile picture of the author linkbuildr
    Panda is going to roll out today and or Monday so perhaps it has started to roll on the site?
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  • Profile picture of the author rsto95
    As linkbuildr said. Panda will be released most likely today. I haven't noticed any ranking drops in my site yet, but have had some usual fluctuation in visits.
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  • Profile picture of the author sdlive
    Originally Posted by theactor19 View Post

    Hi,

    I have an authority site that lost a ton of traffic since yesterday from Google. Since yesterday, I am now receiving less than half of the search traffic I was getting.

    I have no idea why this is happening, because the site is 100% credible, no blackhat, unique and excellent useful content, huge social media followings, etc. This is not a scam site, rather a very popular blog.

    After some research, I noticed that I wasn't ranking well anymore for some of my best keywords. My thought was that I have some Amazon affiliate links, but I also lost ranking on keywords to pages that didn't have any affiliate links whatsoever. What could be happening?

    thanks!
    im all white hat, i receive avg 41k in traffic per day...now i expect to finish at 34k hits by the end of the day. this updating is taking a hit on my site too... how many hits u get daily?
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  • Profile picture of the author theactor19
    patiently waiting...search traffic still way down.
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    • Profile picture of the author Tina Golden
      Everytime there is an update rolled out or a new change, it takes time for things to stabilize. If you've been doing this for more than a few months, you should know this already. Don't panic and don't make any changes until things become steady again. That usually takes at least a couple of weeks.

      If a drop in search traffic makes a large impact on your income, then it's time to diversify. Never, ever rely heavily on what Google is going to do or not do.
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  • Profile picture of the author InitialEffort
    There are couple of things that you need to check:

    1. Make sure your website is not penalized.
    2. Check for duplicate contents.
    3. Check if your keywords are overoptimized.
    4. As the updates become more frequent now, it could also be a Google dance. If it is, then you should know how to groove with it. Constantly adding good quality articles to your website and update often. Construct links gradually and continue building to keep link rate.
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    • Profile picture of the author theactor19
      Originally Posted by InitialEffort View Post

      There are couple of things that you need to check:

      1. Make sure your website is not penalized.
      2. Check for duplicate contents.
      3. Check if your keywords are overoptimized.
      4. As the updates become more frequent now, it could also be a Google dance. If it is, then you should know how to groove with it. Constantly adding good quality articles to your website and update often. Construct links gradually and continue building to keep link rate.

      How do i check if my site was penalized?
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      • Profile picture of the author gearmonkey
        Originally Posted by theactor19 View Post

        How do i check if my site was penalized?
        Google Webmaster Tools is a good place to start. How old is your website?
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        • Profile picture of the author theactor19
          Originally Posted by gearmonkey View Post

          Google Webmaster Tools is a good place to start. How old is your website?
          Almost a year old. There was nothing on GWMT, no messages.
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  • Profile picture of the author InitialEffort
    You can check this by doing a Google search - site:yourdomain.com
    Let’s say “yourdomain.com“ is well optimized for a certain search term, yourdomain.com should rank on the top. If yourdomain.com is not at the top or among the top in the SERP, but found it on the end page or in page 5 or page 10, there’s a possibility that yourdomain.com has been penalized. A penalized site usually has dropped organic traffic and rank decrease in the SERPs.
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    • Profile picture of the author theactor19
      Originally Posted by InitialEffort View Post

      You can check this by doing a Google search - site:yourdomain.com
      Let's say "yourdomain.com" is well optimized for a certain search term, yourdomain.com should rank on the top. If yourdomain.com is not at the top or among the top in the SERP, but found it on the end page or in page 5 or page 10, there's a possibility that yourdomain.com has been penalized. A penalized site usually has dropped organic traffic and rank decrease in the SERPs.
      So it looks like I was penalized, because I was ranking page one for many terms, and now some of them, I'm not even in the top 100 results.

      How can I salvage? My site is whitehat, naturally built, unique useful content, social following, etc.
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  • Profile picture of the author patco
    The only thing you should do is to wait... Google rankings drop is normal for EVERY website! Just don't stop adding UNIQUE content and build high authority related backlinks!
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    • Profile picture of the author theactor19
      Originally Posted by patco View Post

      The only thing you should do is to wait... Google rankings drop is normal for EVERY website! Just don't stop adding UNIQUE content and build high authority related backlinks!
      i know its normal to my up or down a few positions, but I'm talking going for being the second result to be on page 15, and for many keywords.
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  • Profile picture of the author Green Moon
    Unfortunately, that happens. I have a couple of authority sites that lost a few places in the SERPS but as anyone who has been in this business long knows, there is a pretty significant drop-off in search engine traffic for every spot you slip on the results page. For me, the difference between being 1-2 and 4-5 on the first page meant a huge decrease in traffic. For some reason, Wikipedia and eHow and a few true competitors got boosted above my site and nothing I have done has pushed me back above them. Fortunately, Bing doesn't give eHow the same love in my category; it's just too bad that Bing doesn't have more users.
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  • Profile picture of the author ccole
    Best thing to do is to check your sites backlinks and send Google for reconsideration email asking to re-evaluate your website after you remove all the bad backlinks.
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