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Traffic on a strong site has taken a hit - please help!

by andyj00
15 replies
The traffic on one of my main sites has dropped in the last 2 days to 40% of what it normally is. The site has been live for aound 18 months and ususally has steady, strong traffic. I've noticed about 30% of the pages are no longer in Google's index, which could explain for the lack of traffic.

I have not changed anything in the last few weeks and no idea why the site has lost its traffic. I must admit, I havent built that many backlinks for it in the last few months. Could this be the problem? Or is there a Google dance going on at the moment?

Please help!
Thanks.
Andy
#hit #site #strong #traffic
  • Profile picture of the author andyj00
    Ok thanks George.
    Strange thing is, just over a week ago I was getting the most traffic I've ever had on that site.
    It's just scary when you see traffic drop like that.
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  • Profile picture of the author chrisgarrett
    If you haven't changed anything and have not been caught buying or selling links then it could be a google algo. I've also seen seasonal changes do this, and once a couple of strong inbound links were giving a certain site most of the google juice so when they got removed the site tanked for its major terms.

    So look at everything
    - webmaster tools
    - page indexed
    - inbound links
    - possible penalties
    - broken links
    - hosting/domain issues
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  • Profile picture of the author HomeComputerGames
    Google has been all over the place the past couple weeks. Nothing new I guess.
    Sometimes it seems that they are testing something, then after a few days everything seems to go back to where they were.
    I've almost given up on checking the SERPs because all of them just seem so erratic lately. I have one phrase that every time I finally crawl to page 1, I get knocked back 6 pages and start the crawl all over again.
    Google and Goofy are starting to sound and mean the same to me....

    Next time my son says he wants to change his major in college I think I'll tell him he is being Google
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    yes, I am....

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    • Profile picture of the author mmurtha
      Originally Posted by HomeComputerGames View Post

      Google has been all over the place the past couple weeks. Nothing new I guess.
      Sometimes it seems that they are testing something, then after a few days everything seems to go back to where they were.
      I've almost given up on checking the SERPs because all of them just seem so erratic lately. I have one phrase that every time I finally crawl to page 1, I get knocked back 6 pages and start the crawl all over again.
      Google and Goofy are starting to sound and mean the same to me....

      Next time my son says he wants to change his major in college I think I'll tell him he is being Google
      Yes they are, and have been for a few months now. It's been going on so long, I feel like it's become the norm for them. Lol it's almost like they are trying to keep everyone in suspense about their listings.

      I know that isn't the case, but it sure seems that way at times.

      What I think is truly happening though is Google's trying to adjust their new alg.
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      • Profile picture of the author andyj00
        Thanks all for replying.



        So here's a thought..........if Google were a person......what sex would it be? Male or Female?:rolleyes:

        <ducks before I get lynched!!!>
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        • Profile picture of the author tecHead
          Originally Posted by andyj00 View Post

          Thanks all for replying.



          So here's a thought..........if Google were a person......what sex would it be? Male or Female?:rolleyes:

          <ducks before I get lynched!!!>
          a hermaphrodite
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          • Profile picture of the author Wealthyclark
            I was recently watching one of Google's video broadcast and they were talking about big changes that they were working on and how SEO companies should no longer focus on trying to show people there site's that they rank well for because there index will not be staying the same for long periods of time as it use to. I may have gotten the story mixed up but that's what I got from it. I'll try to find the video and post a link.

            I think their changing the way their system works so that you can no longer claim your spot unless your site is supper dominate in all aspects of off page SEO.

            I think on page can play a big part in some cases such as breaking a tie in the area of the off page SEO but I see pages ranking in the #1 spot day in and day out that have very little if any on page SEO in place for that keyword bet the blank out of the pages that have it all.

            This is a tough game so you must not depend on one two or even the dozens of sites that are making you money because the game could change at any moment. Keep building, expanding and learning. Nothing is forever!

            There are also some sites that google trusts so much that all they need to do is mention the keyword once and they rank within minutes and with a few back-links that's all she wrote.

            I'm no where near an expert so don't take it all to the heart, but that's my view!
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  • Profile picture of the author actionplanbiz
    what they hell? google slapping SEO too now?

    same characteristics as the recent adword slap? high pr page with affiliate links?
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  • Profile picture of the author andyj00
    One thing I have noticed is that lots of lots of my inner pages have lost their pagerank. Has there been a PR update recently?
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  • Profile picture of the author zcx
    I've noticed the exact same thing as the original poster. A week or so ago I was seeing the most traffic and best income I've ever had from a couple of sites, and now this week they've just totally tanked. I still have some first page SERPs, but a lot of the pages have slipped waaaaaay down. Really frustrating!
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    • Profile picture of the author andyj00
      Well I had changed something - and now I think I may of fixed the problem.

      I had a look at my Webmaster Tools and was alarmed to find ALL of my pages showing crawl error of Unreachable.
      Also my crawl stats were showing virtually zero since the start of the month.

      I was getting indications of Internal Server Errors:
      "The remote server returned an error: (500) Internal Server Error"

      So I'm guessing as Google could not "see" the pages anymore - so it decided to slowly remove them from its index thinking these pages didnt exist any more.

      This was really baffling as the web pages would render fine in a browser. So why could I see these pages and Google couldnt?

      Well I built myself a web page scraper in .NET and low and behold, went I browsed to the url, my tool also reported a Internal Server Error!!!!!

      Well and lot of removing code here and there to find out what code was causing the problem and some code I added in at the start of the month was causing a problem. This line to be exact:

      string language = Request.UserLanguages[0].ToLower();

      I used this code (C# in ASP.NET) to detect where the user come from so I could show targeted ads for the country.

      Well that line god dam bu66ered my code up and its ability to be seen by Google since the start of the month!!!!!!!!

      I've took it out now and I'll have to wait of course to see if this does fix the problem, but I think it will. I put the same line in another of my sites too earlier in the month and the same thing happened, pages being de-indexed.
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      • Profile picture of the author Intrepreneur
        This is why SEO is expensive because when things like this happen it takes an expert to pull the site out of a hole or to understand what needs to be done if anything does.

        I would suggest taking a peak through bluehatseo.com if you can't afford to pay an SEO to fix it for you, that's if it does need fixing. Overall a little bit of pro SEO tweaking goes a long way when things like this happen.

        I hope you get it sorted too.

        Finally *don't forget bluehatseo.com*

        Read everything/relevant stuff there and it will help you get back on track.

        Good Luck.
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        • Profile picture of the author mmurtha
          Originally Posted by Intrepreneur View Post

          This is why SEO is expensive because when things like this happen it takes an expert to pull the site out of a hole or to understand what needs to be done if anything does.

          I would suggest taking a peak through bluehatseo.com if you can't afford to pay an SEO to fix it for you, that's if it does need fixing. Overall a little bit of pro SEO tweaking goes a long way when things like this happen.

          I hope you get it sorted too.

          Finally *don't forget bluehatseo.com*

          Read everything/relevant stuff there and it will help you get back on track.

          Good Luck.
          I think you've advertised your site enough in one post don't you think?
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        • Profile picture of the author andyj00
          Originally Posted by Intrepreneur View Post

          This is why SEO is expensive because when things like this happen it takes an expert to pull the site out of a hole or to understand what needs to be done if anything does.

          I would suggest taking a peak through bluehatseo.com if you can't afford to pay an SEO to fix it for you, that's if it does need fixing. Overall a little bit of pro SEO tweaking goes a long way when things like this happen.

          I hope you get it sorted too.

          Finally *don't forget bluehatseo.com*

          Read everything/relevant stuff there and it will help you get back on track.

          Good Luck.
          Thanks for that but I've fixed the code myself. Just to wait now to see if Google starts to re-index the pages that have been lost. Just a waiting game now.
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  • Profile picture of the author Learnanew
    Bluehatseo.com definitely isn't his site.
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