Anyone else seeing MASSIVE traffic drops lately?

70 replies
  • SEO
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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?
#drops #massive #traffic
  • Profile picture of the author lutherlars
    no radical changes for me.
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  • Profile picture of the author tylerjaysen
    were you averaging the $133 a day prior to holidays? Or did you just notice a drop recently? My earnings for adsense have also dipped lately. Not sure why.
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    • Profile picture of the author Marketing Fool
      Originally Posted by tylerjaysen View Post

      were you averaging the $133 a day prior to holidays? Or did you just notice a drop recently? My earnings for adsense have also dipped lately. Not sure why.
      I was averaging just below $133/day throughout December. So the drop has been JUST in the last 4 days.
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  • Profile picture of the author IM Ash
    Why are you here?
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  • Profile picture of the author JSProjects
    Seems like it'd be the other way around. I'm finally on the up-swing after a fairly slow 2 1/2 weeks during Christmas, the New Year, and shortly after.
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    • Profile picture of the author Marketing Fool
      Originally Posted by JSProjects View Post

      Seems like it'd be the other way around. I'm finally on the up-swing after a fairly slow 2 1/2 weeks during Christmas, the New Year, and shortly after.
      Why would it seem like the other way around? People are buying like crazy before the holidays...after the holidays, buying drops (or even stops)...hence traffic drops... also advertisers have just spent heavily through the holidays and probably aren't as likely to spend nearly as much now that the holidays are over....just my thoughts.
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      • Profile picture of the author SuzanneH
        Originally Posted by Marketing Fool View Post

        Why would it seem like the other way around? People are buying like crazy before the holidays...after the holidays, buying drops (or even stops)...hence traffic drops... also advertisers have just spent heavily through the holidays and probably aren't as likely to spend nearly as much now that the holidays are over....just my thoughts.
        It all depends on the niche. I'm in the weight loss niche and traffic drops in December and then soars in January.

        Suzanne
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  • Profile picture of the author jr1228
    January started off really rough for me. It's starting to pick up finally... we'll see if it lasts. On another forum it seems like almost everyone is having an awful month so far.
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  • Profile picture of the author Valera
    The last 4 days have being really s$#ty for me as well and my sites are all in clickbank affiliate niches...

    Seems like people are not really searching as much the last 4 days, maybe due to the weekends and what not, but my sales are still pretty crap today.

    To put it in perspective, I took a dive of about 50% in sales last 4 days as well and all my sites are still ranking really well in google.
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    • Profile picture of the author Marketing Fool
      Originally Posted by Valera View Post

      The last 4 days have being really s$#ty for me as well and my sites are all in clickbank affiliate niches...

      Seems like people are not really searching as much the last 4 days, maybe due to the weekends and what not, but my sales are still pretty crap today.

      To put it in perspective, I took a dive of about 50% in sales last 4 days as well and all my sites are still ranking really well in google.
      Glad to see it's not just me!
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  • Profile picture of the author Valera
    Posted in wrong thread... sorry
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    • Profile picture of the author troybh
      You do realize there was an algo change on about the time your page views dropped.
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      • Profile picture of the author Marketing Fool
        Originally Posted by troybh View Post

        You do realize there was an algo change on about the time your page views dropped.
        Nope, hadn't heard...I'm usually up on that stuff. Read some people talking about it at webmasterworld but it didn't sound very definitive...and they were talking more about right after x-mas... *shrugs* can you point me towards more info?
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  • Profile picture of the author owenlee
    I have some of my traffic drop too..maybe more work is need for the coming year...yeah....
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  • My sites seem to be getting the same volume as usual. I also haven't seen too much changing in my rankings although one of my sites hit page one yesterday
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  • Profile picture of the author feliciayapsl
    It has remained the same for me
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    • Profile picture of the author OhSusanna
      Oddly enough, I have seen a gigantic drop in one of my PPV campaigns. This campaign has been old reliable for me.
      Today it looks like things were on their way back up. Gotta stay up my friend!
      2012 is going to be our year
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      • Profile picture of the author Marketing Fool
        Originally Posted by OhSusanna View Post

        Gotta stay up my friend! 2012 is going to be our year
        I'm sure you're right! I'm very optimistic!
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  • Profile picture of the author bloggerd
    [DELETED]
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    • Profile picture of the author Marketing Fool
      Originally Posted by bloggerd View Post

      Mine dropped as well over christmas period,but it is starting to pick up agin not quite back to what it was before but it's on the up agin..
      I had a pretty solid Christmas season, and even did well right after Christmas and through the new year (which was really surprising to me, I figured all the x-mas shopping would dry up before x-mas and traffic would drop then). It wasn't till around the 5th of January that things started to drop for me...
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  • Profile picture of the author OmarNegron
    During the Christmas season and the day before Christmas it was ugly (which is normal) but after things have picked up. Haven't noticed anything unusual since.

    -Omar
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  • Profile picture of the author GeorgR.
    Yes i am seeing some drops, but this is merely because Google hates me. But...then they hate me already for a long time

    But..on a serious note, YES i do since Google implemented a new change January 6th and it affected some sites of mine negatively.
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    • Profile picture of the author Marketing Fool
      Originally Posted by GeorgR. View Post

      Yes i am seeing some drops, but this is merely because Google hates me. But...then they hate me already for a long time
      Ah, well I think Google hates all of us...at least according to their leaked quality reviewer handbook thing ;-)
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  • Profile picture of the author Marketing Fool
    Just an Update: Adsense earnings dropped down to $30 yesterday...and with about an hour and a half left in today, they're at $32...something's definitely going on!! *L*
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  • Profile picture of the author bobcarlsjr
    i dont have adsense on my sites but my traffic is going up.. used to be 60-80 UVs a day.. now it's 180-200.. rank used to be 41.. now 22.. maybe another algorithm update?
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    • Profile picture of the author Naimath
      Yes, a friend of mine has faced similar problem. But he has had some crappy content on his website. He is already thinking about revising his content and making it more SEO-friendly. Google is getting very stringent in page ranking off late and it surely is going to difficult for everybody, especially for people who don't provide any value to their searchers.
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      • Profile picture of the author Marketing Fool
        Originally Posted by Naimath View Post

        Yes, a friend of mine has faced similar problem. But he has had some crappy content on his website. He is already thinking about revising his content and making it more SEO-friendly. Google is getting very stringent in page ranking off late and it surely is going to difficult for everybody, especially for people who don't provide any value to their searchers.
        Ah yeah my content is all crappy too...spun. But that's not to say I don't provide value to the searchers...;-)
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  • Profile picture of the author gearmonkey
    My traffic has increased.
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    • Profile picture of the author Marketing Fool
      Originally Posted by gearmonkey View Post

      My traffic has increased.
      How much? (round percentage-wise) Do you have one site or many?
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      • Profile picture of the author MarlboroMonkey
        My two money sites took a big hot with the algorithm update. Went from 14 for a relatively tough keyword to bouncing between 170 and 1k+. Other site from 2 to 29. Bing and yahoo still love me...
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  • Profile picture of the author Rukshan
    Yeah. I noticed a little drop.
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  • Profile picture of the author eyefox
    I also have site 2 day ages with 200 visit and now drop to 10 !
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  • Profile picture of the author davidtong
    My main site(s) have lost between 20-40% of daily traffic during this period as well... sucks.
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  • my sites are gaining traffic but im seeing a massive drop in ad revenue

    literally 50% on all sites

    i guess in January no advertisers have the budget
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    • Profile picture of the author mosthost
      Originally Posted by high_plains_drifter View Post

      my sites are gaining traffic but im seeing a massive drop in ad revenue

      literally 50% on all sites

      i guess in January no advertisers have the budget
      You might want to test different placements. Google Plus Your World is changing how people surf a bit, I think.

      I January, budgets should be reset. January is always one of my best months across multiple verticals.

      Ad targeting could be a problem. I've been removing ad units on a couple website to experiment.

      Google "Google Adsense Best Practices" for a document on what Google now says is best practice for ad placements. It's a bit of an eye opener
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      • Profile picture of the author pennyjmay
        Its been absolutely abyssmal since the last algo change.
        I dont know why as my traffic is still stable - actually it has increased but earnings on adsense is appallingly low - 70% down. All content is very good quality and very Panda friendly - all sites have social presence and good SEO.
        Does anyone have a definitive on what exactly changed on 6th jan?

        :confused::confused:
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        • Profile picture of the author Marketing Fool
          Originally Posted by pennyjmay View Post

          Its been absolutely abyssmal since the last algo change. Does anyone have a definitive on what exactly changed on 6th jan?
          :confused::confused:

          That's part of my problem...it seems obvious that there was an algo change, but I can't find any concrete information about it like usual.

          So maybe it wasn't so much an algo change but that new google search plus your world insanity, coupled with end of the holiday shopping season ad budget doldrums...I just don't know...
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  • Profile picture of the author davidtong
    My problem is invalid clicks or 0.00 CPC... I'm still getting the click volume on one of my sites but none of the clicks make money. The other sites are doing OK.. strange.
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    • Profile picture of the author Marketing Fool
      Originally Posted by davidtong View Post

      My problem is invalid clicks or 0.00 CPC... I'm still getting the click volume on one of my sites but none of the clicks make money. The other sites are doing OK.. strange.
      Weird, I'm not seeing anything like that at all...you might check your server logs and try and track down who's doing that, then ban their IP from your site...
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      • Profile picture of the author davidtong
        Originally Posted by Marketing Fool View Post

        Weird, I'm not seeing anything like that at all...you might check your server logs and try and track down who's doing that, then ban their IP from your site...
        Thanks...

        Question, I see this IP show up on the #1 in the unresolved IP list in AWstats in terms of daily hits: 50.116.74.148

        Is this some normal IP address or something malicious? All the domains/sites under the same HG account has this IP as the #1 source of hits and the sites are fundamentally different from each other that odds of the same visitor visiting all my sites are rare.

        Is this some 'standard' crawling bot or is something more malicious?
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  • Profile picture of the author That Guy
    Didn't realized there was an significant algo update on Jan 6, but looking at my adsense account I can see that there was a huge increase in traffic. It was actually about a 45% increase in traffic since before the update I was getting about 550 page impressions /day and after the algo update I'm getting more than 800 page impressions/day.
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  • Profile picture of the author Valera
    My Traffic Has sort of picked up again, most sites are still ranking really well but the sales are still very sluggish for what I normally consider HOT clickbank products for this time of year...

    Maybe people are way behind on their credit card debts, higher unemployment rates, lots of global issues and so on and people struggling to put food on the table increasingly in the U.S as of late and hence, I think they just have a lot less money to spend on crap found on the internet that I seem to be selling...
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    • Profile picture of the author Marketing Fool
      Originally Posted by Valera View Post

      My Traffic Has sort of picked up again, most sites are still ranking really well but the sales are still very sluggish for what I normally consider HOT clickbank products for this time of year...

      Maybe people are way behind on their credit card debts, higher unemployment rates, lots of global issues and so on and people struggling to put food on the table increasingly in the U.S as of late and hence, I think they just have a lot less money to spend on crap found on the internet that I seem to be selling...
      Glad to hear your traffic is picking up, at least. Sales will follow I'm sure.

      Yeah that was my first thought, that the holidays were over, everyone overspent, we're in a recession...but that doesn't explain my plummeting traffic :-(

      Oh well, I launched another hundred sites over the weekend so we'll see how they do within the next few weeks. I'll launch another hundred or so over the next few days.

      That should give me some good data to analyze.
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  • Profile picture of the author MarathonMan
    MarketingFool, I do believe the PR update may be to blame - Google seems to have removed a high amount of spun/invalid backlinks across the board.

    In general, I do not think you can count on your particular business model as a long-term endeavor. Because you're generating exactly the kind of site that Matt Cutts (and most searchers) hate, you're going to constantly be running to stay ahead of the various updates designed to cut you our of the SERPs. Maybe volume can help you for awhile, but you're fighting the Big G here.

    I earn a very respectable amount through Adsense (five digits a month) and I own no spun or scraped sites. I don't even do any off-page SEO. My model, which has worked excellently for me so far, is to create value and let money follow.
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    • Profile picture of the author Marketing Fool
      Originally Posted by MarathonMan View Post

      MarketingFool, I do believe the PR update may be to blame - Google seems to have removed a high amount of spun/invalid backlinks across the board.

      In general, I do not think you can count on your particular business model as a long-term endeavor. Because you're generating exactly the kind of site that Matt Cutts (and most searchers) hate, you're going to constantly be running to stay ahead of the various updates designed to cut you our of the SERPs. Maybe volume can help you for awhile, but you're fighting the Big G here.

      I earn a very respectable amount through Adsense (five digits a month) and I own no spun or scraped sites. I don't even do any off-page SEO. My model, which has worked excellently for me so far, is to create value and let money follow.
      Yeah I've owned many sites like yours in the past...good sites..sites people link to in the thousands and love to use. Google destroyed them all in the first Panda update. Across the board.
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      • Profile picture of the author MarathonMan
        Originally Posted by Marketing Fool View Post

        Yeah I've owned many sites like yours in the past...good sites..sites people link to in the thousands and love to use. Google destroyed them all in the first Panda update. Across the board.
        None of my sites were hit by the first Panda update, but several were hit by a smaller update in October that favored brand-name sites that knocked traffic down quite a bit. All have recovered and traffic has advanced since then, though.

        So your sites were hit by the first update? Did they ever recover?

        I guess diversity is the name of the game here.
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        • Profile picture of the author Marketing Fool
          Originally Posted by MarathonMan View Post

          None of my sites were hit by the first Panda update, but several were hit by a smaller update in October that favored brand-name sites that knocked traffic down quite a bit. All have recovered and traffic has advanced since then, though.

          So your sites were hit by the first update? Did they ever recover?

          I guess diversity is the name of the game here.
          Yep they were hit...never recovered...I mean not really. Some came back a little but not enough to justify them as a strategy for the long term.

          Diversity...that's the problem. You can't diversify if your strategy is to create high quality sites. To build a really good site takes an enormous amount of time, energy, and/or money (if you're outsourcing quality content).

          So it's not like you can build 50 of those diversified sites unless you are like a publicly traded company with huge pockets and a big staff...

          So if you've got 1-5 sites that you've spent 6 months to a year building full time and they get hit...you're just screwed. That's why I focus on smaller niche sites now....google hates them as much as they hate all sites not owned by google, but at least I can throw them up quickly and replace them easily when they get smacked by google...*shrugs*

          It sounds like I'm bitter, and I'm not...just keeping things in perspective! ;-)
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    • Profile picture of the author sandra98
      Originally Posted by MarathonMan View Post

      I earn a very respectable amount through Adsense (five digits a month) and I own no spun or scraped sites. I don't even do any off-page SEO. My model, which has worked excellently for me so far, is to create value and let money follow.
      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.

      Marketing Fool - On the topic of traffic drops, I did have a really low showing on Sat, but it seemed to have headed back to normal on Sunday. Let's hope it stays that way.
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      • Profile picture of the author MarathonMan
        Originally Posted by sandra98 View Post

        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.
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  • Profile picture of the author davidtong
    Ironic huh... Wish Yahoo/Bing and other search engines actually do make an effort to compete in this realm *sigh*
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    • Profile picture of the author Marketing Fool
      Originally Posted by davidtong View Post

      Ironic huh... Wish Yahoo/Bing and other search engines actually do make an effort to compete in this realm *sigh*
      Definitely. My sites do get some traffic from Bing/hoo but it doesn't compare to what Google sends me...or I should say USED to send me before the 6th of this month! *L*

      Microsoft, bless their hearts, keep trying to compete but I doubt they'll ever come close...
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  • 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?
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  • Profile picture of the author 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...
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  • Profile picture of the author ricky pounting
    i have not feel any big difference. As you are experiencing.
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  • Profile picture of the author arcanex
    my adsense impressions from one of my site isn't counting, any help would be appreciated..
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  • Profile picture of the author 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.
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    • Profile picture of the author Marketing Fool
      Originally Posted by James- View Post

      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.
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  • Profile picture of the author SEOChemist
    You might have got hit by one of the Google January updates, they released a list of about 30 changes.
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  • Profile picture of the author 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
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  • Profile picture of the author adionline
    Noticed a drop on the 13th for some of my sites.
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  • Profile picture of the author 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?
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    • Profile picture of the author Marketing Fool
      Originally Posted by delfinparis View Post

      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.
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  • Profile picture of the author guzpra
    yeah I experienced decreasing adsense income, but the traffic is increasing..
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    • Profile picture of the author Marketing Fool
      Originally Posted by guzpra View Post

      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...
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      • Profile picture of the author 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.
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        • Profile picture of the author Marketing Fool
          Originally Posted by aygabtu View Post

          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...
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          • Profile picture of the author aygabtu
            Originally Posted by Marketing Fool View Post

            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.
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            • Profile picture of the author 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.
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              Do what you want to do!
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            • Profile picture of the author Marketing Fool
              Originally Posted by aygabtu View Post

              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?
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  • Profile picture of the author 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 View Post

    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?
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