Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Let your business shine with Listings AI
      Moz Local

      Let your business shine with Listings AI

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. My direct traffic went up and my organic traffic went down. Help!

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    My direct traffic went up and my organic traffic went down. Help!

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    5
    12
    3699
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • Eric_OWPP
      Eric_OWPP last edited by

      So on Oct. 21, our direct traffic increased 3x and our organic traffic decreased 3x. And it has been that way ever since. Almost like they flip flopped. Additionally, that was the same day I started retargeting to our site. I have tagged all the links from the ads and they're being counted as google paid clicks in GA. And our accounts are linked. I am just dumbfounded as to how this could happen.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • douglasfaria10
        douglasfaria10 last edited by

        Hey Arnold Ambiel,
        cheguei a esse tópico porque estava tendo um problema como o seu. O tráfego orgânico e direto foram revertidos. Vi que você tinha esse problema em 2016 e o ​​meu ocorreu em junho.
        Você encontrou alguma solução para esse problema?

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • Eric_OWPP
          Eric_OWPP @TrentonGreener last edited by

          haven't checked yet but did find this article about serp sitelink changes on the exact day i saw traffic drop.

          http://searchengineland.com/recent-changes-organic-sitelinks-cause-major-drops-impressions-gsc-264424

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • TrentonGreener
            TrentonGreener @Eric_OWPP last edited by

            Awh, shucks! Thanks for the kind words!

            I look forward to seeing what you find! Let me know if I can help any further!

            Regards,
            Trenton

            Eric_OWPP 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • Eric_OWPP
              Eric_OWPP @TrentonGreener last edited by

              It's contributions like Trenton's above that make me love the Moz community. I will check all that you suggested and report back. 🙂

              TrentonGreener 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • TrentonGreener
                TrentonGreener @Eric_OWPP last edited by

                I'm going to chime in here as the conversation has already started from which I want to reference a few items.

                While Sean is correct that there is a redirect on page load, - which is weird & not likely optimal - the redirect isn't causing the UTM parameters to be dropped here.
                If you check the Network tab of the debug console of Chrome you'll see the two requests for the URI you listed above. If you click the requested file (in the network tab) & navigate to the 'Headers' tab you will see that Query String Parameters are still there & being passed.
                Now let's circle back to the original problem & see if we can't get to the bottom of it!

                I checked out the graph you linked and while it does seem that there's an inverse correlation there, I wouldn't assume too quickly that they switched. I would encourage you to dive into the data a little bit more. Specifically:

                • I would use Google Search Console's Search Analytics (the actual interface, not the section in Google Analytics) & look to see if the number of clicks around that same time changed much.

                • If there is a noticeable change, dive into the keywords & Landing Pages that saw the shift

                • If there is not a noticeable change, we can cross an actual organic change off our list.

                • I would also look at the change over that period in GA's landing page report. Look to see if there are any pages that saw a gain/loss over the period in question.

                • If there is, add a secondary dimension of medium & see where the change lies

                • If not, mark it off

                • The final door I would check is the changes that were made for remarketing

                • What if any changes were made within Google Analytics? Specifically the admin portion, while I'd check all changes you may have made here, I'm specifically curious if you may have added the URL Query Parameters as exclusions?

                • Were any tags, tracking codes, etc added during this time & are the implementations correct?

                If you dive into these and summarize your findings here, I'll be more than happy to help you further. Though, I have a hunch that the answer is behind one of these doors.

                Good luck!
                Trenton

                Eric_OWPP 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                • Eric_OWPP
                  Eric_OWPP @Eric_OWPP last edited by

                  thought i'd add the GA graph that shows the switch

                  xv9pBw5

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • Eric_OWPP
                    Eric_OWPP @seanginnaw last edited by

                    so would a JS redirect make the session count as direct traffic?

                    Eric_OWPP TrentonGreener 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • seanginnaw
                      seanginnaw @Eric_OWPP last edited by

                      Hey,

                      It looks like there was a JS redirect in place that redirects users to a fresh page view of the same page - don't know if this might be something having an effect?

                      I used Ayima Redirect Tool for chrome to find this - see the screenshot attached.

                      Hope this helps,

                      Sean

                      7A12I

                      Eric_OWPP 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • Eric_OWPP
                        Eric_OWPP last edited by

                        Thanks Sean!

                        Here is the final URL:
                        http://www.oneworldplayproject.com/buy-bulk-soccer-balls/?utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=bulk&utm_content=bulk10&utm_term=300

                        Here is the URL in the ad that people could type in. This is a redirect to the www. version:
                        oneworldplayproject.com

                        Also, these are only image ads so there is no display URL being shown.

                        I am also curious why Organic would drop though. But let's play this out first.

                        seanginnaw 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • seanginnaw
                          seanginnaw last edited by

                          Hi there,

                          Although you say you've tagged your ad traffic correctly, it sounds like your UTM tracking isn't set up correctly - 95% of the time wrong tracking from ads forces a sudden unnatural increase in Direct traffic. The other possibility is that you're sending traffic to a page that's then redirecting to your site which may trim off the UTM tagging and force the traffic as 'Direct'.

                          Give me an example of one of the URLs you've tagged up and I'll see if anything is going wrong.

                          All the best,

                          Sean

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • TheSymmetran
                            TheSymmetran last edited by

                            direct traffic can be from bookmarks and such, as well as it could depend on proper implementation of ads and retargetting too.

                            That does seem a bit odd of a coincidence though, I have never dealt with such a switch scenario like that and to that degree, I have only seen more negligible or at least less worrisome amount of such changes in the past which we ended up not spending time to find out what was the underlying sitch with it as it corrected itself as a trend after a short period of time.

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                            • 1 / 1
                            • First post
                              Last post

                            Got a burning SEO question?

                            Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                            Start my free trial


                            Browse Questions

                            Explore more categories

                            • Moz Tools

                              Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                            • SEO Tactics

                              Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                            • Community

                              Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                            • Digital Marketing

                              Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                            • Research & Trends

                              Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                            • Support

                              Connect on product support and feature requests.

                            • See all categories

                            Related Questions

                            • inhouseninja

                              Huge Drop in Direct Traffic in G4

                              google analytics direct traffic

                              Our direct traffic dropped 50% in October. Is anyone else seeing a drop in direct traffic in October in G4? It hasn't shifted to another source or unassigned it's just gone. Has anyone else experienced this and what might be the reasons?

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | inhouseninja
                              1
                            • NortonSupportSEO

                              Is it possible to have organization markup schema for sub domain ? and how should it look like ?

                              Can we have organization markup schema for subdomain ? For example if my main domain is xyz.com and subdomain is sub.xyz.com If i plan to have organization markup schema for subdomain how should it look like ? Should the markup schema must have main domain url or sub domain url in markup schema ? Should it be like this ?

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NortonSupportSEO
                              0
                            • vtmoz

                              Does removal of internal redirects(301) help in SEO

                              I am planning to completely remove 301 redirects manually by replacing such links with actual live pages/links. So there will be no redirects internally in the website. Will this boost our SEO efforts? Auto redirects will be there for incoming links to non-existing pages. Thanks, Satish

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vtmoz
                              0
                            • EcommerceSite

                              Why is my Bing traffic dropping?

                              In the middle of September we launched a redesigned version of our site. The urls all stayed the same. Since site launch traffic in Google has steadily increased but Bing traffic has dropped by about 50%. Any ideas on what I should look at?

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EcommerceSite
                              0
                            • HB17

                              Spike then Drop in Direct Traffic?

                              We've been doing some SEO work over the last few weeks and earlier this week we saw a large spike in traffic. Yay we all thought, but then yesterday the traffic levels returned to pre-celebratory levels. I've been doing some digging to try and find out what was different Monday and Tuesday this week. Mondays are usually big traffic days for us anyway, but this week was by far the biggest, and Tuesday was even higher still, our best day ever. After some poking, I found that the direct traffic followed the same pattern as our overall traffic levels (image attached). The first spike coincides with an email we sent out that day, but the later spike we just don't know where it came from? I understand loosely that direct isn't easily traceable, but can anyone help us understand more about this second spike? Thanks! ayqL2wi

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HB17
                              0
                            • WaySEO

                              New Website Launch - Traffic Way Down

                              We launched a new website in June. Traffic plummeted after the launch, we crept back up for a couple of months, but now we are flat, nowhere near our pre-launch traffic or previous year's traffic. For the past 6 months our analytics have been worrying us - Overall traffic and new visitor traffic is down over 10%,  bounce rate is up almost 35% since site launched, keywords aren't ranking where they used to, and of course, web sales are down. Is this supposed to happen when a new site is launched, and how long does a new this transition last? We have done all the technical audits, adding relevant content, we're at a loss. Any suggestions where to look next to improve traffic to pre-launch numbers?

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WaySEO
                              0
                            • arching

                              Multiple Keyword Research Questions, Help

                              Hello , I've been trying for several days to understand how keyword research works for a multi purpose website,I've read guides, articles even some chapters from the book" The Art of Seo" by O'Reilly and still no luck. It seems i can't wrap my head around keyword research,lets say I have a social gaming community website and I'm trying to rank it first on some low competition keywords + some long tail keywords.The website has functions like leaderboards, profiles,events, competitions,etc so it's not actually a news related website but it will have a blog. My website being on the games niche It would imply that I should target words that contain the word "Games" but this word generates millions of searches globally so ranking first its nearly impossible if the website is brand new. This made me pursue generic keywords formed with 2 / 3 words like fresh games, new games, mmorpg games, fps games,etc which still generate lets say 30.000 searches globally each. Due to the different areas of the website like latest game events,latest games competitions,etc I'm confused If i should pursue website specific keywords like latest games events, fresh games events, latest games competitions, upcoming games competitions but these too generate 30.000 global searches each,so... 0.should i use generic keywords or keywords that include site features? So let's say I decide to pursue generic "games" keywords,due to a high competition based on the keyword I decide to go a layer deeper and for the keyword "fresh games" I obtain keywords like** "fresh games 2011,top fresh games 2011, upcoming fresh games** " and thus building a list of 30 keywords that contain " fresh games".If i do this for the rest of the keywords: ** new games, mmorpg games, fps games,etc**  I end up with a list of 10.000 keywords or more since each keyword generates other keywords. Is this the correct approach ? since generating 10.000 keywords sounds a lot and I'm getting the feeling that It's not how it supposed to be done,like were would I insert 10.000 keywords? So how do I know which keywords to pick and aim in order to try to get no.1 ranking? and why those? How many keywords should I use? and where should i put them? since it's not a news website so writing a lot of articles isn't an option. Should I focus on 2 words keywords with around 10.000-30.000 seaches or 2 words keywords + long tail keywords with less traffic like 100 - 5000? Is there a guide for the Keyword Analysis Tool since if i enter "fresh new games" i get a 39% keyword difficulty,is that hard to rank? and I don't know what all those color mean since some of them have higher numbers then others that are found at the top and how can i get beat a website that has has rank 10. So hopefully with your help & by some miracle I will finally be able to build a keyword list. Thank you !

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | arching
                              0
                            • TECHeGO

                              Getting Google to Correct a Misspelled Site Link...Help!

                              My company website recently got its site links in google search... WooHoo! However, when you type TECHeGO into Google Search one of the links is spelled incorrectly. Instead of 'CONversion Optimization' its 'COversion Optimization'. At first I thought there was a misspelling on that page somewhere but there is not and have come to the conclusion that Google has made a mistake. I know that I can block the page in webmaster tools (No Thanks) but how in the crap can I get them to correct the spelling when no one really knows how to get them to appear in the first place? Riddle Me That Folks! sitelink.jpg

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TECHeGO
                              0

                            Get started with Moz Pro!

                            Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                            Start my free trial
                            Products
                            • Moz Pro
                            • Moz Local
                            • Moz API
                            • Moz Data
                            • STAT
                            • Product Updates
                            Moz Solutions
                            • SMB Solutions
                            • Agency Solutions
                            • Enterprise Solutions
                            Free SEO Tools
                            • Domain Authority Checker
                            • Link Explorer
                            • Keyword Explorer
                            • Competitive Research
                            • Brand Authority Checker
                            • Local Citation Checker
                            • MozBar Extension
                            • MozCast
                            Resources
                            • Blog
                            • SEO Learning Center
                            • Help Hub
                            • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                            • How-to Guides
                            • Moz Academy
                            • API Docs
                            About Moz
                            • About
                            • Team
                            • Careers
                            • Contact
                            Why Moz
                            • Case Studies
                            • Testimonials
                            Get Involved
                            • Become an Affiliate
                            • MozCon
                            • Webinars
                            • Practical Marketer Series
                            • MozPod
                            Connect with us

                            Contact the Help team

                            Join our newsletter
                            Moz logo
                            © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                            • Accessibility
                            • Terms of Use
                            • Privacy

                            Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.