Organic search traffic down 60% since 8/1/18\. What now?
-
I have a small health & fitness blog, and my Google search traffic suddenly dropped 60% around August 1 (I've attempted to link an image). My rank has dropped for 86 keywords. I have no manual penalty, so I'm guessing I was affected by the algorithm change.
My technical skills are VERY limited. I've tried to find answers on my own, but every time I try to "fix" something, I only seem to make it worse. I do seem to have some structural/performance issues with my site (e.g., lots of 404 errors from uninstalled plugins and unwanted permalinks). I asked my server for assistance (I used managed Wordpress hosting), and they said they couldn't help.
As you can imagine, this is quite devastating, and I have no clue where to go from here. I don't know if I'm allowed to link to my site here, but it's mommyrunsit dot com. Any assistance is greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Sharon
-
how to check spamming backlinks for website light motion APK
-
If your organic traffic substantially decreases, this could be because of an algorithm update or because the business is possibly incurring a manual or an algorithm penalty?
-
Yes, same happened to my websites https://www.healthpaper.org and https://www.scienceworld.in. these site are in Hindi language. I need to know how to recover and grow web traffic.
-
Unfortunately, I think the "not a penalty" line is sometimes a bit of a cop-out on Google's part -- anything that moves a bunch of sites up, is naturally going to move a bunch of other sites down. Even if those sites have technically done nothing wrong, it sure feels like to them like they're being penalized. I also don't like that Google claims they're rewarding good behavior, but then won't really tell us what that good behavior is. If it's genuinely good behavior, give us some guidelines (we're not asking for chunks of code from the algorithm).
I'm comparing a case right now where there are two sites in the same industry, both seem decent, but one got a huge boost on 8/1 and one took a big hit. Hoping to glean some insights, but there's just a ton of speculation at the moment.
-
Dr. Meyers,
Thank you so much for your response. It is tremendously helpful, and I appreciate the actionable items that I can address right away. I am trying not to freak out, but honestly a 60% drop in organic traffic is devastating to a small site like mine,
You may find this helpful as you collect data: I've been studying my ranking for various search terms.. One post in particular has been on page 1 of Google for 3.5 years, and it dropped down to around #10+ overnight. Some of the posts that have replaced mine in the top spots were written by bloggers who I know, all of whom are comparable to me in style and reach, and none of whom are either more or less authoritative than me. Their posts have been there all along but just ranked lower than mine.
I've heard the theory that Google is not necessarily penalizing content, but rather they are giving a boost to deserving content that has previously been unrecognized. This makes sense, but it also kind of stinks.
Thanks again for your help. I'll keep my eye out for new info about the algo update.
Sharon
-
I've studied the August 1st update as much or more than most, and let me first be brutally honest and say that we're still at a pretty early stage of speculation. Until we have clear recovery cases, we're all just trying to tell a story from the anecdotal data. There are a lot of plausible theories, but we can't give you clear answers other than to confirm that the update was large and the health and fitness vertical definitely seemed to be disproportionately impacted.
The E-A-T theory is plausible, from what I've seen, but it leaves a lot left to be explained. We don't know what signals Google uses for Expertise/Authority/Trust -- are they on-page signals, link-based signals, citation-based signals... ? Probably a combination, and some of those are a lot easier to control than others.
Looking briefly at your site, here's what I might try if I were you. Again, this is educated guesswork at best:
(1) Your author name links go to pages that show all articles by that author. I know this is a common practice, but I would consider linking those to a full bio page for each author, with credentials. The on-page E-A-T signals probably aren't the whole picture Google uses, but they're the easiest to control. Currently, these pages also lead to more, similar pages (page 2, 3, etc.), which could look thin, but your rel=prev/next tags seem to be properly formatted. I'm more concerned that Google isn't seeing any information about the authors on those immediately linked author pages (other than a very short blurb).
(2) I know this can be a dicey issue online (especially if you're trying to protect anonymity to some degree), but I'd strongly recommend using your full name, properly capitalized. The use of just "sharon," "victor," etc. could make it harder for Google to connect you to third-party mentions and citations, unless those sites link directly to your bio pages. I strongly suspect Gogole is using some link/citation signals to establish E-A-T. it's a bit like having a consistent business name and address in local search -- you need to make it easy for Google to connect your name to mentions of you.
You do have some odd links to your site that almost look like they're tied to a link network, but I'm having trouble finding some of them manually (they're coming up in Link Explorer reports). If you've got any link profile problems, I'd consider cleaning those up ASAP. If Google is pushing hard and require more proof of expertise in your link profile, that's going to be a lot harder battle. There's no easy fix for that, other than continuing to try to build credibility. Again, I think the full-name issue might help here, but it's only one small piece of the puzzle.
Sorry you've been affected by this -- we're seeing a lot of small health/fitness blogs getting hit, and many seem to be decent quality, independent blogs by well-meaning people.
-
Thanks, GR. I'm trying not to despair, but ugh. I'll read those posts - thanks so much.
Sharon
-
Hi Roni,
sorry to hear that you were hit by this god damn update.Im writing to send you good wishes and hope. Also to sum up and add two other studies about the algorithm. Read them full and try to understand what's the issue in your site:
Analysis and Findings From The August 1, 2018 Google Algorithm Update – A Massive Core Ranking Update - GSQi
Google's August 1st Core Update: Week 1 - Moz Blog
Google’s August algorithm update strengthens as roll-out continues - Sistrix
The August 1, 2018 Google Update strongly affected YMYL sites - Marie HaynesBest luck!
GR -
Thank you so much. I'll read those articles and see if I can figure anything out.
I would appreciate any suggestions. My site is https://www.mommyrunsit.com/
Sharon
-
Hello, Sharon,
I'm so sorry to hear your blog was strongly affected by the August 1st update. From what I've read, health/fitness is one of the categories which has been most obviously impacted.
We are still in the early days of speculating about which signals Google is focusing on.
Here is Dr. Pete's post detailing what Moz has seen happen with this update:
https://moz.com/blog/googles-august-1st-core-update-week-1
Marie Haynes also wrote a blog post offering a theory that Google's focus may be E-A-T signals (expertise, authoritativeness, and trust), which I recommend that you read if you haven't already, bearing in mind, of course, that this is only a theory: https://www.mariehaynes.com/the-august-1-2018-google-update-strongly-affected-ymyl-sites/ She offers some suggestions for things you might analyze and attempt for your website.
I hope these at least offer some information, and if you wish to share your domain name here, perhaps our community can make some specific suggestions even though no one but some folks at Google can be totally sure what was targeted and how a site can attempt to recover.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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.
Related Questions
-
Direct / (none) Spam Traffic Help
In July 2015, we experienced an over 1,000% increase in traffic and it has remained like that ever since. It's all spam traffic and I have no clue how to get rid of it. I added in your typical .htaccess blocks from known culprits with little to no effect. Read up on Ghost traffic and applied filters to no effect. The spam is completely distributed as far as I can tell both geographically as well as by network providers. Where once we had pretty decent bounce rates of around 50%, now, since all my Analytics data is meaningless - it's around 90%. I could apply a filter but beyond my GA account providing no insights, I'm also concerned about the increased use of server resources. I'd ideally like to stop the traffic completely. The only distinguishing feature of the traffic that I have been able to determine is browser size. Comparing June 2015 to July 2015 we saw the following: Browser size visits: 620 x 460 = 6,828 vs 0, 610 x 450 = 175 vs 0, 1330 x 630 = 71 vs 1, 1890 x 940 = 67 vs 0, 780 x 580 = 58 v 5. Other than that, I can find no unifying theme to the traffic beyond being traffic hitting our homepage and having no medium. Nothing special that I am aware of happened in July. We didn't do any sort of...really anything. We did have our network compromised by ransomware in the beginning of June, which we promptly ignored and restored backups - at no point did we try to contact the criminals, but I am doubtful there is any connection considering that our website is remotely hosted. If anyone has any suggestions or has seen anything like this before, please let me know. spam-traffic.jpg
Reporting & Analytics | | Nivik230 -
Why Is My Traffic Going Up But My Alexa Rating Getting Worse?
I am curious why my Alexa rating has been getting worse over the last few weeks. My organic traffic is up, direct visits and social networking visits are up but my Alexa has been getting worse and worse. Is anyone having the same problem? Any feedback would be helpful. Thanks.
Reporting & Analytics | | Videogamefan0 -
In Google Search Console: Total Clicks differ from the sum clicks on search queries
Hi.This may be a google technical question, but I've searched a lot and I couldn't find any certain information about that.The problem appears when you look at two stats in Search Console ( WebMasters Tools, some months ago), particulary in the Search Analysis.1- Total clicks2- Sum of clicks at every search query.I attached an image to make me clear.8IZsxs6.png
Reporting & Analytics | | NachoRetta2 -
How to interpret search "clicks" in GA?
I am trying to make some sense of the data in the "Landing Pages" report under "Search Engine Optimization" in GA versus the data under the "Landing Pages" report in "Behavior | Site Content". For example, the SEO report says my page http://www.asiantraveltips.com/blog/bangkok-skytrain-bts-mrt-lines/ received 22,000 search impressions in the past 30 days and 900 "clicks" (12.42%). What are these "clicks" when the Content "Landing Pages" report says the same page only got 382 "sessions" in the same period??? What are these "clicks" if not clicks on the search results link that should be reflected in landing page sessions on the corresponding page?
Reporting & Analytics | | Gavin.Atkinson0 -
Google Shopping tracking as organic traffic - help!
Hey guys, I have an eCommerce client who sometimes runs Google PLA and Google Shopping campaigns. However, we don't run his AdWords for him, just do his SEO. At the moment, the Shopping campaigns track as organic traffic within Analytics. And I can't see any way to change this! It's so infuriating. How do I change this? Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | jasarrow0 -
GA stopped tracking traffic, suddenly, why¿? :-/
2 days ago GA stopped receiving data. It only stopped for one account of all my projects. At this moment there are 5 persons navigating the site and these days there where numerous visitors as they contacted the support team thru the site. GA says that it's receiving the code, hw, I checked it twice. The tracking code is located below the footer, in the body. It was there for few years.... I also checked if there is some js conflict, negative. Is there something that could make the tracking to stop? Does anybody experienced similar problems¿? Should I be worried...¿? (and with SEOmoz server with issues not sure when will see new results.......) EDIT: In Web Master Tools I see results for indexing, with yesterday date, so I assume that the site crawling is ok and must be GA issue.
Reporting & Analytics | | MilosMilcom0 -
Image Search Keyword Tracking With Google Analytics
Does anyone know how to track keywords for your images in Google, Yahoo, Bing (/imgres)?
Reporting & Analytics | | Melia0 -
Why does Google Analytics think PPC traffic is organic?
I have a bastard of a problem... Google Analytics is incorrectly tracking PPC traffic as SEO which is screwing up all my reporting . I don't care for rankings, I care for actual SEO traffic and I can't be sure that what i am seeing is correct which is driving me nuts. Any ideas?
Reporting & Analytics | | Red_Mud_Rookie1