The dreaded drop
-
Hello all,
So a sister site has contacted me about their drop in traffic, around January they created a page, (and I kid you not), with a title of "Banner Link Exchange", it took me about ten minutes to stop laughing. Around the 16th of July their traffic dropped like a stone (see image).
Obviously I've had them remove the page and we've contacted the sites that they swapped links with, there are 20+). I'm going to give them a week then I'm going to disavow the links. Interestingly the brand keywords are all still at position one, but it's decimated any product and broad search links. I've had them create a blog and they're going to contact the sites they were linking with and write some proper articles. We'll clean up their backlink profile and any site issues they have. It's an ecommerce site so the projected take is down around 40%
My question is are there any indications after fixing as much as possible that the traffic will return, and in what period of time? (i'm seeing conflicting ideas about this)
We can't change the site domain as there's a physical store as well... the domain was first used in 1996...
Cheers
Stew
-
Hi Bruce, thanks for responding again, no we're not running adwords, we have some products that google doesn't like.
I've looked through the sources, it's literally just the google traffic that's died a death, although in general the conversion rate on the traffic is abysmal, circa 1% when my site is more like 3% for very similar products..
-
Hi
Are you running Adwords and Google Products?
Have you switched to the new Google Shopping in Adwords? If so this could be the problem. If you have switched (as everyone has too during August) a significant drop in sales coming from the new shopping campaigns in Adwords might be the source. We have noticed this too and spoken to Google Adwords about it.
Worth checking this out, as this might help? Check GA to see conversions by channel
Bruce
-
Thanks Bruce, I am looking at it from as many angles as possible
It's an ecomms site for a bricks and mortar store, the keywords that are still at number one are all brand keywords that bring up their local result page and their homepage, the 40% drop in revenue is directly from the search channel, everything else is as effective as before. Funnily enough I'd just been nosey and started to track their keywords just before they dropped, you can see the change point...
-
What might be interesting to check out is this: Is this now the genuine real traffic that the site generated and therefore is now realistic?
Often when problems are fixed, what you start to see is the real figures behind the site.
Check GWT and also GA to see if the two are matching trends. Often impression are only that, impressions and what matters is the real bottom line. Those who engaged and purchased might be found to be equal to that of before, although you mention that take is down 40%. Although if keywords are still at No1, then somethiing appears to be not quite right in the numbers.
Without knowing the industry, seasonal flutation can be that dramatic, due to rain, snow, sun etc.
Validate the data from all sources and cross match to get more evidence
Just a few thoughts.
Bruce
-
Thanks Malcolm, I need to talk to our board tomorrow and want to manage their expectations...
-
Thanks both, there wasn't any notice from Google, but i can't see anything more egregious than that page
We're working on a content strategy, fortunately it's a niche market and the store has a good reputation so we can leverage that.
The link exchange did boost the traffic, although it wasn't particularly good in boosting the revenue, i guess it's best endeavours and see what happens!
-
I would suggest you certainly take the steps to have the link removed. Disavowing links would be my next immediate step in this process. I have seen sites recover within 4-6 months and others take up to 12 months.
Malcom
-
How much traffic can return is dependent on how much traffic the link exchange brought in. Your best case scenario for the immediate future would be to get back to around the same levels before they implemented the page...assuming you get all the bad links removed.
Sidenote, sending a few emails and waiting a week may not be enough for google to move on your disavow request, but it's a start.
Good luck,
Ruben
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
-
Sudden big drop for keyword ranking this month -Numerous possible factors... which is most likely?
Hi I have a fairly new site (domain around 1 year and 6 months old) and in December it was sitting on Google's second page for our main keyword "cv writing service" In late December we had a couple of stories picked up by the press and got some really good contextual links from a handful of well known media sites with DA60 and above. Naturally I thought this would have a positive effect on our position for our keyword so I checked and was shocked to see that the site is now sitting on page 4... A drop of 2 pages Also my site has dropped one point in DA on the Moz open site explorer I have some possible theroies for the drop but would really appreicate if anyone could point me in the right direction for the possible cause of this drop and what I need to focus on to fix tihs issue. Theories.... I made some big changes to the copy of my homepage and aboutapge a few weeks before the stories were picked up - although the copy is still similar content and optimised for my keywords I had some early SEO work done by a freelancer in the early days and I now realise that a lot of the links are very weak and on quite poor looking sites (although they are not flagged as spammy in OSE, I think they are spammy) The story that got picked up by the media was slightly off topic - it was about jobs rather than CV's - could this make google think that my site is not relevant? Prior to these stories being picked up - we took a short break from link building for a few months due to resource issues So if anyone knows if any of these factors are likely to have caused the drop I would be grateful to know! Thanks Andrew
Link Building | | Fennzil0 -
Has anyone seen a recent drop in Page Authority?
We have seen a sizeable drop in Page Authority for three of our key category pages over the last one week.The total number of linking root domains has increased for all the three pages. We have disavowed a few spammy links but we doubt that would cause a drop in page authority. The domain authority is unchanged.Is there any way we could figure out the cause of the drop? Has anyone else also noticed a drop in page authority for their pages? Hello,We have seen a sizeable drop in Page Authority for three of our key category pages over the last one week.The total number of linking root domains has increased for all the three pages. We have disavowed a few spammy links but we doubt that would cause a drop in page authority. The domain authority is unchanged.Is there any way we could figure out the cause of the drop? Has anyone else also noticed a drop in page authority for their pages?
Link Building | | vikassocialbeat0 -
I need help: Website has dropped and I dont know how to bring it back
Hi All, So my website has dropped now to page 12, I have no idea why, I've tried myself to bring it back and I have also tried a few £1000 at outsourcing the SEO which has had no affect. There are no penalties in webmaster tools but I personally think something the algo doesn't like is holding it back - I could be wrong. I think this because some of the results higher than me are a lot worse, hold little to no content and there backlink profiles have no links, some are even 1 page new domains that have been live for as little as a month ranking a lot higher than me. At one point I was ranking page1, position4 for the term 'bank holidays' and now I don't rank anywhere. What's weird is if you search 'bankholidays' as one word I appear in that position. Does anyone have any ideas what is going on? Problem page: followuk.co.uk/bank-holidays - GoogleUK search. I need some help please.
Link Building | | followuk0 -
Rankings Drop Penguin 2.0
Hey guys, Suffering a horrible rankings drop after penguin 2.0. We have 4 popular sites and have seen a steady decline in rankings and traffic after 22nd May. I've looked into it a little bit and am wondering if WordPress blog sidebar links might be hurting us. Specifically my brother and I both have sidebar links on our personal blogs which are getting indexed on every page, and I'm wondering if it's distorting our link profiles. Specifically, I read something about links coming from sites which aren't relevant to your niche and overly optimised anchor text. Both sites have very simple single keyword anchor texts on the links. We're pretty white hat in terms of SEO, we've never done that much link building, and when we do, it's usually with worthwhile directories or with sites we have relationships with. Therefore we don't have that many links. Any ideas on how best to investigate this? Thanks.
Link Building | | Fergus_Macdonald0 -
If a bad link domain drops from my site do I regain authority.
Hi Guys, I wanted to know for example if 2 years ago I purchased SEO from some guys that were building links to sites that had very high PR which was important way back when. And now those links are negatively affecting my SEO stopping me reaching position 1 for a term 'replacement keys' and we are stuck in position 2. If the sites were to be reset or domains sold for those sites that were linking in do you think this was remove the penalty on us as a knock-on effect. Thanks James
Link Building | | jameslane880 -
SEO Drop rename pages
Some of key product pages have dropped due to what I think is overused anchor text. Can we rename them, and start again?
Link Building | | jj34340 -
Drop in Links According to Webmaster Tools
Webmaster tools is telling me the links to my site has dropped by 100,000 links in one month. Can someone please tell me what may have happened?
Link Building | | Professor0 -
What could cause a drop in pagerank
Our home page pagerank dropped from 4 to 3. nlpca(dot)com What are the possible things that could cause this?
Link Building | | BobGW0