Large traffic loss, how to resolve?
-
So I have a few questions. A site which has dropped quite dramatically over the last month. There could be a few factors (less regular updates) been one. However, plenty of links spam has happened which some of which appears to be been pointed at an article. That article has been removed. We also disavowed 800+ links all of which had a spam score of between 100 and 40+ - they all looked ugly and irreverent such as forum spams, wallpapers spams, and junk. Is this the right move to make?
What should the site do next? The current score is 4,000 SEMR. It was around 15,000 before. It's an aged site. Less effort is put into it now as the next site is here.
Await your replys thanks.
-
Hi there! I'm assuming that you're seeing the traffic loss in your on-site analytics as well as in tools like SEMRush (because if not my first port-of-call would be to check your GA/similar to make sure this isn't just SEMRush seeing only part of the picture).
The spam could be a factor but I think you've already addressed that. It could be worth bearing in mind that there was a core algorithm update in May so that could be a factor in the traffic change. However, a couple things interest me here.
One is that you mention you've been investing less into this site - this could simply be a matter of the site being out of date and no longer a good result.
The other interesting point is you mention "the next site is here". If you have been building another site targeting the same keywords and using roughly the same content, it could just be a matter of the new site taking the old site's rankings, particularly if the new site has had more recent investment.
If the new site is targeting the same things as the old site, it'd probably be a good idea to redirect the old site to the new site to make sure that you have one site that's ranking on page 1 rather than two sites that are ranking page 2 and below.
If the new site is something very different then I think it comes down to how willing you're willing to invest in the old one. If it's worth the time, the next thing I'd do is look at:
- GA to see if any pages were particularly badly hit
- Search console to see if there were any topics which were particularly badly hit
- Recent dev changes to make sure it's not a tech issue
- The specifics of that core ranking update (article linked above) to see if any themes jump out to you.
If it seems to be sitewide then it's possible it's a dev/algorithm update issue and I'd focus on improving overall site quality. If it's localised on specific topics/pages then I'd start by focusing on how I can update that content specifically.
For more specifics, this blog post by Dom Woodman is a pretty good resource.
Hope that helps!
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
-
Traffic going down in all sites in a niche
Hello, A client has three Ecommerce sites in a niche. Because of competition and a (possibly) non manual penalty due to doorways and paid links (though I think it's mainly competition too) our traffic is going down. What are the keys to increasing traffic at this point. Feel free to include tricks that cost money. A Hrefs (I love Moz though!) has some neat content tricks. Please give me the best tricks in the industry to increase traffic. We're adding content to the main site of the three and maybe that's what to focus on, but we're having trouble driving serious traffic with the content. We need serious traffic. We are experts in our field and capable of almost anything as far as information goes in our field. Thanks.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW0 -
Besides technical error improvement, best way to increase organic traffic to movie review website
I have a friend's website, ShowBizJunkies, that they work very had at improving and providing great content. I put the website in a more modern theme, increased speed (wpengine, but maxed out with cdn, caching, image optimization, etc) But now I'm struggling how to suggest further improving the seo structure or building backlinks. I know trying to come up for those terms like "movie reviews" and many similar are ridiculously difficult, and requires tons of high quality backlinks. What is my lowest hanging fruit here, any suggestions? My current plan is: 1. Fix technical errors 2. Create more evergreen content 3. Work on timing of article release for better Google News coverage 4. More social sharing, sharing on Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook Groups, G+ Communities, etc 5. Build backlinks via outreach to tv show specific sites, movie fan sites, actor fan sites (interviews)
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | JustinMurray1 -
Do Ghost Traffic/Spam Referrals factor into rankings, or do they just affect the CTR and Bounce Rate in Analytics?
So, by now I'm sure everyone that pays attention to their Analytics/GWT's (or Search Console, now) has seen spam referral traffic and ghost traffic showing up (Ilovevitaly.com, simple-share-buttons.com, semalt.com, etc). Here is my question(s)... Does this factor into rankings in anyway? We all know that click through rate and bounce rate (might) send signals to the algorithm and signal a low quality site, which could affect rankings. I guess what I'm asking is are they getting any of that data from Analytics? Since ghost referral traffic never actually visits my site, how could it affect the CTR our Bounce Rate that the algorithm is seeing? I'm hoping that it only affects my Bounce/CTR in Analytics and I can just filter that stuff out with filters in Analytics and it won't ever affect my rankings. But.... since we don't know where exactly the algorithm is pulling data on CTR and bounce rate, I guess I'm just worried that having a large amount of this spam/ghost traffic that I see in analytics could be causing harm to my rankings.... Sorry, long winded way of saying... Should I pay attention to this traffic? Should I care about it? Will it harm my site or my rankings at all? And finally... when is google going to shut these open back doors in Analytics so that Vitaly and his ilk are shut down forever?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | seequs2 -
Overall traffic increasing but specific short tailed keywords decreasing any ideas?
Something very strange has happened regarding my website traffic when making a comparison to the first six months of 2012 and then 2014. Anybody got any ideas? From my Google analytics from 1 January 2014 to 1 July in other words six months my total traffic on my website was 30,209. Not provided source ( what does this mean ? ) was very high at 23,141 but two of the my main short tail keywords I've targeted in the past "Whitby holiday cottages “only equal 254 and "Whitby cottages" was only 176. When I made a comparison with the same time period below in 2012 the website traffic this year as gone up greatly by almost 20000, but the two of my money short tail keywords as gone down greatly! If I compare the same time frame for 2012 the overall traffic was only 13,380. Not provided source was nowhere near as high at only 1836 which is also much less than above in 2014 but the short tail keywords I targeted "Whitby holiday cottages was almost 10 times higher at 2005 and "Whitby cottages “much higher at 613. I ran the questionnaire on http://www.mytrafficdropped.com/quiz/ regarding Panda and particularly Penguin and its association with back links. The article says that Penguin didn't hit the overall keywords, but only specific ones if they been targeted on the following dates the time points of April 24, 2012 and May 25, 2012 which are known Penguin rollout dates. So when I checked the two short tail keywords above for those two dates the figures did seem to drop from 10 hits a day to 5 but then went back up immediately to approximately 10 hits a day during the two-month period which suggested to me that I'd not been hit by Penguin on those dates. So when you look at the comparison the first six months of 2012 and then 2014 there is no doubt that money short tail keywords of dropped off dramatically for me but the overall website traffic has gone up dramatically. Some of the increase in traffic will be down to time and more articles/pages etc.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | WhitbyHolidayCottages
The two short tail keywords I mention above I know I've dropped in Google rankings I used to be position three page one and the site is now position 10 so I would assume that's why I've dropped in traffic for those phrases.
Has anybody got any idea what's happened? I can honestly say that I've not noticed it in bookings on the website business seems about the same overall.0 -
Traffic Generation Visitor Exchange Systems & Google Algo / Punihsments
So, in recent years some services have been developed such as Engageya I want to ask the experts to weigh in on these types of services that generate traffic. I know of sites that have achieved higher ranking via these NON-bot, user browser visitors. Here's their own explanation. Any thoughts will be appreciated. I could not find what Google's Matt Cutts has to say about these affairs, I suspect not very good things. However, I KNOW of sites that have achieved higher ranking, with about 30-40% of traffic coming from similar systems to this. Join our exclusive readers exchange ecosystem Engageya offers an exclusive readers exchange ecosystem - either within the network only, or cross-networks as well - enabling participating publishers to exchange engaged readers between them in a 1:1 exchange ratio. No commissions involved! Why networks work with Engageya? Create traffic circulation within your network - increase your inventory and impressions within your existing properties.Engage readers within your network and experience an immediate increase in network's page views. Enjoy readers'- exchange from other networksOur engine intelligently links matching content articles together, from within your network, as well as from other networks. Get new audiences to your network for non-converting users clicking out. New revenue channel - monetize pages with reader-friendly content ad units, while making your readers happy!This is the time to move from aggressive and underperforming monetization methods - to effective and reader-friendly content advertising.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Ripe
Let our state-of-the-art semantic & behavioral algorithms place quality targeted content ads on your publisher's content pages. Enjoy highest CTRs in the industryContent ads are proven to yield the highest CTRs in the industry, starting at 2% and up to 12% click-through rates! This is simple. Readers click on an article they are interested-in, whether it's sponsored or not. Enhance your brand - Offer your publishers private-label content recommendations today, before someone else does.Content advertising is becoming more and more common. New content advertising networks and suppliers are being introduced into the online advertising market, and, sooner or later, they are going to approach your publishers. Engageya offers you a private-label platform to offer your publishers the new & engaging content ad unit - today! Comprehensive reports and traffic control dashboardTrace the effectiveness of the content recommendations ad units, as well as control the traffic within your network.0 -
Geotargeting a new domain without impacting traffic to existing domain
I had previously asked this as a 'private question' and couldn't make it a 'public question' automatically-- hence reposting it as a new question: We have an existing site, let's say www.xyz.com --- which attracts traffic from all over the world (including the US), though it's primary audience is the UK/ Europe. Most of this traffic is via organic search results on Google. Now, there is a business case to launch a US-centric website -- www.xyz.us, which will have most of its content from the original site (probably with some localization). Our goal is that on day 1 when the new site xyz.us is launched, we want all traffic originating from the US (and may be some other North American countries) to be directed to the .us domain instead of the .com domain. We don't want to lose any search engine traffic; equally importantly, we want this to be done in a manner that is seen by the search engines as a legitimate technique. What are the best options to do this such that the new .US site automatically inherits all of the traffic from the .com site on day 1, without either of these sites getting penalized in any form. Thanks.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | ontarget-media0 -
AdWare is Sending Me Traffic - Why?
I have a client who is receiving a good bit of traffic from a source that I believe to be AdWare, which is obviously bad. I didn't commission anyone to do this, so I'm at a loss as to where it originated, but it sends me many unique users per day - of course, the bounce rate is 80%, and the average time on the site is 8 seconds. If I were to change site servers, would that A) stop the AdWare traffic, and B) change my rankings?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | stubenbordt0 -
Free Mass Traffic Software
How does the community feel about Free Mass Traffic Software? Is this a scam or what?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | noork0