Decline in traffic but no change in rankings
-
I'm comparing our best search traffic month in 2011 (March) with our current traffic (April)and have seen significant declines in traffic, despite no change in our rankings or even improved rankings for the same terms. Trying to sort out an explanation.
We have been a white-hat SEO site since our inception over 10 years ago. Our SEO consultant doesn't think we've been affected by any algo changes, at least not to any significant degree.
My only explanation for this possibly anomaly is:
- decrease in the use of the KW terms in search over time (how to determine?)
- generalized increase in PPC instead of organic search driving traffic
- possibility that Adv Web Rankings is no longer accurately collecting SERP rankings
Does anyone have any other thoughts or considerations that might explain the decline in traffic, despite maintenance or improvement in rankings?
Thanks.
-
Hi Again,
The (Not provided) category isn't showing up in March 2011 because they only started obscuring data from logged in users in October of 2011. This might account for at least some of the traffic difference between 2011 and 2012.
I think this is the blog post that they announced the change via:
http://analytics.blogspot.com/2011/10/making-search-more-secure-accessing.html
You can potentially get some idea of what terms the (not provided) traffic is coming in on by looking at the landing page. You can also use PPC data, but I'm a little fuzzier on how that is done as AdWords isn't something I use a whole lot of.
-
I would certainly pay attention to your individual key phrases, but more importantly is the traffic source - check if Bing, Yahoo, Google, Direct or any other traffic channel is causing you the loss of traffic. Once you can determine the problematic traffic source, you can then investigate the keywords in that traffic channel. Analytics allows you to setup custom segments to analyze each traffic source individually. After you can pinpoint the problematic keywords, you should analyze what the competitors are up to as others recommended.
-
This was the very first thing that came to my mind on the issue. Just because our rankings might not have dropped, it doesn't mean competitors haven't been working away at improving their click-through rates.
I would also look into whether the phrases targeted are no longer the most relevant - this requires a review of your target market(s) and the persona(s) behind them.
Just one example (though not necessarily the best example) is how more people within the search industry are referring to "inbound marketing" rather than just "SEO" lately. Where you need to be careful though is to ensure the language shift like in this example, isn't just industry lingo - that it's actually a shift taking place within your market by people who aren't in the industry itself.
-
So I can be clear, if there is one landing page for the main KW phrase, but there are a number of KW phrases that drive traffic to that landing page, you are recommending looking at the traffic changes of those individual KW phrases.
For example.... if the main KW phrase and landing page is: healthy eating recipes. But we have 5-10 KW phrases that drive traffic to that landing page... look for the differences in each of those traffic channels as a possible clue. Is that correct?
thanks.
-
thanks... will look for on-page differences, if any.
Before we are comparing 2011 traffic to 2012... I don't see 'not provided' category for the march 2011 period. if there's another way of obtaining this, would appreciate guidance.
I can share that the declines in actual traffic are significant, not even moderate. And this holds true for the top ranking KW terms.... as opposed to the long-tail. making it especially disconcerting.
my great fear is that ppc is starting to overtake organic search search in very competitive search markets... given the number of sponsored offers between Google and something I'v been seeing...buzzads that sits above google adwords in my browser.. hence a total of 8 sponsored links before you can see the organic search options. Not to mention has faint the sponsor link box has become.
thanks.
-
thanks... we recently updated our description tags to be more inviting and compelling. Our previous tags were simply re-do of the title tag. so I know our tags improved. I can go back and look at the competition.
thanks.
-
You need to research on exactly what channel of traffic has declined and then you can start analyzing the cause of loss. I would spend time analyzing each traffic channel and check for things like unique search queries and unique landing pages per channel. I would also pay attention to the Google and Bing Webmaster tools and check for crawl issues.
-
Have you looked into long-tail traffic yet, or the traffic being generated by (not provided) search terms?
I've found word clouds to be useful at analyzing changes in long-tail traffic. If you can pull April and March search terms into two different spreadsheets, then use something like Wordle you can get a really generalized overview of your long-tail makeup.
Similar to RankSurge's answer - The other thing you might want to consider is if the format of the SERPs has changed. Are there video, photo, local, or other universal results-or rich snippets-that didn't used to show up alongside your site?
-
One of the first things I would check would be to see if the competition improved their search snippets. I've had clients enjoy great click thrus at the #3 spot in Google - because their messaging was more in tune with what the person was searching for.
That's one place to start.
Good luck!
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
-
Google: What factors contribute to rank a landing page in a specific country?
Hi community, I would like to know what is the criteria to rank a landing page in specific country Google search. For example, if we want to rank our landing page for "GDPR Australia", what are the factors which will impact beside writing the cotent related to the above mentioned keyword? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Its the 21st April, and my non responsive page is still ranking the same ?
Hi, As you know the new algorithm is due today, can anybody confirm why my site wouldn't appear to be affected as yet? Cheers
Algorithm Updates | | CFCU0 -
Nofolow links drive to losing ranking
Hello there,
Algorithm Updates | | Goran024
I am an owner of mobilnishop website. We selling mobile phones. As you know , new phones coming every few days and they starting to be old after 1-2 years. So I decided to all pages which present old (discontinued) phones make them "noindex". I this way I meant to to focus google on new pages ( for new phones). After 1 year I find a huge losing trafic and key word position on goole. For example, word :
"mobilni telefoni " from 2 place I move to 11. So what I find out is that I LOST LINK JUICE. Is it possible that google does not see given link of my noindex pages? It look that I made auto goal.
Any opinion? Suggest ?0 -
Website traffic dropped 50% after 14th November same day GWT reported a DNS error
HI there. On 14th November GWT reported a DNS error on my site I checked with my hosts but they said there was nothing wrong. I then went searching for answers and found it happened to lot of people on that specific day see http://moz.com/blog/was-there-a-november-14th-google-update. After that time my website traffic dropped by 50% over the period of a week and is still sitting on 50% of what it was. I then moved the site to VPS, had a few DNS errors - that were the cause of my hosts - so i moved back to shared hosting last weekend and now DNS issues are solved. However the original DNS issue is still unknown I dont know what went wrong and want to rectify issue. I dont sell ads and write original content 4 times a day. I have a miniscule bounce rate, my site speed is okay and i dont stuff keywords in my content although i was careless with my <alt tags="">so they could be considered keyword stuffing (and i have up to 10 images on one post). But i have been removing all the keywords in my images theres over 3000 posts so its taking time). My impressions have dropped from 10,000 a day to 2,500 and I have no idea why.</alt> My website has been building traffic consistently for the last 2 years. Only now has it crashed a bit. Have you any advice on what I can do to solve this problem or rather find the cause of the issue. Im not a pro seo person and do this blog in my free time so am not an expert on data analyzing etc.... thanks alot
Algorithm Updates | | mutant20080 -
Correlation of Rankings with Personal Pronouns?
Has there been any tests or studies that associate writing in the first person or using "emotional" feeling phrases to higher rankings. More specifically to a blog structure. I'm trying a blog option with a local telecommunications company, however I'm having flashbacks of writing those 5 paragraph essays when taking the SATs. The owner decided he should take on the responsibility and it's like he just can't bring himself to write from a personal perspective. He's a bit stuck in the "professional" mindset and worried about appearing unprofessional. I empathize with his perspective, but I know it's not going to work..or maybe it will? it's just not going to be interesting to readers, but perhaps google will appreciate the fresh content. I don't think letting an employee takeover will be an option as he's very protective of the company's image. So would you ditch the blog? or continue with the dull posts?
Algorithm Updates | | squareplug0 -
Can AJAX implementation affect the rankings in Google Panda?
Hi there, I have the following situation with one of our job sites. We migrate the site to a new application, which is better from design point of view and also usability. For this we use a lot AJAX especially in searches. So every time a user is filtering down their search new results will be shown on the page, at the same url and with no page load. But, having this implementation. affected Bounce rate - which increased from 38% to nearly 60%, PI/visits - which are now half, at 3 and also Avg Time on Site is half that is used to be coming to 2,5 min from nearly 6 min. From Rand post, it is clearly that the content is very important in Google Panda, and all of these parameters we should consider, as it is telling the quality of the content. So, my question will be, can this site be hit by Panda updates (maybe later on) because Bounce Rate, PI/Visits and Avg Time on site, decreased in such way? At the moment we don't measure the Ajax impresion, but as I understood that we can do that though virtual pages in GA, does anyone of you have the experience how to handle this? Won't be this an artificial increase? Thanks, Irina
Algorithm Updates | | InformMedia0 -
To use the same content just changing the keywords could be seen as duplicate content?
I want to offer the same service or product in many different cities, so instead of creating a new content for each city what I want to do it to copy the content already created for the product and service of a city and then change the name of the city and create a new url inside my website for each city. for example let say I sell handmade rings in the USA, but I want o target each principal city in the USA, so I have want to have a unque url for ecxh city so for example for Miami I want to have www.mydomain.com/handmade-rings-miami and for LA the url would be www.mydomain.com/handmade-rings-la Can I have the same content talking about the handmade rings and just change the keywords and key phrases? or this will count as a duplicate content? content: TITLE: Miami Handmade Rings URL :www.mydomain.com/handmade-rings-miami Shop Now handmade rings in Miami in our online store and get a special discount in Miami purchases over $50 and also get free shipping on Miami Local address... See what our Miami handmade rings clients say about our products.... TITLE: LA Handmade Rings URL: www.mydomain.com/handmade-rings-la Shop Now handmade rings in LA in our online store and get a special discount in LA purchases over $50 and also get free shipping on LA Local address... See what our LA handmade rings clients say about our products.... There are more than 100 location in the country I want to do this, so that is why I want to copy paste and replace.. Thanks in advance, David Orion
Algorithm Updates | | sellonline1230 -
What do i need to do to drive more traffic to my site
Hi i built a site around ten months ago but at the moment i am only receiving around 3 visitors a a day. it is a travel site that i write new content for but because i am still learning seo i am not sure what i have been doing wrong. I am not sure of the basics from getting people to the site or the correct way of generating free links or if i should be submitting my site to all these free site submitters which includes to lycos and other free services that you can find on google. If anyone can please explain what i am doing wrong and how to generate more traffic for free then that would be great. also can anyone recommend any free service that would help with increasing traffic and links
Algorithm Updates | | ClaireH-1848860