A switch from Search to Direct traffic from Feb 2012

[MikiP]

I have read about the Google algorithm updates galore in 2012.  I would therefore be inclined to suspect a sudden sharp drop in Search traffic this year to be caused by such updates.  However, I am seeing what appears to be a direct switch from 'Search' to 'Direct' traffic as of about February 16th this year.

There are no specific brand-building exercises or general advertising campaigns happening around this time for the site in question.  It seems very UN-explainable?

I wondered if there are any thoughts from the various lurking gurus?  I have attached GA screenshot..

DjTu1.png

[SEO5Team]

for sure, all the best

[MikiP]

It looks as though the site lost most of its LongTail traffic...   Feb 1st-15th showing 131 different keyterms and Feb 16th-28th showing just 35. At the same time the traffic from branded search terms reduced significantly across the many variations.

For the mentioned time periods, Direct Traffic was virtually double in the second period.

With the drop in search/longtail and the perfectly coinciding jump in direct traffic, as a whole the site traffic remained roughly on trend.  Very strange!  It has remained this way ever since.

Thanks for the advice - Keyword analysis suggests some work could be done to re-introduce what has been lost there.  As for that coinciding Direct traffic jump... I need to dig into that some more to fathom it.  Wish me luck.

[SEO5Team]

Do some keyword analysis. Drill down in the analytics reports and review the keyword data to see any trends. Also take a look at where the traffic is coming from (Geo target). We had a similar situation where the direct traffic spiked for a client and it was because the development team was based in that location and they were accessing the site a lot. If that is the case you can filter that traffic using the IP's.