Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Adwords start Organic traffic SIGNIFICANTLY drops
-
I hope someone can give me some insight here, or at least point me in the right direction.
As of September 1 we are running Adwords. We are seeing an alarming drop in our organic traffic since then. It's almost like Adwords is cannibalizing organic.
August/September
Paid 116/847
Organic 648/178
We've looked at why the Organic could have dropped (penalties, site function issues, etc.) and have found nothing unusual.
Can someone give me a reason why this might be happening, Why such a dramatic decrease just as adwords is started.
Thanks!
-
Yes. it's possible. I would look at their top pages from previous months and see if there's been a specific decline in traffic to those organically, then make sure that you aren't advertising on those pages. However - I would like to point out that it is bad news for them if their own ad can take away that much traffic. Someone else could advertise there and take away the same traffic.
Be sure it's not brand terms also. Double check negative keywords too.
-
Thank you both for the reply.
I've looked at Webmaster, nothing there in way of penalty. However there was a surge in indexed pages (like huge from 700 to 7,000) that happened in this same time period (aug-september) We discovered that the developers had implemented a search function on the site that was creating essentially duplicate content. We had them implement canonical on the site to avoid issues there. Personally this is what I believe has affected the organic more so than the adwords. But the client thinks that has not had an effect, he believes that organic traffic was erroneously reported in previous months. ( I believe this to be impossible, true?)
I'm trying to figure out if there is a remote possibility, that adwords would cannibalize organic. It seems counterintuitive to spend adwords money, but not increase traffic, just "steal" traffic from one source for another. But it also seems "reasonable" that Google would take a site out of organic results to force click thrus on the ad (too cynical....? perhaps...lol)
Seems there would be no advantage to running adwords if that is the case. I can get the relatively the same traffic for free, right?
Thanks for your thoughts on this.
-
Hi,
It is very possible that more people are clicking on your adwords ad, as mathamatix has said. Have you noticed a drop in organic positions? Also check Google Webmaster Tools to make sure there are no manual penalties that have coincided with this. It's unlikely, but always worth covering all bases.
Just looking at your numbers though, I would guess your adwords ad is taking away from organic.
-Andy
-
Maybe more people are clicking your ad than on your organic results. Where do you rank organically for your main keywords anyway?
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
-
Abnormally High Direct Traffic Volume
We have abnormally high amounts of direct traffic to our site. It's comprising over half of all web traffic while organic is second with considerably less. From there the volume decreases amongst other channels. I've never seen such a huge proportion of traffic being attributed the Direct. Does anyone know how to test this or see if there is an error in Google Analytics reporting?
Reporting & Analytics | | graceflack 01 -
I have had a huge increase in direct traffic to our website but not sure why this suddenly happened? (no promos during this time period)
I have had a huge increase in direct traffic to our website but not sure why this suddenly happened? (no promos during this time period), traffic up 200%+ according to Google Analytics
Reporting & Analytics | | Julia_a1a1 -
Paid traffic or "Paid Search" is not showing in my Google Analytics
Hi, I have two campaigns running in Google Adwords or Google Ads now and I saw in Google Ads account that I had 5 clicks today (09/18/2018) but when I try to search for this clicks in my Google Analytics in ACQUISITION > All Traffic > Channels I don't find nothing about "Paid Search" or something like that. Bellow is a picture of my Google Analytics account to prove it. The accounts are linked and I can find the 2 campaigns in the Analytics. How can I interpret this picture? Where the paid traffic is showing? or not showing there? Thanks Leandro uvAtrsg
Reporting & Analytics | | lmoraes0 -
What is Local SEO in Google Analytics (Organic Source)
Recently, I saw "Local SEO" is mentioned as the organic source. Can someone please tell what is this and from where Google is fetching data for this source?
Reporting & Analytics | | Kevin.Monks0 -
Referral Traffic from Google
Hello, I have a question about my company's new website. I've worked in SEO and studied Google Analytics results for a few years now but have never really come across something like this. I started in this position in January of this year and when I started breaking down the traffic sources in Google Analytics, I noticed most of the traffic was coming from Google.com as a referral source. I had never seen Google.com as a referral source before so I looked into options for what it could be. It was not a paid ad and our organic traffic was coming through in Analytics, Before I could get any further, our new website was launched (we switched CRM's to WordPress) and the referral traffic from google went from 2,966 in January of 2015 to 22 in February 2015. for more comparison, in February of 2014, the referral traffic from Google was 2,496. I expected a drop when we switched CRM's but we correctly re-directed all pages and created a new sitemap and our organic traffic is up since the switch (not enough to cover drop in referral). I thought at first this had to do with our Google sellers account being de-activated when we made the switch, but I quickly fixed this over a month ago and no change. I'm wondering if anyone has ever seen Google.com come through as a referral source in Google Analytics and if they we're able to figure out what it actually was. This would be a great help! Thank you, Alex
Reporting & Analytics | | RASEO1 -
Finding an Explanation for a Massive Spike in Organic Search Traffic
Hi, I watch analytics on a website (for a friend's business) that is reasonably stagnant, which just experienced a massive spike in search traffic for no explainable reason. The organic search engine traffic had always been steady, but about two months ago, organic search traffic started rising slowly. I checked OSE & a few other tools, but couldn't find any massive source of gained links or other explanations - just the usual occasional blog post about the company. I got in touch with my friend to see if maybe they'd gone with a competitor or something else, but he also had no idea (and even if he wasn't being honest with me, we still should've been able to spot links or social metrics or something!) Then, yesterday, their organic search traffic just tripled. The crazy thing is, it's not from one keyword: Every search term, and (not provided) essentially went up 200-400%. And I have no freaking idea why. No large gain of links. No website editing. The only possible explanation I thought up is maybe one of their competitors got knocked out, but I doubt that would cause such a stratospheric rise. So figured I'd turn to y'all. Any ideas on what might be causing such wonderful results? Anyone have any good tips on figuring out why a website could all of a sudden be doing incredibly? Analytics chart is below for the curious, and thanks in advance for any ideas / tips! nQHrscw.png
Reporting & Analytics | | FlynnZaiger0 -
Does traffic coming from Adwords increase overall Domain Authority or Page Rank?
If I'm setting up an Adwords campaign, will setting my homepage as the landing page boost my domain rank? and will the Page Rank of the landing page get boosted because of the high click rate coming from the Adwords campaign?
Reporting & Analytics | | s2bkevin0 -
Exclude Traffic from India
i would like to exclude all traffic coming from India using Advanced Segment in Google Analytics. How do i go about it ? Will it be applied to future traffic also ?
Reporting & Analytics | | seoug_20050