Sudden substantial drop in organic traffic
-
Back in the middle of August we noticed a significant drop in organic traffic from Google for one of our clients. They had been averaging around 125 sessions per day but after that date it dropped to 50-60 per day.
Their WordPress website has been kept updated but no changes to content were applied. No significant changes occurred in the marketplace, and this is not a seasonal drop. It came several weeks before the Possum and Penguin 4.0 updates, so we ruled them out.
The only change we can confirm was that their Google My Business listing was claimed and setup on or around the day the traffic dropped off a cliff. Their listing is setup properly, as far as we can tell, and links to their website.
I can't find any indication of why this would affect traffic in such a negative way and it hasn't recovered since. It's stable now, but still half of what they had before. It's down across the board, too. Mobile, desktop, geographically, new vs returning. Everything.
Would love to hear your thoughts!
-
No problem at all - glad I could help!
-
Sean:
You're exactly right. I never thought of that at all, but a lot of their customers are just looking for a phone number so they wouldn't need the website once that was available on a SERP. I didn't consider it before because they had numbers in the automatically generated business listings, but I think most of those were out of date. Thanks! -
Hey Scott,
Interestingly, this is something I've faced with a client of mine recently and have gone on to write up a case study about it. My client is in the housing sector with a whole bunch of housing developments which we subsequently setup on Google My Business. Originally we thought this was a great way of increasing organic exposure and should be a doorway to more organic traffic. It was only after we implemented GMB listings for around 50-60 housing developments that we noticed organic traffic saw a sudden decrease.
This was to do with a section of the target audience no longer needing to go to the website to find out important details such as contact information (phone numbers & email addresses) as well as navigational details (postcodes and addresses) as these were now obtainable through search results and maps results. Fundamentally we were making the user journey more streamlined as there were less clicks needed to get to vital information and users could now Sat Nav their journey at the click of a button, BUT it did mean they were no longer visitors to the main client site.
My advice would be to check the date that you launched GMB and have a look at a cross section of 'organic traffic' and 'organic conversion rate' OR 'organic traffic' and 'organic bounce rate' (if you have no conversions set up) to see if you see a sudden increase in conversion rates (as less 'low quality' traffic is visiting the site) or a sudden decrease in bounce rates (due to users only visiting one page to find out contact/location information).
I would bet my bottom dollar that you're facing a similar situation.
Hope this helps,
Sean
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
-
Anyone notice a change in local search traffic between May 9th to May 12th or it was it just me?
My ranking tool didn't show this but GoogleMyBusiness Insights did show traffic has dropped between those dates. Please see screenshot below. URL: https://www.screencast.com/t/FSD1jvFlHl Has this been caused by local algorithm update? Please help!
Local Listings | | jasondumana0 -
Had a local SEO client completely drop off in all rankings...?
Hey everyone! I wanted to ask the Moz community on what I should be on the lookout for in this situation; I have a local SEO client, an orthopedic clinic, who out of nowhere completely dropped off the map. Their Search Visibility is now at .001%. I really have no idea what would have caused this... I have dozens of other local SEO clients and have never seen this before.
Local Listings | | TaylorRHawkins2 -
Google Local Changes Randomly & Our Site Keeps Dropping Off Search
I work for a university where we have 2 law schools. We have our one school on the other side of the state that has been around for a very long time, and then a newer school that is right on our main campus that has been around for about 5 - 10 years now. The newer of the 2 schools is having so much trouble being able to claim the name of the school in google search. If you type in the name of the school the other school (the one that has been around longer) was coming up in the google local on the right of the screen and their web URL was never showing up in search. This is a huge problem because the accreditations of the 2 schools are different, and students are showing up at the wrong school for their interviews. Search will only show a domain name that used to be owned by the older school but now gives information for both of the schools. So it'll show up in search results, but only under that other domain and not their own domain that has their name in the domain name. This school has an updated google mybusiness listing, and a google+ page with the correct listing. I've added some schema data around the business address on their site and JSON for the google+ page, and have re-indexed their sitemap a few times after some changes have been made and we are using their name more in the site. This fixed everything for a short while and we were getting the appropriate google local listing and their site was appearing in search results above the site that advertised both schools. Now, after about 3 months, it has reverted. I had the older school showing up in the google local, and the site that advertises both schools is the ONLY domain appearing. I've re-indexed the site after finding out that Drupal's timestamps that they automatically add to sitemaps aren't optimized for how google reads it. This has gotten the local listing back, but I still have the wrong domain appearing, it is the one advertises both schools instead of the domain that has this school's information. I don't mind that the one advertising both shows up, but if a user is searching for that particular school I would really like to get that domain to appear first above the one advertising both schools and the older school. Right now the new school isn't even in search results except for being under the site that advertises both. I wasn't sure if this was something that Moz Local could help me fix by adding the listing across the web, or if there is something else on the sites I can be doing to help them solidify their name in google search/local. Also - is this subdomain that is advertising both of them hurting them or help them? I was thinking about taking that domain down to one page that acts as a direction source to the 2 domains rather than having a ton of information and keywords that take over the results for their name since that domain is older (and used to be associated with the old school only before the new school was built) Thank you for any advice on this issue as I'm still pretty new to SEO and to the university. Thanks again!
Local Listings | | amaray4030 -
Community Discussion: Did Your Google Listing Suddenly Disappear?
There is nothing quite so alarming as seeing your business suddenly vanish from the Google local packs/local finder. We got first wind of this when Moz community member CalicoKitty2000 posted that their fishing charter business in Florida had abruptly stopped showing after enjoying historical high local rankings for a very long time. Their company is Sea Leveler Sport Fishing Charters. Their organic rankings were still a-okay, and as I was digging around trying to rule out common problems like guideline violations, malware, penalties, I was lucky enough to come across a totally separate discussion of the same startling phenomenon at Linda Buquet's Local Search Forum. To observe this phenomenon for yourself, look up 'fishing charters cape canaveral'. In the local pack, click the 'more places' link to get to the local finder. Observe what is in the local finder view, including the fact that only one business is located at 505 Glen Cheek Dr. Then, zoom in on the map, and you will see CalicoKitty2000's company, Sea Leveler Sport Fishing Charters, magically reappear in the results. You will ALSO notice that something like 8 other businesses, in addition to Sea Leveler, located at 505 Glen Cheek Dr., are also suddenly present in the local finder at that zoomed-in view. What appears to be happening here is that Google has made a change in which they will only show a single business at a given address within the same category. This is a major, major change that poses a very obvious problem for businesses like legal firms and medical practitioners who share the same building and category. Coworking spaces hosting a variety of same-specialty tech startups also come to mind. Joy Hawkins (one of the smartest Local SEOs I know), posits this in addition to the shared building/shared category factors influencing this change: "I believe Google is A/B testing at the moment which explains the crazy fluctuation we're still seeing daily on trackers like Algoroo" Joy says she's planning to write an article about this soon, so be on the lookout for that if this has affected your business. In the meantime, I have two thoughts: This filter is so unfriendly to so many businesses, I would not be surprised to see it go away. However, it never hurts to create buzz/raise awareness. If you've been affected, you might want to post your example in Google's forum with a plea to Google to treat you more fairly. I would argue that it is NOT creating a good user experience for people seeking a doctor, a chiropractor or a fishing charter in a specific neighborhood to be shown only partial, single results. I know I'd rather know that there are 7-8 choices of fishing charters conveniently located in a building on a marina. After all, if one charter is all booked up for the day, I'd like to know that other companies are there to serve me, wouldn't you? I'd say this apparent filter makes results less relevant than more relevant. I find it particularly weird that our example business, Sea Leveler, is being filtered out given how far ahead of most competitors they are in terms of review count. Wouldn't you want to see the most-reviewed business first? Hopefully, this filter is just a test, but for the sake of damage control in the meantime, this might be a good time to invest in some Adwords to replace your missing rankings (hey, Google, I hope this isn't your diabolical idea behind the change, a-hem!). If you've been affected, please, study your SERPs and share with our community any clues you are seeing. We can all help one another survive Google's curve balls better when we share. I would love to hear of anything you are observing about this, and am particularly interested to know if you are seeing a rotation of businesses ranking at different times of day. For example, if Businesses A, B and C are all at 123 Main Street, is only business A ranking all the time at the non-zoomed level, or at some point in a given day, are B or C being given preferential treatment? Please, share your findings!
Local Listings | | MiriamEllis4 -
What's the 20/80 rule in local SEO as it relates to health care organizations
Hello all, I'm in charge of local SEO for a health care system that covers the entire state of Nebraska, with dozens of clinics all over the state, but mainly Omaha and Lincoln. I'm trying to build a cohesive local strategy for our organization, and a big part of that is figuring out what are the 20% of the actions I could take that will get me 80% of the benefit. Based on your experience as a local SEO specialist or ideally someone who does local SEO in a health care setting, what are the key things I should focus on? I'm not new to local SEO (just new to health care). My guess would be to focus in on getting a good local page on our website for every clinic/location etc., and getting a good Google Page listing for each one as well. But I figured I'd seek out advice on this before I plunge ahead.
Local Listings | | Patrick_at_Nebraska_Medicine1 -
Google Listing showing my map But not showing on google.com search organic.
Hello All again, How are you doing? Please try to help me again. I have big trouble with my google plus business and never back ranking for 2 years. Before 2 years my google plus business #1 page google with any keywords: nail salon pigeon forge tn nail salon sevierville tn pedicure pigeon forge nail salon, nail shop pigeon forge,.... My google plus business: http://plus.google.com/+Sassy-nails/ website:http://sassy-nails.com http://sassy-nails.com after i claimed another page to the same account. I lost all review, stars and scores 2 days ago It was been back again but All ranking losting all. and not Whe I seach google.com organic" My listing " http://plus.google.com/+Sassy-nails/about It is not showing up on google.com oganic ranking but I will showing on my. Please big help for me please. the link i attach here" Sassy nails salon " Under " Hair Expo" and top " Spazzi nails" i am looking farward to here you soon. data=!3m1!4b1
Local Listings | | sassynailsalon0 -
Changed domain from .co.uk to .uk and went down from 3->5 organically. Should I go back?
After around 3 days we showed up on Google for our main keyword and we were at 5th and this has not picked up since and on Local listings we went from 2->3. Other keywords are also affected. It's been around 10 days now. I've done all the right things: wildcard 301 redirect Google Webmaster Change of domain notification I've managed to update some of the old backlinks (we don't have that many overall, maybe 10-15) and I've managed to pick up one new moderate quality backlink. There are no indexing or crawling errors at the moment, and my site is well indexed (only about 12 pages) Possible issues: .co.uk domain is years old and .uk being only days old (although I purchased it for 10 years) there are also some slight difference in the WHOIS record Now I'm not invested in this new domain, it was just part of making us look more authoritative long-term. I'm happy to either ditch and switch back or hold for a bit longer based on your advice.
Local Listings | | LondonAli0 -
How to track google business traffic as organic into google analytics?
Hi mozzers, After noticing that all Google business(known in the past as google places) traffic gets recorded into direct traffic I would like to get this into organic traffic instead. What is the best method to do so? I found this great post http://moz.com/blog/tracking-traffic-from-google-places-in-google-analytics by Rebecca Lehmann but was written in 2011. Are these method the only one available to track this traffic or is there a new method we could try that would track all this traffic into organic search? Thanks for letting me know!
Local Listings | | Ideas-Money-Art0