Gradual traffic drop of personal finance website in the last three months

[swamyallamraju]

Dear All,

I have personal finance website https://mymoneysouq.com and the traffic dropped by less than half of what is was before last three months. I am figuring out all the possible issues and doing everything that comes to our mind to improve the quality of our website.

I tried the following before posting here:1. Tried contacting website owner which we  think spam and add all such domains to our disavow list2. We found little duplicate content on sites like Quora, we made those answers down by reporting to Quora3. Reported to DMCA on 3 articles articles(partial) from our website.4. We are trying improving user experience5. Removed one of our page that shared by many people but our page was not indexed by Google.6. Checked and modified content if any our articles are having more keywords than what SEO experts recommend.  7. We are working on researching more and figuring our what else can might have gone wrong with our traffic.8. Working on improving EAT I attached our traffic drop graph. I believe this drop is not natural it happened because of some issue at our end and we are not able to figure out the exact reasons.Surprisingly another site with not so high quality content started ranking now in the top.I am here to get community members/experts help on this. I could provide you if you need any further details. Thanks a lot for your time. We really appreciate any tips that you can share with us.Q2S1tlK Q2S1tlK

[Kinsey38]

@BadruAbimbola said in Gradual traffic drop of personal finance website in the last three months:

I have made a website and I want to know how to add SASSA status check tool to my WordPress site. I have an sample of one of my competitors site here. You can check the site and recommend me how can I add this type of tracking tool. Thanks

To add a SASSA status check tool to your WordPress site, you can create a custom plugin using an API for SASSA status checks. Write a shortcode to handle form submissions and display the results, then insert this shortcode on the desired page. If you need more specific guidance, refer to a competitor's site to see how they've implemented it.

[funneltops]

Google has been updating continuously in recent years. We must change the content, Backlink, and page on the site. I think you should audit your website as a whole again. I'm also having trouble with my website https://www.funneltops.com

[Abdulrehman29]

I empathize with your concern about the traffic drop on your personal finance website. It's commendable that you've taken proactive steps to address potential issues, such as disavowing spammy domains and improving user experience. To further boost your site's visibility, consider enhancing engagement with your audience through interactive content or incorporating Fun activities in Lisbon within relevant articles. Additionally, focus on building high-quality backlinks and regularly update content to align with current SEO best practices. Stay persistent in analyzing and adapting your strategies, and the positive results should follow. Best of luck in restoring and surpassing your previous traffic levels.

[BadruAbimbola]

I have made a website and I want to know how to add SASSA status check tool to my WordPress site. I have an sample of one of my competitors site here. You can check the site and recommend me how can I add this type of tracking tool. Thanks

[effectdigital]

I think you tried to attach two charts there but for me at least, they look like exactly the same chart. Entrances isn't the metric you usually use to evaluate what people call 'traffic', that's actually more commonly associated with the sessions metric

Let's look at what you said you did:

"1. Tried contacting website owner which we  think spam and add all such domains to our disavow list" - this can and usually will only make your results go down further. Your view of what spam is, will not be perfectly aligned with Google's view. As such, some of the links which you think are spam, may have been giving you ranking power - which you have killed off using the disavow tool. If Google think a link is spammy, they nullify it themselves without disavow. If you mark a link as disavow, Google do not give you back the ranking power. Why would they? You are agreeing with them that the link is bad, so why would they give you ranking power for it? Disavows can (under normal circumstances) only make results dip or drop further. The use-case for a disavow, is if you believe your backlink profile is SO bad, that Google are about to give you a manual link penalty (which will kill ALL of your results). If you think that is about to happen, you can stop it from happening using a disavow submission. Disavow trades away (loses) some of your current performance, in exchange for future insulation against manual actions (which are WAY worse than algorithmic devaluation)

"2. We found little duplicate content on sites like Quora, we made those answers down by reporting to Quora"

This probably won't do anything for your SEO. Quora probably still won't delete the posts. If they're still there, it's still duplicate content (down vote or not)

"3. Reported to DMCA on 3 articles articles(partial) from our website."

This is a good move keep doing this. Actually focus more on this if you can find more stolen content! Use CopyScape to track it down

"4. We are trying improving user experience"

This is always good and you should always be doing this

"5. Removed one of our page that shared by many people but our page was not indexed by Google."

I mean, it won't really help to do this as a one off. If you have loads of pages that Google refuses to index, then action might be needed. But if it's just one page and people liked to share it, it seems kind of crazy to erase it to me

"6. Checked and modified content if any our articles are having more keywords than what SEO experts recommend."

Just so you know keyword density is not an accepted measurement in modern SEO. If your articles previously read like they were really spammy, you did the right thing. If they were reading fine anyway AND getting the keywords in, you may have hurt yourself more by doing this

"7. We are working on researching more and figuring our what else can might have gone wrong with our traffic."

Focus on R&I is healthy

"8. Working on improving EAT "

A lot of sites got stung, are still getting stung and will continue to be hurt by this. If you're writing for finance this massively concerns you and should probably be your #1 thing, not your #8 thing. Really focus on this a lot

"I attached our traffic drop graph. I believe this drop is not natural it happened because of some issue at our end and we are not able to figure out the exact reasons."

It could be many things but poor EAT on a finance site will kill your site in 2019

"S_urprisingly another site with not so high quality content started ranking now in the top._"

That's your opinion and you are welcome to it, but the quality of your sites and other sites is being determined by mathematical algorithms and not by human minds. What you think is quality content, may be very far removed from what Google's mechanical mind perceives as high quality. Another thing, older sites which are more established can rank above your with lower quality content than you have (as their SEO authority and trust is higher). You need to think about winning trust and links. Maybe some crappy sites do rank well, but when they were first made they filled a hole (in the query-verse) or they were good for their time. You have to be good in YOUR time. What they did to earn their success (which they ride along on) may have been drastically less than what you have to do in 2019. Never forget that. Comparative analysis-paralysis doesn't get you ahead, it holds you back. Vision is what's needed now

"I am here to get community members/experts help on this. I could provide you if you need any further details.    Thanks a lot for your time. We really appreciate any tips that you can share with us. "

Not a problem hopefully some of my comments have proven useful to you guys

[swamyallamraju]

Thank you for your reply.  Your suggestions are definitely helpful to us.

[Matt_Hunt]

Hi.

Apologies if I am pointing out the obvious but your initial drop looks like it is due to the June core algo update.

So it's not natural in this case.

You could be chasing your tail a bit trying to figure out what it could be as a lot of sites who were initially dropping in June have made a bit of a recovery in the September update:

https://www.sistrix.com/blog/google-core-update-september-2019-first-results-visible/

Sorry I cannot be of more help but will update when more is known about the September update 'winners and losers'