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.

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.

Since the launch of our newly designed website about 6 months ago, we are experiencing a high number of 500 server errors (>2000).

Attempts to resolve these errors have been unsuccessful to date. We have just started to notice a consistent and sustained drop in rankings despite our hard sought efforts to correct.

Two questions... can very high levels of 500 errors adversely effect our google rankings?

And, if this is the case,  what type of specialist (what are they called) has expertise to investigate and fix this issue.

I should also mention that the sitemap also goes down on a regular basis, which some have stated is due to the size of the site (>500 pages). Don't know if they're part of the same problem?

Thanks.