2 months later - going the wrong way - need help

Installed vBSEO on Martial Arts Forums on 6/22/07 and Sitemap installed on 6/23/07

6/22/07 - 22,600 Google (22,200 supplemental), 7531 Yahoo, 420 MSN, PR5
6/25/07 - 19,300 Google (20,400 supplemental), 7505 Yahoo, 407 MSN, PR5
6/26/07 - 19,200 Google (18,800 supplemental), 7532 Yahoo, 409 MSN, PR5
6/27/07 - 17,500 Google (17,200 supplemental), 8381 Yahoo, 409 MSN, PR5
6/28/07 - 15,600 Google (15,400 supplemental), 8386 Yahoo, 409 MSN, PR5
6/29/07 - 17,500 Google (17,200 supplemental), 8934 Yahoo, 393 MSN, PR5
7/5/07 - 17,300 Google (17,200 supplemental), 8763 Yahoo, 404 MSN, PR5
7/6/07 - 17,300 Google (17,200 supplemental), 8605 Yahoo, 404 MSN, PR5
7/9/07 - 17,300 Google (17,200 supplemental), 8578 Yahoo, 341 MSN, PR5
..
7/23/07 - 13,000 Google (13,000 supplemental), 8406 Yahoo, 286 MSN, PR5
8/3/07 - 12,200 Google (12,200 supplemental), 8282 Yahoo, 70 MSN, PR5

Please let me know if I'm doing something wrong here. The traffic is way down from the search engine since the installation.

The Sitemap is showing over 40,000+ pages.

Is there anybody here that can explain what's happening to my forum?

thats the first ive seen that drastic of a change

It's a surprise for me as well. I had such high hopes and I'm still patiently waiting for things to turn around.

I have 3 other forums I want to install vBSEO on but now I"m scared to do so with the results I'm seeing so far.

The page count is not the important part in the success of vBSEO.
Most likely google got rid of your old different urls for the same content (showthread?t=, showthread?p=, showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=, etc.)

Don't be alarmed when page index stats go down.
The best way to track the success of vBSEO is with a tracking tools like google analytics or a local statistic system

StarBuG

We went from about 13k google listings to 3 or 4k, now we have 25,700 crisp nice new URLs in Google, all the way to page 100 with no supplemental results, took 8 months.

I just checked my google analytics.

In month of June, I was getting 60% of traffic from search engine.
In month of July, it was down to 40% of traffic from search engine.
In month of August (first 7 days), it's below 40% of traffic from search engine.

It does make sense as less pages are indexed, chances of one of my pages coming up on a search is less.

Any way to fix this? Or, do I have to just sit and wait months after months?

In month of August (first 7 days), it's below 40% of traffic from search engine.

Statiscally August is going to be quiet if you are in the UK - Evryone is on holiday and the kids are off school. Ours is down for August.

Since December when we installed vBSEO our traffic has steadily grown. However we lost listings whilst they were relisted. 2 months I think is just too short a time period to expect results.

Most of our traffic is from US and I don't think it's due to geographical area or season fluctuation. The forum has been around for more than 2 years and we did not see this big of drop off last year this time.

Maybe it will take some time for Google and other search engines to sort through the old URL and the new URL before the search engine traffic is back. I just hope I do not lose out to competitors too much while it's going through this growing pain.

Anybody else have seen a drop in first 2 months and then see the bounce back later?

Originally Posted by complete

Installed vBSEO on Martial Arts Forums on 6/22/07 and Sitemap installed on 6/23/07

6/22/07 - 22,600 Google (22,200 supplemental), 7531 Yahoo, 420 MSN, PR5
6/25/07 - 19,300 Google (20,400 supplemental), 7505 Yahoo, 407 MSN, PR5
6/26/07 - 19,200 Google (18,800 supplemental), 7532 Yahoo, 409 MSN, PR5
6/27/07 - 17,500 Google (17,200 supplemental), 8381 Yahoo, 409 MSN, PR5
6/28/07 - 15,600 Google (15,400 supplemental), 8386 Yahoo, 409 MSN, PR5
6/29/07 - 17,500 Google (17,200 supplemental), 8934 Yahoo, 393 MSN, PR5
7/5/07 - 17,300 Google (17,200 supplemental), 8763 Yahoo, 404 MSN, PR5
7/6/07 - 17,300 Google (17,200 supplemental), 8605 Yahoo, 404 MSN, PR5
7/9/07 - 17,300 Google (17,200 supplemental), 8578 Yahoo, 341 MSN, PR5
..
7/23/07 - 13,000 Google (13,000 supplemental), 8406 Yahoo, 286 MSN, PR5
8/3/07 - 12,200 Google (12,200 supplemental), 8282 Yahoo, 70 MSN, PR5

Please let me know if I'm doing something wrong here. The traffic is way down from the search engine since the installation.

The Sitemap is showing over 40,000+ pages.

The only thing that matters is how many SE referrals you get. Whether those go up or down is how to measure if it is improving or declining.

Originally Posted by BamaStangGuy

The only thing that matters is how many SE referrals you get. Whether those go up or down is how to measure if it is improving or declining.

In month of June, I was getting 60% of traffic from search engine.
In month of July, it was down to 40% of traffic from search engine.
In month of August (first 7 days), it's below 40% of traffic from search engine.

Another update.

Martial-Forums installed on 6/22/07
Sitemap installed on 6/23/07

6/22/07 - 22,600 Google (22,200 supplemental), 7531 Yahoo, 420 MSN, PR5
6/25/07 - 19,300 Google (20,400 supplemental), 7505 Yahoo, 407 MSN, PR5
6/26/07 - 19,200 Google (18,800 supplemental), 7532 Yahoo, 409 MSN, PR5
6/27/07 - 17,500 Google (17,200 supplemental), 8381 Yahoo, 409 MSN, PR5
6/28/07 - 15,600 Google (15,400 supplemental), 8386 Yahoo, 409 MSN, PR5
6/29/07 - 17,500 Google (17,200 supplemental), 8934 Yahoo, 393 MSN, PR5
7/5/07 - 17,300 Google (17,200 supplemental), 8763 Yahoo, 404 MSN, PR5
7/6/07 - 17,300 Google (17,200 supplemental), 8605 Yahoo, 404 MSN, PR5
7/9/07 - 17,300 Google (17,200 supplemental), 8578 Yahoo, 341 MSN, PR5
..
7/23/07 - 13,000 Google (13,000 supplemental), 8406 Yahoo, 286 MSN, PR5
8/3/07 - 12,200 Google (12,200 supplemental), 8282 Yahoo, 70 MSN, PR5

8/17/07 - 7,730 Google (7,730 supplemental), 8303 Yahoo, 65 MSN, PR5

Why are you showing the amount of pages that are indexed opposed to the amount of traffic you're receiving from search engines?

vbSEO is supposed to make my pages more search engine friendly, which means more of my pages being indexed and more chances of certain keywords searches resulting with one of my pages.

I'm showing a trend that the number of pages indexed went down.

Also, if you see the posts above, I'm also showing that the search engine traffic went down in percentage of the total traffic, which resulted in lower overall traffic.

Ok, have you analysed your results in Google?

site:martial-forums.com/ - Google Search

Page 1, you have loads of URL's with index.php?showtopic=204 as the thread URL.

Page 2 you have loads with forums/members/nitanbo.html

This is vBSEO doing it's job, you are losing all the non friendly URL's. This is the bit that takes all the time. It just looks like it is taking it's time. Be patient, ours took 8 months.