Drop in Google Referrers

In the last few months, I was getting around 100k hits daily from google... In the last 2 days, the traffic from google decreased first to 76k and yesterday to 45k visits from Google...

I've noticed that the "long tail" drop too... Everyday I had around 46k search keywords (around 2.5 visits per keyword), but yesterday the 46k visits were from only 32k keywords


I know it's only two days, but I would like to know if I can hope this to revert in the next hours/days... Because I'm losing almost 40% of my traffic...

I can't see any problems in the Google Webmaster Tools, neither in my VBSEO / Sitemap... Google is crawling my site as usual, too (around 20k pages per day), and when I do a search like "site:mysite.com" i see 881.000 results...

Any ideas on what could be happening?

Thanks!

PS: I haven't been buying/selling links or anything like that...

you aren't the only one to report this..
Anyone loosing traffic from google ?

seems like google is up to something.

Thanks briansol, I've read that topic... But then I keep searching other forums and it seems that something is happening ... I will have to wait then...

Many big websites are witnessing this huge drop. Google definitely updated their algorithms. Just see the below drop in the below alexa graph

I've to correct me in the "long tail" numbers... Even on this days with low traffic from google, the number of keywords are the same, around 46k each day (when I saw 32.000 must be a problem with the G Analytics delay)... So apparently the "long tail" is intact.. Altough a lot of top keywords now appears to be removed from the top results at the SERPs (that's the traffic drop)..

I hope it this doesn't last too long...

Hang in there. This seems to be definitely related to a Google algorithm update.

One good thing is that Google will usually rollback or revise an algorithm update that causes good sites to get hit unfairly.

If your long tail is still the same, it would appear you've taken a major downgrading on your top terms only.

Shifting from page 1 results to further pages on these top terms could certainly account for such a large scale decline.

What we need to determine is what it is that Google is downgrading. Did they do a major hit on backlinks?

What were your top 5 keywords before the hit? How far did they move down the SERPs? Have you done any specific linking to pages containing these keywords?

i wouldn't take alexa alone.

mine has 'tanked' too.


but, analytics, etc shows my traffic as consistent.

Well, things are still the same...



I've sent a "reconsideration" letter to Google, although i didn't do anything "ilegal" to G Policy...

But one thing I discovered just now is that, some of the top referrer keywords (before this drop) are NOW listed high in SERPs at google.com.AR (that's ARgentina, where the community is larger).. But that same keyword in google.COM don't appears in top 10, 20 or 30... (I didn't set a Geographic preference in Google's Webmaster Tools)

Example:

diosa canales - Buscar con Google
vs
diosa canales - Google Search

private - Buscar con Google
vs
private - Buscar con Google

Also, I think that the most affected keywords are the "xxx" forums related... Because "elforro" that is #1 referrer, is intact...

I see that you updated your domain about a year ago from .ar to .com.

Is your server hosted in Argentina?

If you have any adult related material on your site, I would not be at all surprised if you see a penalty. You see, it's difficult for Google to send you traffic for "safe search" terms, when there is "non-safe search" content on the site. This could be a component of the update. If you have that content, you should remove it ideally, or at least move it to a members only section.

Same here, basically my traffic halved on June the 13th and has not improved since.
I confirmed google analytics with what MSN analytics and both sets of numbers show the same rough drop.
The joys of being at the mercy of the google

Originally Posted by MRBarto

Well, things are still the same...



I've sent a "reconsideration" letter to Google, although i didn't do anything "ilegal" to G Policy...

Can you tell me how you had send an "reconsideration" letter to google ? Also how effective it it ?

Joe,

Yes, I've changed from elforro.com.AR to elforro.com about 1 year ago... I used 301's and the update in Google Index was fast and without problems.. Traffic was stable (and increasing) since the change, until now...

Maybe the adult material has something to do with this, but there are a lot of sites before my site in that "adult keywords" and, of course, they have adult content too... So, I don't really think that should be the case... If you search some adult keyword, then you've got adult sites in the results... The odd thing is that in other "neutral" keywords, my position in SERPs didn't change... The big chnage i noticed was in that adult keywords...

ZeroHour, it appears to be a problem to a lot of sites, however, nobody talks too much about it.. I really don't know if this is something temporary or something that changed in SERPs with my site and that's all...

For certain keywords, I see a lot of garbage sites before me in SERPs... Even some 'search results' like "www.site.com/search.php?keyword"

I really don't think that kind of results should be above my site in the SERPs, so I'm hoping this to revert... But it's almost 10 days since the drop...

DotCom, You can find that link in the Google Webmaster Tools:

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/reconsideration

I really don't know if it helps.. They said that they can take up to several weeks to review de 'reconsideration letter'...

Originally Posted by MRBarto

The big chnage i noticed was in that adult keywords...

Check for your competitors to see if someone has successfully displaced you. If this is the area responsible for most of the traffic drop, then it seems like some issue related to this must be the problem.

Originally Posted by MRBarto

For certain keywords, I see a lot of garbage sites before me in SERPs... Even some 'search results' like "www.site.com/search.php?keyword"

Yep getting those too. Do you use google search tools at all? or adsense search on your site?

Joe, the results that are higher in that serps are some sites with little content, a lot of ads, search results as I said, or other communities with a poor SEO behind...
Also, I said "adult keywords", but they are not the only ones getting lower in SERPs.. As I said before, my site has a lot of visitors from a lot of different keywords.. The top 10 keywords bring aroung 1.000 visits per day from google.. But there are other 46.000 keywords or phrases that bring 100.000 visits total per day... So, 100.000 to 50.000 has to do with lower positions in a lot of different SERPs, not only adult... But I can't check all 46.000 or more....

I know there's the possibility that my competitors improve their serps, but in this case I think that something else it's going on...

Zero, I just use AdSense, no personalized or advanced google search or anything related...