Traffic died by 50%+ ??

Hi ive noticed similar threads and thought id create my own.

My traffic has been increasing from 300 - 600..

Before i had vbseo my traffic was normally on average around the 300 region per day for the past few years. After installing vbseo my traffic sure did go up and kept on going up to the 600 visitors per day thats almost a 100% increase in traffic.

Now all of a sudden from the 17th of January my traffic has gone down by 50% to its original 300 mark. It is as if i dont have vbseo installed anymore? I thought this is normal and happens and soon it will be back up again. It has now almost been 3 weeks.. 9th february and traffic is dead and not rising.





My sitemap generators are working, my forum is just as active as it is normally and i have not changed a single thing on the forum other than make posts and create more threads. I have vbseo 3.2 installed.

To me it seems like i dont have vbseo installed on my forum anymore. Do you think Google has killed those who use vbseo or the methods vbseo use?

Whats the solution or the possible cause to this?


P.S: Or could it be the credit crunch affecting the performance of googles search engines? Maybe people are not feeding enough monetary keywords!

did you change anything?
did you have server down time?

can you post your site so we can review it?

Originally Posted by briansol

did you change anything?
did you have server down time?

can you post your site so we can review it?

Like my above post states.. no downtime no changes at all.

I will pm you the website address, when you come to view it remember that its been the way your seeing it from the day i had installed vbseo which was a few months ago.

I dont know if you are aware but your site gives a 403 error.

Code:

Forbidden
You don't have permission to access /forum on this server.

Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
Apache/1.3.41 Server at theasianplace.net Port 80

These kind of errors hurt site rankings a lot.

Originally Posted by Mert Gökçeimam

I dont know if you are aware but your site gives a 403 error.

Code:

Forbidden
You don't have permission to access /forum on this server.
 
Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

These kind of errors hurt site rankings a lot.

Yes i have a few countries blocked via htaccess and have been doing so since i started vBSEO. I dont think this has anything to do with the low hits lately as ive had these countries blocked since i started vBSEO. I did not make any changes at all.

You must be residing in a country that i have blocked via htaccess.

The music with no clear option to turn it off is probably your #1 killer.

• Was your growth in traffic from the long tail, or many different keywords?
• Did you have any other (non-search) streams of traffic that have been reduced?
• Check your top few keywords, and then search for them in Google to see how your ranking has changed.
• You're positive you haven't changed anything including changing vB options, or adding new plugins, etc?
• By the way - I really like your intro song. I could see the pause button for it, but you could use a larger audio icon or something to draw attention to it. I believe the player you use also supports a JS interface which could allow you to create an external button that would stop it, etc.
• I don't think a reduction in Google activity is what is affecting your forum. It's more likely that the ranking algorithm has re-evaluated you.
• If we can determine the nature of the change, as well as anything at all that has changed, we might be able to pinpoint something.
• However, I think it would be a good idea for you to submit a critique request as well to see if we can find any further opportunities for optimizations.
• It's possible there could be an old issue that went undiscovered, and only a recent update of the ranking algo has started causing it to impact you.

I've noticed something similar...I was up to 16,000 uniques a day and now I'm down to about 12,000 uniques...it's been going to steadily for the past 2-3 weeks now.

google tweaks the algorithm every day..also forums tend to ve very sensitive to changes because of the high number of pages. It could be anything, from hosting problems to losing a few trusted links

It's like everyone getting their traffic dropped.

Originally Posted by Joe Ward

• Was your growth in traffic from the long tail, or many different keywords?

I dont understand what you mean by long tail? Ive been using the same keywords from day one and have also applied the same for vbseo. My traffic went up after installing vbseo.

Originally Posted by Joe Ward

• Did you have any other (non-search) streams of traffic that have been reduced?

Not that i can see no.

Originally Posted by Joe Ward

• Check your top few keywords, and then search for them in Google to see how your ranking has changed.

I doubt its the keywords that "ive applied" solely.., i think it was more to do with the thread titles which generate the keywords when people search.

Originally Posted by Joe Ward

• You're positive you haven't changed anything including changing vB options, or adding new plugins, etc?

By the sounds of it, this seems to be a very great strange and a great discovery for vBSEO. I swear to you for the past 3 months i have not touched anything. No settings, no keywords i did not even access the vbseo cp.

Originally Posted by Joe Ward

• By the way - I really like your intro song. I could see the pause button for it, but you could use a larger audio icon or something to draw attention to it. I believe the player you use also supports a JS interface which could allow you to create an external button that would stop it, etc.

Yes your right thanks. This was also on the website long before vbseo was installed. This is only for "unregistered" users who hear it, as when you log in as a member it does not auto play.

As some have suggested the player could be a problem. I can gurantee you that its not a problem. Vbseo did not have a problem when i first installed it as the player was there way before vbseo was installed.

Originally Posted by Joe Ward

• I don't think a reduction in Google activity is what is affecting your forum. It's more likely that the ranking algorithm has re-evaluated you.

Hmm you could be right. But i doubt google has re-evaluated me.. i think it has re-evaluated everyone who owns a forum by the looks of things.

Originally Posted by Joe Ward

• If we can determine the nature of the change, as well as anything at all that has changed, we might be able to pinpoint something.
• However, I think it would be a good idea for you to submit a critique request as well to see if we can find any further opportunities for optimizations.
• It's possible there could be an old issue that went undiscovered, and only a recent update of the ranking algo has started causing it to impact you.

Hmm interesting, i think i will get onto this. How and where do i submit a critique request?

Cheers

For critiques:
vBulletin SEO Discussion - Critique Please at vBSEO.com

Long tail info:
What is the Search Long Tail? - vBulletin SEO Forums

Originally Posted by Joe Ward

For critiques:
vBulletin SEO Discussion - Critique Please at vBSEO.com

Long tail info:
What is the Search Long Tail? - vBulletin SEO Forums

Ok as for the critique request it will only suggest improvements, as for long tail i can say for certain yes traffic was is most likely from long tail results. Ive had visitors join by simply reading particular threads they had found on google etc.

I also checked threads on google when they were created. They were found on Google right away within a few hours. Each thread brought in different types of traffic.


Up until this day nothing has been changed. This is because i have been busy with work and so forth. So my question is..

Why was i getting an increased amount of traffic when i had first installed vbseo a few months ago? Traffic has been increasing and was steady for a good 3 months - I have made no changes in the new year at all or in the Decemeber of 2008. My traffic had been normal and steady. Why all of a sudden has traffic fallen from Jan the 17th?

I dont think a critique or any other suggestions will help very much right now, it may better improve my chances - fair enough. However its best to take the current situation as it is which "was" working and "not broken" at hand and find out why traffic has plummeted suddenly, before we changr the current state.

I also understand this is out of vBSEO's control however, im just curious and would like to know more from the professionals what could be the possible cause. Whether it be a vBSEO issue or a problem with search engines. At the end of the day I want the best for my forum, I can certainly rule myself out for sure as i know for a fact nothing has been changed or altered on my end to effect traffic.

Cheers

Hi Maksam,

Since you are certain you've changed nothing of which you are aware, then it is likely that it's an external factor, such as a change in the Google algorithm, the rise of a strong competitor, etc.

While you do spend time trying to zero in on the cause, remember that you can still make incremental improvements in the meantime.

The critique is designed to draw out those opportunities for further optimization as well. Sometimes with algo updates that seem unfair to you, particularly when they impact other webmasters in a similar way, we see a course correction by Google in the near term future.

Don't be discouraged. SEO is an area where patience must be in high supply, and you must be prepared for fluctuations. I've personally gone from making thousands of dollars per month with affiliate sites to almost nothing overnight when an algorithm change occurs.

Since you are running a whitehat forum, this kind of dramatic decline is very unlikely to occur for you over the long term.

I'm personally anticipating that you will be reporting back soon to tell us that your trend has started to return to normal.

Hi,

I was in the same boat a few months ago and notice, using google trends, that there was a general decrease of searches in my niche.

Now things are coming back to normal with a timid but stable grow!