Quote Originally Posted by Joe Ward View Post
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.
Yes thats what im starting to believe also.. must be some sort of a new years resolution for google.

Quote Originally Posted by nfn View Post
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!
Interesting, and how long were you affected for before things started to increase?