One of my clients lost half of their organic traffic overnight on 04/07. I'm trying to figure out why. Any perspective is much appreciated. Here's what I do know: · No apparent fluctuations across algorithm trackers · No drop in number of referring domains · No drastic changes in keyword search volume · Many pages are affected rather than one URL · XML site map does not look broken · No reported manual actions or security issues · We've been their sole SEO provider for about 2 years What am I missing?
Well I have to ask, what changes have you recently made to the site? And that would be all changes in the last four weeks. My software suggests the last algo change that may have resulted in significant SERP changes was March 24th.
We are checking changes now. There may have been updates to Wordpress and Elementor around that time. We didn't make any changes to the web design, or change content. We didn't add any plugins.
I received also some queries related to ranking drop or penalty by Google within 20 to 30 days. After analyze few sites i found that main issue is backlinks. His most of backlinks were redirecting .... For example at linking page domain name was different. And many links were coming from bad neighborhood link page (Many gambling, adult, bitcoin, pharmacy links there). Example for redirection At linking page Anchor text is www. domain .com and this link is redirecting to www. another .com. If we are using our website name at linking page like www. another .com and then its redirecting to www. another .com then its a bit right but from another domain name ...... means you are hiding your website info to get traffics. Ratio was about 70+% ... And so he get noticed from google and his rank dropped within few days and he is trying to restore his ranking. So because Google is recently update his algo and as you are saying that you did not change anything on website then you should check all of your backlinks quality ...... Because if bad neighborhood or redirecting backlinks (Seems like cloacking) ratio is a bit high then you are getting penalty from search engines.
Can it be pandemic related? And what do you mean by, no drastic changes in keyword search volume? Seems a contradiction to you losing half your organic traffic.
Yep, the search volume part was a mistake in my post. I meant to say that each page on the site fell by the same percentage. There wasn't one or two positions that fell a lot, while others were level. Thanks for the help, BTW. I am pretty new after changing careers, but no one else in the company has seen anything like this either.
Our backlink profile has been pretty good. We don't do anything shady, but there were some junk links (porn, .xyz, etc.) added in March that we didn't build, so we are exploring the possibility of a negative SEO attack too.
Also, yes it could possibly be pandemic related. There has been chatter that healthcare sites are taking hits because Google is erring on the side of caution to make sure that they aren't showing bad medical data.
Visit SE Roundtable, see if it has reported something. I believe there was an updated towards the end of March. It could be it got you a bit later.
You should disavow those links to avoid any types of negative impact on your site. Now i am a bit sure that its happening due to backlinks because you did not make any change then its off page issue. You can check also https://www.seomanualsubmission.com/view/what-are-some-mistakes-to-avoid-when-disavowing-links-56/ .... hope this will help you.
Well this is a smoking gun... Google says that they don't allow negative attacks like this, but still suggest you disavow. Whatever. I saw proof several years back that negative SEO was very possible. Now, to complicate things further. This could be a possible issue with EAT. I also had a medical site lose ranking about the same time you mention. For medical sites, they require quality links, from known authorities in the medical field. So in truth, EAT is probably involved as well.