why website traffic decreased significantly

Discussion in 'Search Engine Optimization' started by casan, Dec 24, 2007.

  1. #1
    On september, october my site had aprox. 7.000 unique visitors a day.
    on november my site overloaded the server, so I had to deal with that for like a month, site was offline for a week, I finally fixed the website and got a new dedicated server.
    Ever since that happend, my website traffic would be 1.000 or less visitors a day.
    Google is the one sends me 85 - 95 % of the traffic. That its been like that on sept and october as in this month : december.
    Considering I still rank first (or second) on google for the top search strings (same top searches of september and october) I dont understand why the traffic has gone down.
     
    casan, Dec 24, 2007 IP
  2. sweetfunny

    sweetfunny Banned

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    #2
    Usually a website will get around 70% of it's search engine referals from long-tail search strings. Your main keywords may still be intact, but alot of your deeper pages that pull long-tail results may of slipped. How many different search terms was your site found by in November compared to December?

    Also your traffic may be seasonal, was last Decembers traffic down from November?

    Hard to tell with limited info.
     
    sweetfunny, Dec 24, 2007 IP
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  3. drig

    drig Peon

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    #3
    What was your website? Was it a non-unique site like a proxy or image host? If so, you'll find that people will move on to another provider VERY quickly.
     
    drig, Dec 24, 2007 IP
  4. w3bmaster

    w3bmaster Notable Member

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    #4
    Man this is december Holidays etc many sites have low traffic this period ...
     
    w3bmaster, Dec 24, 2007 IP
  5. Olvap

    Olvap Peon

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    #5
    yeah, w3bmaster is right!
     
    Olvap, Dec 24, 2007 IP
  6. drig

    drig Peon

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    #6
    But them some sites receive more traffic during the holidays. I think we need to either know the site or the industry.
     
    drig, Dec 24, 2007 IP
  7. live-cms_com

    live-cms_com Notable Member

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    #7
    I have huge traffic today since I rank high for a good Christmas keyword. :D
     
    live-cms_com, Dec 24, 2007 IP
  8. yogesh sarkar

    yogesh sarkar Well-Known Member

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    #8
    Sweetfunny is right; check your site stats to determine which phrases and keywords were actually bringing your traffic.

    A site going offline for an entire week is serious stuff; your pages might have been dropped from google’s index.
     
    yogesh sarkar, Dec 24, 2007 IP
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  9. bebe123

    bebe123 Well-Known Member

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    #9
    Christmas day ;)
     
    bebe123, Dec 24, 2007 IP
  10. bobchrist

    bobchrist Active Member

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    #10
    In holiday season traffic are naturally less, this is best time to improve site.
     
    bobchrist, Dec 24, 2007 IP
  11. jasljohns

    jasljohns Peon

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    #11
    How long did it take to build that volume? If your traffic has been fairly static, those visitors who visited your site while it was down may have deleted the link from their bookmarks. If so, it sounds like you have a quality site, and you should be able to build your traffic again, especially with the rank your site has. It may be a while though, and that su--oops, can't say that.

    Merry Christmas! Keep it safe.
     
    jasljohns, Dec 24, 2007 IP
  12. smcilreavy

    smcilreavy Peon

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    #12
    If you kept an eye on you analytics you would be able to see where the traffic was coming from and where it has been lost from.
     
    smcilreavy, Dec 25, 2007 IP
  13. casan

    casan Active Member

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    #13
    I don't have statistics for last year since I changed servers some months ago. but I can say that the traffic started growing in september and october without any prior optimization whatsoever from me at that moment.

    using Awstats :

    for october> there were 21154 different keyphrases searched
    for dec> there are 5011 different keyphrases searched

    I'm starting to believe (sweetfunny) my traffic may be seasonal?

    Is there any keyword analizer BY DATE? if there was I could see what the demand is for certain keyword at a given period of the year

    merry christmas! thanks for your replies!
     
    casan, Dec 26, 2007 IP
  14. shaila

    shaila Guest

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    #14
    Traffic has gone down because of the site has been offline for a week , the site is down and no one is accessing your site. I understand that traffic is also seasonal especially this christmas season, most of the users is online and wants a christmas gifts.

     
    shaila, Dec 26, 2007 IP
  15. sweetfunny

    sweetfunny Banned

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    #15
    Yep just as i thought, that's an approximately 55% drop in referring Google search phrases. So even though your primary keywords are intact, you have lost alot of your long tail search queries and this accounts for a considerable amount of traffic.

    It's hard for me to tell without knowing the sites niche, but it could be. However due to the drop in the number of referring queries, i'm inclined to believe your inner pages dropped because of the down time. They take longer to come good than the home page due to the fact they are recrawled less frequently.

    If it was a seasonal drop, i feel your number of referring queries wouldn't of taken that much of a hit but the amount of visitors for each query would of lowered instead.

    Personally i'd feed the site some deep links to get it responding well again.
     
    sweetfunny, Dec 26, 2007 IP
  16. nikmahajan

    nikmahajan Active Member

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    #16
    Traffic these days is fluctuating actually. You get more hits one day and very less hits another day. We have to wait till new year.
     
    nikmahajan, Dec 26, 2007 IP
  17. sweetlouise

    sweetlouise Well-Known Member

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    #17
    its christmas, not many people have time to waste online.
     
    sweetlouise, Dec 26, 2007 IP