Lost Over 80% Organic Traffic Since January Update

[Betboss]

Good day everyone, I've been a regular visitor here, I want to seek help from other webmasters and SEO pros alike.

I'd 4k daily average unique visitors sent to my site via Google, but since the January 14 update, I've lost over 80% of organic traffic. I started this site in 2018 and the backlink profile is not so strong; a few links from some sites and those from social media. I've never paid for any like or even solicited for one, I just focused on creating contents, and everything worked fine until the January update.

Steps Taken

Following the loss in traffic, I took the below steps

1. Disavowed thousands of spam links (only got to know after the update and I was confused as hell how so many spam links were and continue to link to my site)

2. I changed titles and description of over 60% of the pages (ranking pages).

3. I've added new contents which have been indexed but no where near the first page.

Those are the steps I took, but traffic continue to be lost especially with the recent March update.

I noticed that some of my pages which still rank no 1 on first page get over 50% less clicks compared to 3months back.

I also noticed some of the big names outranking me for some of these keywords even though I'd a more comprehensive post.

I'm asking for suggestions, is there anyone experiencing these problems and what really could be the cause? Is there anyway out or solution to this problems?

There's no error or manual action against my site, but traffic continue to dwindle.

Please help.

 

[YujinTan]

I also affect worst now come this virus

 

[gerbolso8]

It maybe because of the virus.

In my case i lost 50% of traffic from spain. Im monetizing with amazon spain

Hope this problem solve as soon as possible. And that the effect in the economy isnt too big

 

[YujinTan]

It maybe because of the virus.

In my case i lost 50% of traffic from spain. Im monetizing with amazon spain

Hope this problem solve as soon as possible. And that the effect in the economy isnt too big

This is why I puzzle , by right traffic online will be increase come this period as most work from home , stay at home thus mean they online more

and why traffic down?

 

[Deleted member 1048557]

I think the reason is the corona virus

 

[Nocturne00]

If that problem is happening cuz of you lost rankings on some keywords after the january and february updates than there must be something wrong about your on page SEO settings ( I mean technical SEO settings). Needed to be checked via SEO analyzing tools like Semrush, Moz or screaming frog.

So better try to understand what is wrong with your SEO settings by using tools that i mentioned above. If you have no idea about how to audit your site than feel free to send me a pm and ill give you my fiverr gig that you can buy site audit report with brief description about your problems.

Wish you good fortune for the future updates.

 

[AKQJ10]

60% of the pages is a lot. I also changed titles of a significant amount of posts of one site and saw about 80% loss of traffic. It took near one month to bounce back. In fact it took me more than 2 months to get the traffic back for that site because I was impatient and reused the old titles, then again changed all of them the second time.

If you changed just a few posts here and there then it would not a big difference, but it’s 60% then G need time to re-evaluate your site. So don’t expect anything positive right after that.

The pages that rank no1 but getting less traffic. Maybe because of the Coronavirus as others said. But I think it’s mainly because G updated their algorithm and they no longer think your pages are the best for some of the terms. If you have Semrush or Ahrefs check how many keywords you have lost.

 

[warmember]

MY traffic has gone down too, but i actually rank for more keywords, ranking i dont think has anything to do with the update, seo is seo, make sure you have keywords on the site and have strong backlinks, some of which you can just do yourself, like by posting in the bhw marketplace for example

 

[JinxerCraft]

Whats the niche of your website?

 

[warmember]

social media marketing

 

[Mr Positive]

1) were those links causing rank drops if not then you shouldn’t have disavowed them, did you add fresh backlinks if not then begin guest posts + pbns combo and then add niche edits it’ll work well

 

[Betboss]

I also affect worst now come this virus

Yeah, it's really rediculous. Site is gone to the dogs with coronaV

 

[Betboss]

It maybe because of the virus.

In my case i lost 50% of traffic from spain. Im monetizing with amazon spain

Hope this problem solve as soon as possible. And that the effect in the economy isnt too big

Traffic loss started in January and became worse with the Virus outbreak.

 

[Betboss]

This is why I puzzle , by right traffic online will be increase come this period as most work from home , stay at home thus mean they online more

and why traffic down?

One thing I noticed is that at least 85% of small sized competitors have suffered same fate, but the big names like techradar, 9to5Google and Co dominate this keywords despite the thin content and not a match for searched keyword.

 

[Betboss]

60% of the pages is a lot. I also changed titles of a significant amount of posts of one site and saw about 80% loss of traffic. It took near one month to bounce back. In fact it took me more than 2 months to get the traffic back for that site because I was impatient and reused the old titles, then again changed all of them the second time.

If you changed just a few posts here and there then it would not a big difference, but it’s 60% then G need time to re-evaluate your site. So don’t expect anything positive right after that.

The pages that rank no1 but getting less traffic. Maybe because of the Coronavirus as others said. But I think it’s mainly because G updated their algorithm and they no longer think your pages are the best for some of the terms. If you have Semrush or Ahrefs check how many keywords you have lost.

Now I get it, the loss of traffic is as a result of lost long tail keywords. I think that explains the less traffic despite ranking no 1

 

[sabhan]

So the conclusion here is that disvow bad links, make good links to boost authority in genuine ways and keep posting great in depth content.

I know a authority website which got bad links and then Google update of either showing website in featured snippet or Serp one time only. The result is website has lost $20k a month in traffic value and still declining.


The action point for that website owner would be to maintain disvow file and build good links. Website is 3 years old which means most of the articles don't have enough images, videos, schema, info graphic, breadcrumbs, table of content.

Also note that Google also give new websites with no authority a chance in Serp to test new website quality.

 

[Betboss]

But if I may ask, how can one stop bad backlinks from these spam sites? I recieve tonnes of such links every now and then, and disavowing them take a significant amount of time.

 

[UnlimitedSEO]

Yes, got affected too. In January it was due to Google update, then from February end it was due to corona attack

 

[HustleTong]

Let things settle (Corona).

 

[Betboss]

I wonder how corona is the culprit, even when Amazon has announced plans to hire 100k workers with increase in hourly payment.

Hopefully, corona will be behind us very soon.