Is my site penalised?

[Crabby_Doyle]

Hello everyone,

So, a week back or so one of my money sites witnessed a strange fluctuation in traffic. Since then, the site traffic has been halved to what it was before. When I visit GSC, the traffic and clicks seem normal. Nothing unusual there. Also, the keywords are increasing as per Semrush. Again, nothing unusual.

However, GA shows a different story altogether. It's as if a whole range of keywords are wiped out resulting in a 50% drop in traffic. It appears to me that my site has been penalised. Sigh. Again, GSC doesn't show any signs as such. How do I regain all that traffic? Do I contact G?

Was there an update around Sep 27? There is certainly some chatter going on but perhaps it's related to indexing of new pages? I dunno.

Any help or insights would be much appreciated.

 

[HenryObi]

Hello everyone,

So, a week back or so one of my money sites witnessed a strange fluctuation in traffic. Since then, the site traffic has been halved to what it was before. When I visit GSC, the traffic and clicks seem normal. Nothing unusual there. Also, the keywords are increasing as per Semrush. Again, nothing unusual.

However, GA shows a different story altogether. It's as if a whole range of keywords are wiped out resulting in a 50% drop in traffic. It appears to me that my site has been penalised. Sigh. Again, GSC doesn't show any signs as such. How do I regain all that traffic? Do I contact G?

Was there an update around Sep 27? There is certainly some chatter going on but perhaps it's related to indexing of new pages? I dunno.

Any help or insights would be much appreciated.

GSC data is usually 24hrs to 48hrs late. Assuming everything is still fine on GSC, I think you probably lost direct, referrals and/or social traffic. Another possibility is a glitch on Google analytics, I've experienced that in the past.

Give it some days before coming to conclusion.

 

[Social God]

Seems like Google is messing again with the algorithm.

Anyway - I'm not sure if this information will help you or not. My first website was hit twice and it was hit hard in May of 2020.

I guess you can say it can recover but it'll take time. I haven't really touched my first site. I knew I did shady link building and it's a lesson learned.

Since the hit, I created a brand new website and the traffic has been much much better for me.

Contacting Google won't do anything.

Just diversify your website portfolio and apply the lessons learned onto a newer site!

I feel 10x safer working on a white hat website than working on a website at risk of getting hit again by Google.

If you know why you were hit, try again. If it's shady link-building, you can disavow those links.

But again - Google update takes time.... so maybe don't do anything drastic for another few weeks or so.

(I'm not an expert - just giving you my opinion on what I'd do and my experience with a penalized site)

 

[Crabby_Doyle]

GSC data is usually 24hrs to 48hrs late. Assuming everything is still fine on GSC, I think you probably lost direct, referrals and/or social traffic. Another possibility is a glitch on Google analytics, I've experienced that in the past.

Give it some days before coming to conclusion.

I am waiting since Sep 27. Worse, this week's traffic seems to indicate there's a further drop waiting to happen. I built some links in the meantime for a day or two (before I realised that it could be a hit).

 

[Mr Positive]

There was an update and theres issue with indexing and indexed urls dropping out of google hence your traffic may have got jit

 

[Crabby_Doyle]

Seems like Google is messing again with the algorithm.

Anyway - I'm not sure if this information will help you or not. My first website was hit twice and it was hit hard in May of 2020.

I guess you can say it can recover but it'll take time. I haven't really touched my first site. I knew I did shady link building and it's a lesson learned.

Since the hit, I created a brand new website and the traffic has been much much better for me.

Contacting Google won't do anything.

Just diversify your website portfolio and apply the lessons learned onto a newer site!

I feel 10x safer working on a white hat website than working on a website at risk of getting hit again by Google.

If you know why you were hit, try again. If it's shady link-building, you can disavow those links.

But again - Google update takes time.... so maybe don't do anything drastic for another few weeks or so.

(I'm not an expert - just giving you my opinion on what I'd do and my experience with a penalized site)

This site of mine was also hit by the May 2020 update. Again traffic was reduced to 50%. Which is what makes me shudder considering this was one of my main money sites.

There was certainly some link building involved although I haven't used a PBN, site blaster or any of those Black hat tactics. What do you reckon? I did accept 2 casino backlinks admittedly cuz G had limited ad serving randomly on this site which affects the revenue. I removed those links a week ago or so. In hindsight I shouldn't have done that?

 

[Crabby_Doyle]

There was an update and theres issue with indexing and indexed urls dropping out of google hence your traffic may have got jit

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't that affecting new sites only atm?

 

[alonelywriter]

Just be patient and wait for the time being. It will be back to normal.
If you are that free to worry, then make a list of all the keywords that were giving you most traffic (you can find this in gsc)
find the landing pages that had the most clicks (can find in google analytics)

Study what is wrong now, from before.

understand what you could have done wrong for that particular landing page or keyword. (never repeat that in future.)

 

[Crabby_Doyle]

Just be patient and wait for the time being. It will be back to normal.
If you are that free to worry, then make a list of all the keywords that were giving you most traffic (you can find this in gsc)
find the landing pages that had the most clicks (can find in google analytics)

Study what is wrong now, from before.

understand what you could have done wrong for that particular landing page or keyword. (never repeat that in future.)

Nothing's wrong with the keywords, it appears as if G selectively chose not to display my site in SERPS for those exact keywords. Those pages have got high social signals. But now they don't matter anymore? Hence, it seems like an update. Even if I were to recover, which I will, it is going to take at least 3-4 months which is a lot of time. Revenue is also hit. Just hoping I am not pummeled by G any further.

Or, is there a slight chance that rankings will be back to normal once the dancing and prancing is over? Last time around it took 3 months. Since G has admitted to a bug on its part, could it be a little faster?

 

[alonelywriter]

Nothing's wrong with the keywords, it appears as if G selectively chose not to display my site in SERPS for those exact keywords. Those pages have got high social signals. But now they don't matter anymore? Hence, it seems like an update. Even if I were to recover, which I will, it is going to take at least 3-4 months which is a lot of time. Revenue is also hit. Just hoping I am not pummeled by G any further.

Or, is there a slight chance that rankings will be back to normal once the dancing and prancing is over? Last time around it took 3 months. Since G has admitted to a bug on its part, could it be a little faster?

So last time I got hit i kept my patience and rankings were back to normal in a month.

And you said nothings wrong with kw. I am asking you to check why G is not displaying your result in searches. study what others have done that they are now in top for your keywords. Make those changes in your website too but some better changes than them. Hope this will help you.

 

[Crabby_Doyle]

And you said nothings wrong with kw. I am asking you to check why G is not displaying your result in searches. study what others have done that they are now in top for your keywords. Make those changes in your website too but some better changes than them. Hope this will help you.

The only possible explanation I can give to why G is not displaying my site is the Sep 27 update...Could you please confirm if it affects older sites as well apart from the new ones?

 

[carrentalsindia]

hey is there any latest update about ranking because my keyword ranking is also fluctuating so please let me know if there any changes

 

[lethabolubanzi]

I think it's google update issue.

 

[alohamrhand]

I guess you can say it can recover but it'll take time. I haven't really touched my first site. I knew I did shady link building and it's a lesson learned.

what did your shady link building consist of?

 

[Social God]

what did your shady link building consist of?

I was new to the blogging world... without thinking, I ordered like 100,000 GSA links thinking

"hey I got cheap links, I can't wait to rank!"

Well - that bit me in the a**. Aha! 2 years later and I've learned a lot!

 

[gihanzami]

I think it's because of Google is trying to fix their indexing issue. Give it a couple more days and see. https://twitter.com/searchliaison