Search traffic dropped dramatically?

wizzardz01

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Hello,

i have an website (news portal on English). It's online 11months, with a lot of content, unique, all news. I have on it 1285 posts.

I got 95% traffic from Google in last 11 months. About 500 + unique month visits. But in last 2 days my stats look like this:

6guf.png


Google webmaster tool:

w78v.png


my ahref looks like this:

bnxf.png


So I don't have spam links, i didn't do any linkbuilding, all was natural links, people share it, other portals. I got some HQ links from Yale uni (intexts) and a lot more HQ links, people adding me like source for news and other things...

So what i did in last few days that could be wrong:

- afther 11 months i last week changed my title and meta description - it was "Brand Name" , i change it to "Brand name - 3 words (litle describe)"

- but fake 1500 likes from guy on forum. (could this thing hurt?)

Thats all, do you guys know what could be wrong? Why my traffic dropped?
 
No spammed links or neg SEO 100%

i saw this threads, it help. I hope i am also in Google dance for now. (not sure will i back). I will wait 5 days, and if my rankings doesn't come back, then i will back my title to old one, you guys thing its smart? Or to back my old tile now?
 
Ye wait it out man, im sure it will return.. most likely higher than where it was judging by what others said in those threads :)
 
Use IBP Software for onsite optimization.. it really works good in this things
 
I hope you have right Rua999, and thanks for support.

@innosoft i am a Mac user.
 
i would suggest changing your keyword and meta description back to that once i redeisnged this site and it was recieving traffic nad it just dropped then i changed everything back to like it was and the traffic came back. dont change the cores(titles, meta keywords, meta descriptions) of your site because thats what google keeps in mind and in thier system once that changes then google attitude also changes
 
No spam links, no neg SEO.. well then there are two possiblities:

1. You changed the description. That can be a reason and it will take some time (2-3 days) to come back.

2. You bought fake likes for your site.. right? Google counted this as a social signal and your site is dancing at the moment and it will return more strong.
 
No spam links, no neg SEO.. well then there are two possiblities:

1. You changed the description. That can be a reason and it will take some time (2-3 days) to come back.

2. You bought fake likes for your site.. right? Google counted this as a social signal and your site is dancing at the moment and it will return more strong.

Yea all like you said. I hope it will be back in few days.

Like i saw in threads what Rua999 posted, no one come back with answers what happend with their websites. I will give a back if it change.

Thanks guys!
 
Changing your onsite can have a serious impact on rankings. I try to get my onsite perfect before building links to a page b/c I know how important it is. I've seen keywords jump 10-11 spots just from removing a keyword from my Title tag (and then adding it back in).
 
Changing your onsite can have a serious impact on rankings. I try to get my onsite perfect before building links to a page b/c I know how important it is. I've seen keywords jump 10-11 spots just from removing a keyword from my Title tag (and then adding it back in).

Problem for me that i was changed meta desc and title just for Home Page. My rankings are dropped on mine news pages. On that news pages was title still same (title of that news). So not sure is my traffic dropped because of title change.

But also, i checked http://mozcast.com/ and http://serpmetrics.com/flux/ there was some algo update 100% at 14th November. And still rolling i think. But don't know why me? 100% all natural links, and all was fine with SEO on my website, no SEO processes for any KW. All was ranking itself.
 
Simply you changed your on site SEO and this is going to have an impact on your rankings since it is new.
Change it back and continue on if you can. If you bought social signals then this could be a dance and you may end up
higher than you originally was to begin with.
 
Simply you changed your on site SEO and this is going to have an impact on your rankings since it is new.
Change it back and continue on if you can. If you bought social signals then this could be a dance and you may end up
higher than you originally was to begin with.

Thanks for advice. But now I am not sure anymore, that have any thing with social signals or title change. I bought that social signals 10 days before this happen, and also 9 days for title and description was changed, and also i change it just for home page. All other things are same, i don't have on posts in title my website name, its just a title of name of that post.

I am not ranking for any KW on HP (because its a news portal for everything). So that's strange to me, some people told there was some changes on 14th november and that update seems still roll up. Shall we see...still is same on my website, still no traffic from Google :(
 
Still nothing...i can't wait anymore, so i just changed my title back.
 
Still nothing?? It will be better to change the title back to the old one.

+Do you have some above the fold ads or lot of affiliate links on your page?? just asking..
 
Mine looks same, just changed some page titles on category pages and the home page. Pretty ridiculous if that's the case. Is this the SEO spam filter? snip.jpg
 
Still nothing, i changed it back to old title.

I just have 3 adsense ads, i don't think this could be a problem, Google likes it, when you have their ads on site. I got maybe 5 affiliate links in whole website, some Books, but its there about 7 months already...

------

@googlemonster

Hmm, when did you make that changes? How much days before that happens to you? Mine was 9 days latter.
 
I also have changed my tag in my site title. I lost 1st position from Google. After long time got back my site position. In my view, continue do quality SEO.
 
Last edited:
Changing the description tag should have no barring on your rankings. Title tag, yeah maybe, but only temporarily. This most likely had to do with the Penguin refresh that has been rolling for the last couple weeks or so. That and you have to understand that from Wednesday until Sunday this week (of Thanksgiving) can be some of the worst traffic days of the year in some niches.

My observation with this latest update(s) (sample size of about 100 sites):

- There seems to be a period from the point where Google starts seeing links, activity etc.., in which Google gives somewhat of a grace period. From what I have seen this is generally around 8-12 months (this is if you don't overdue it with link building). Then you get hit with an algo refresh, and boom you end up losing a bunch of rankings/traffic for seemingly no reason at all (this can vary greatly depending on many different factors). From there you have to build the site back up again. A good portion of people end up panicking, and doing all kinds of crazy shit. I believe Google also pays attention to this (algorithmically).

- A lot of these updates seem to concentrate on authority and age. A lot of the sites that stick around are old aged authority sites. Duh..

- Google certainly turns up the dials and then turns them down. Just to keep SEO pros on their toes, Google is constantly tweaking their algo to give importance to some ranking factors and decrease the importance of others. This refresh may give more credence to certain on page factors or types of links. Next refresh will downgrade them. I believe this is done intentionally by Google in order to keep SEOers on their toes and keep the massive FUD train a rolling.

- Google also is looking at your link distribution and anchor text diversity. Obviously it's natural too have a large percentage of your links pointing to the homepage, but if you have 90%+ linking to your homepage, what is natural about this? You really need to start spreading your links out to your inner pages.

Anchor diversity is another key here. People have to get away from using exact match anchor text. It is way too obvious if you have 100 links and 90 of them use "Payday Loans" as the anchor text. I try to only target 3-4 keywords per page on my sites. Google understands what a page is about, you don't have to get crazy with anchor text anymore. A simple "Click Here" will do the trick as long as your on page is on par.

- Get links from relevant pages/topics. If you have a link from an article about lawnmowers and your target page is about software, it makes little sense here. Relevancy is huge anymore. If you have a page targeting something super topical like "dog toys for labrador retrievers", try to find link opportunities that have to do with "dog toys" or "labrador retrievers" or both. If you can't find them, build them yourself:)

- Almost 99% of the time when you lose rankings it is algorithmic. If you receive a manual penalty you will know it.

As far as your site, I would have to take a deeper look at it. Feel free to hit me up on Skype and I will see if I can diagnose it for you. Whatever you do, don't panic and do anything crazy. This is the biggest mistake I see SEOers make.
 
Last edited:
Changing the description tag should have no barring on your rankings. Title tag, yeah maybe, but only temporarily. This most likely had to do with the Penguin refresh that has been rolling for the last couple weeks or so. That and you have to understand that from Wednesday until Sunday this week (of Thanksgiving) can be some of the worst traffic days of the year in some niches.

My observation with this latest update(s) (sample size of about 100 sites):

- There seems to be a period from the point where Google starts seeing links, activity etc.., in which Google gives somewhat of a grace period. From what I have seen this is generally around 8-12 months (this is if you don't overdue it with link building). Then you get hit with an algo refresh, and boom you end up losing a bunch of rankings/traffic for seemingly no reason at all (this can vary greatly depending on many different factors). From there you have to build the site back up again. A good portion of people end up panicking, and doing all kinds of crazy shit. I believe Google also pays attention to this (algorithmically).

- A lot of these updates seem to concentrate on authority and age. A lot of the sites that stick around are old aged authority sites. Duh..

- Google certainly turns up the dials and then turns them down. Just to keep SEO pros on their toes, Google is constantly tweaking their algo to give importance to some ranking factors and decrease the importance of others. This refresh may give more credence to certain on page factors or types of links. Next refresh will downgrade them. I believe this is done intentionally by Google in order to keep SEOers on their toes and keep the massive FUD train a rolling.

- Google also is looking at your link distribution and anchor text diversity. Obviously it's natural too have a large percentage of your links pointing to the homepage, but if you have 90%+ linking to your homepage, what is natural about this? You really need to start spreading your links out to your inner pages.

Anchor diversity is another key here. People have to get away from using exact match anchor text. It is way too obvious if you have 100 links and 90 of them use "Payday Loans" as the anchor text. I try to only target 3-4 keywords per page on my sites. Google understands what a page is about, you don't have to get crazy with anchor text anymore. A simple "Click Here" will do the trick as long as your on page is on par.

- Get links from relevant pages/topics. If you have a link from an article about lawnmowers and your target page is about software, it makes little sense here. Relevancy is huge anymore. If you have a page targeting something super topical like "dog toys for labrador retrievers", try to find link opportunities that have to do with "dog toys" or "labrador retrievers" or both. If you can't find them, build them yourself:)

- Almost 99% of the time when you lose rankings it is algorithmic. If you receive a manual penalty you will know it.

As far as your site, I would have to take a deeper look at it. Feel free to hit me up on Skype and I will see if I can diagnose it for you. Whatever you do, don't panic and do anything crazy. This is the biggest mistake I see SEOers make.


I know all that you said to me. I am SEO who doing all manual and all white hat, but this site no anything, 99% links are build from people that using my content. All is natural. I added you on skype.
 
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