Website Traffic Down 50% but Clicks and Impressions almost doubled in 90 days!!!

SEOPul

SEOPul

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So I was doing a quarterly audit on my website, since its leads have dried up coming into August. So while doing the research I noticed that my impressions and Clicks have almost doubled. But at the same time my traffic + users have declined by almost 50%.

some numbers for reference-

Comparison Date: 20th May to 17th August, 2026 vs 18th Feb to 18th May, 2026

GSC-

Impressions- 45.4k vs 35.9K
Clicks- 328 vs 248
CTR at 0.7% in both quarters.

But my GA4 numbers are-

Organic Search- 208 vs 511
Referral- 111 vs 306
unassigned- 19 vs 70
Organic social- 16 vs 4

so overall my numbers dosent look right. Im assuming that this is due to the fact that my GA4 code has been tampered with (since this website had a CMS migration during March-April). But when I tested it it was tracking live events as well as GTM events well.

Please help me understand how to diagnose this issue, any feasible solutions, or is it just a natural down turn?
 
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I'd check the GA4 setup around the migration first If GSC clicks are actually up but GA4 organic traffic dropped that much it sounds more like a tracking or attribution issue than an SEO drop
 
i usually trust GA4 more than GSC but GSC is usually not meant to be higher than the GA4 because GA track more depper than GSC maybe you should work on the tecnical issue on the site and you can install the GA4 on your site maybe the result will be different
 
It looks like an issue with GA4 tracking. GSC is known to reduce clicks & impressions - particularly during algorithm updates. But it doesn't over-report. So, it seems like analytics is not recording everything. You should check your code and see if you didn't mess up anything during the migration.
 
It definitely looks like a GA4 tracking or consent banner drop-off issue after the CMS migration rather than an actual traffic drop. I'd recommend checking if your analytics code is firing properly on all migrated templates.
 
Since you mentioned a CMS migration, I would investigate the analytics implementation before assuming that organic traffic actually collapsed.

Search Console clicks and GA4 sessions are not identical metrics, but a difference this large deserves attention. Check whether the GA4 tag is installed on every template, whether consent settings changed, and whether redirects or landing pages are losing tracking.

I would also compare GA4 landing-page reports with Search Console page-level clicks over the same dates. That could help identify whether the discrepancy is concentrated on particular pages after the migration.
 
Did the CMS migration change the domain or subdomain? Check the hostname data in GA4 and any active filters. If the new hostname is excluded, some sessions may not appear in your reports even though the tracking tag is firing.
 
SEOPul said:
So I was doing a quarterly audit on my website, since its leads have dried up coming into August. So while doing the research I noticed that my impressions and Clicks have almost doubled. But at the same time my traffic + users have declined by almost 50%.

some numbers for reference-

Comparison Date: 20th May to 17th August, 2026 vs 18th Feb to 18th May, 2026

GSC-

Impressions- 45.4k vs 35.9K
Clicks- 328 vs 248
CTR at 0.7% in both quarters.

But my GA4 numbers are-

Organic Search- 208 vs 511
Referral- 111 vs 306
unassigned- 19 vs 70
Organic social- 16 vs 4

so overall my numbers dosent look right. Im assuming that this is due to the fact that my GA4 code has been tampered with (since this website had a CMS migration during March-April). But when I tested it it was tracking live events as well as GTM events well.

Please help me understand how to diagnose this issue, any feasible solutions, or is it just a natural down turn?
Click to expand...
GSC clicks increasing while GA4 organic sessions falling suggests a possible measurement or attribution problem.

Cross-check these things first:
  • GA4 tracking: Verify that the GA4 tag fires on every page after the CMS migration, without duplicate or missing tags.
  • GTM and consent settings: Check whether consent banners, redirects, or cross-domain tracking are affecting session attribution.
  • Channel attribution: Compare GA4 landing pages and session source/medium with GSC clicks for the same dates.
Also, check if GA4 reporting timezone and filters changed during migration.
 
SEOPul said:
So I was doing a quarterly audit on my website, since its leads have dried up coming into August. So while doing the research I noticed that my impressions and Clicks have almost doubled. But at the same time my traffic + users have declined by almost 50%.

some numbers for reference-

Comparison Date: 20th May to 17th August, 2026 vs 18th Feb to 18th May, 2026

GSC-

Impressions- 45.4k vs 35.9K
Clicks- 328 vs 248
CTR at 0.7% in both quarters.

But my GA4 numbers are-

Organic Search- 208 vs 511
Referral- 111 vs 306
unassigned- 19 vs 70
Organic social- 16 vs 4

so overall my numbers dosent look right. Im assuming that this is due to the fact that my GA4 code has been tampered with (since this website had a CMS migration during March-April). But when I tested it it was tracking live events as well as GTM events well.

Please help me understand how to diagnose this issue, any feasible solutions, or is it just a natural down turn?
Click to expand...
First compare GSC clicks with GA4 landing-page sessions, then audit GA4/GTM tracking, consent settings, channel attribution and migration redirects using Google’s official GA4 migration troubleshooting guide before assuming it is an actual traffic decline.
 
SEOPul said:
So I was doing a quarterly audit on my website, since its leads have dried up coming into August. So while doing the research I noticed that my impressions and Clicks have almost doubled. But at the same time my traffic + users have declined by almost 50%.

some numbers for reference-

Comparison Date: 20th May to 17th August, 2026 vs 18th Feb to 18th May, 2026

GSC-

Impressions- 45.4k vs 35.9K
Clicks- 328 vs 248
CTR at 0.7% in both quarters.

But my GA4 numbers are-

Organic Search- 208 vs 511
Referral- 111 vs 306
unassigned- 19 vs 70
Organic social- 16 vs 4

so overall my numbers dosent look right. Im assuming that this is due to the fact that my GA4 code has been tampered with (since this website had a CMS migration during March-April). But when I tested it it was tracking live events as well as GTM events well.

Please help me understand how to diagnose this issue, any feasible solutions, or is it just a natural down turn?
Click to expand...
but before this, let me check whether the consent banner nd GA4 tracking work properly on various page templates. there have actually been instances where the GA4 tracking was working fine for the home page but not working for certain inner page after the migration into the CMS. nd by the way, did you verify the reports of your landing page before nd after the migration?
 
SEOPul said:
So I was doing a quarterly audit on my website, since its leads have dried up coming into August. So while doing the research I noticed that my impressions and Clicks have almost doubled. But at the same time my traffic + users have declined by almost 50%.

some numbers for reference-

Comparison Date: 20th May to 17th August, 2026 vs 18th Feb to 18th May, 2026

GSC-

Impressions- 45.4k vs 35.9K
Clicks- 328 vs 248
CTR at 0.7% in both quarters.

But my GA4 numbers are-

Organic Search- 208 vs 511
Referral- 111 vs 306
unassigned- 19 vs 70
Organic social- 16 vs 4

so overall my numbers dosent look right. Im assuming that this is due to the fact that my GA4 code has been tampered with (since this website had a CMS migration during March-April). But when I tested it it was tracking live events as well as GTM events well.

Please help me understand how to diagnose this issue, any feasible solutions, or is it just a natural down turn?
Click to expand...
On my part, I would check the consent banner nd google analytics GA4 tracking on various template page other than the homepage. I had encountered cases where everything worked fine on the homepage but did not track any events or sessions for the internal pages once the migration took place. another alternative that you could look into is checking the landing pages report pre- nd post-migration to see if specific URLs cause this problem.
 
SEOPul said:
So I was doing a quarterly audit on my website, since its leads have dried up coming into August. So while doing the research I noticed that my impressions and Clicks have almost doubled. But at the same time my traffic + users have declined by almost 50%.

some numbers for reference-

Comparison Date: 20th May to 17th August, 2026 vs 18th Feb to 18th May, 2026

GSC-

Impressions- 45.4k vs 35.9K
Clicks- 328 vs 248
CTR at 0.7% in both quarters.

But my GA4 numbers are-

Organic Search- 208 vs 511
Referral- 111 vs 306
unassigned- 19 vs 70
Organic social- 16 vs 4

so overall my numbers dosent look right. Im assuming that this is due to the fact that my GA4 code has been tampered with (since this website had a CMS migration during March-April). But when I tested it it was tracking live events as well as GTM events well.

Please help me understand how to diagnose this issue, any feasible solutions, or is it just a natural down turn?
Click to expand...
I say check for redirect issues, lost landing page URLs, and changes in canonical tags after migration, as these can affect organic traffic attribution and performance
 
gsc and ga4 measure different things lol, check if the migration broke your analytics tagging first before panicking tbh
 
check GA4 tracking setup before assuming the traffic actually dropped.compare landing page data in GA4 with same date range in GSC and make sure the migration did not change measurement or consent settings.also check whether organic sessions are classified under another channel since the increase in GSC clicks suggests the drop may related to tracking rather than search visibility.
 
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