Sudden Drop to 0 Impressions and Clicks in Google

Swat_16a

Swat_16a

Newbie
Joined
Nov 28, 2019
Messages
48
Reaction score
41
5lt11Nn.png

One of our websites suddenly dropped to zero impressions and clicks on Google around April 3rd. There are no manual actions or security issues in Search Console. We publish content regularly, and user engagement has always been strong at least time on site.

It's a very niche site, but until now we were getting steady traffic from Google (we started 12 months ago, and domain it's almost 2 years - 250-500 impressions per day and 4-12 clicks per day). Bing traffic is still coming in normally, and we haven’t made any major changes recently that could explain the drop.

I’ve gone through a lot of Reddit threads and SEO forums but haven’t found anything that fits our case. We’re continuing to improve the site—good performance scores, updating content, working on backlinks, and so on.

If anyone has experienced something similar or has any thoughts on what might be happening, I’d appreciate your input. Happy to share more details if needed. Thanks in advance
 
Advertise on BHW
Is your content hand-written or you are creating content using AI?
 
AlbinKurti said:
Is your content hand-written or you are creating content using AI?
Click to expand...
Yes, content is hand-written, and in some posts the structure or idea of the topic has come out of AI
 
Is it site-wide hit or just few prominent pages?

Generally speaking, it's usually spammy link profile or low quality content that catches up with the website. It's more often content these days.

What they don't like much and usually results in overall drop:
  • heavily focusing on commercial queries
  • fake product reviews
  • incoherent, all over the place topic coverage
  • easily recognizable AI text
  • unoriginality/copying competitors
  • factual incorrectness on large scale
  • ads overload, especially above the fold
 
Swat_16a said:
and we haven’t made any major changes recently that could explain the drop.
Click to expand...
Do not even make any major changes, apart from some normal SEO.
I will explain what it is : Google's algorithms are now a permanently untamable beast for Google and apart from that, Google (like any big company), has a lack of co-ordination between teams. Hence, various teams working without any co-ordination on a permanently untamable beast, nowadays results in sudden unexplainable changes in search rankings.
So, do not panic and do not make any major changes, apart from some normal SEO. In a few days or a week or two, your previous search rankings would be back and then after a while, expect your website(s) rankings "dances" to happen, as it often happens nowadays.
 
tiiberius said:
Is it site-wide hit or just few prominent pages?

Generally speaking, it's usually spammy link profile or low quality content that catches up with the website. It's more often content these days.

What they don't like much and usually results in overall drop:
  • heavily focusing on commercial queries
  • fake product reviews
  • incoherent, all over the place topic coverage
  • easily recognizable AI text
  • unoriginality/copying competitors
  • factual incorrectness on large scale
  • ads overload, especially above the fold
Click to expand...
When I search the whole site for site:website.com, I still appear in Google, except for 1 article which is indexed in GSC but doesn't come up in Google.

We have few links, and I think they are not spammy, and I don't see any new junk links. The content may be bad, but it is handwritten.

The rest of the competitors still have the same ranking in Google.

And of this list we have no reviews on the site, there are no ads, it may be because of the content.

Thank you for your help!
 
FocusFocus said:
Do not even make any major changes, apart from some normal SEO.
I will explain what it is : Google's algorithms are now a permanently untamable beast for Google and apart from that, Google (like any big company), has a lack of co-ordination between teams. Hence, various teams working without any co-ordination on a permanently untamable beast, nowadays results in sudden unexplainable changes in search rankings.
So, do not panic and do not make any major changes, apart from some normal SEO. In a few days or a week or two, your previous search rankings would be back and then after a while, expect your website(s) rankings "dances" to happen, as it often happens nowadays.
Click to expand...
Perfect! I haven't made any changes apart from normal SEO, so good!

So do you recommend I just keep writing articles and building backlinks? Keep working on it as if nothing has happened?

Well thanks a lot for your help I'll update you and see what happens in a few weeks, thanks!
 
Last edited:
Swat_16a said:
View attachment 437492

One of our websites suddenly dropped to zero impressions and clicks on Google around April 3rd. There are no manual actions or security issues in Search Console. We publish content regularly, and user engagement has always been strong at least time on site.

It's a very niche site, but until now we were getting steady traffic from Google (we started 12 months ago, and domain it's almost 2 years - 250-500 impressions per day and 4-12 clicks per day). Bing traffic is still coming in normally, and we haven’t made any major changes recently that could explain the drop.

I’ve gone through a lot of Reddit threads and SEO forums but haven’t found anything that fits our case. We’re continuing to improve the site—good performance scores, updating content, working on backlinks, and so on.

If anyone has experienced something similar or has any thoughts on what might be happening, I’d appreciate your input. Happy to share more details if needed. Thanks in advance
Click to expand...
You are not alone. Same here 1 of our niche site dropped to zero on April start no warnings no changes made by us. even bing traffic is normal and google just vanished, checked everything noindex, crawl, sitemap etc All good

Let me know if you find anything :)
 
Algo penalty, domain is dead.

How much pages are in index by site:domain.com ?
How much pages you added daily ?
Bought some backlinks ?
Fresh domain or used ?
 
Turbo B. said:
Algo penalty, domain is dead.

How much pages are in index by site:domain.com ?
How much pages you added daily ?
Bought some backlinks ?
Fresh domain or used ?
Click to expand...
1. Around 100, all except 1 post
2. 1 post every 2 weeks or so
3. Yes, 6 backlinks, guest posts
4. Fresh domain
 
sounds like u got hit by an intent/quality classifier quiet-kill, not a manual. april was one of those silent recalcs; google pulls ur URLs out of the test bucket and u vanish overnight while bing keeps sending love. that’s how u know it’s algorithmic trust, not technical.
 
Advertise on BHW
You must log in or register to reply here.
Sign up now!

Main Menu

Home Main Forum List Black Hat SEO White Hat SEO BHW Newbie Guide Blogging Black Hat Tools Social Media Downloads

Marketplace

Account Selling Content / Copywriting EBooks / Methods Hosting Misc Proxies For Sale SEO - Link building SEO - Packages Social Media Social Media - Panels Web Design More

Making Money

Affiliate Programs Hire a Freelancer IM Journeys Making Money Pay Per Click Site Flipping Want to Buy

BlackHat World

Dispute Resolution Forum Suggestions & Feedback Introductions Lounge
Back
Top