What the F is going on?

Backlinked said:

Hey guys,

I been working for this online education company (70% of traffic on the site is SEO),

OLD domain, Really good regularly updated content (like the type of stuff written by professors),

I came in back in August 2019 and back then they were hit big after making a release that affected the structure of the website badly.

When I came in, I found an expired domain which was doing exactly what our company did and I did the 301 acquisition technique with it.

We also added some fixes for image ALT Tags, we added Stars, we moved all important pages one level higher in the website (Now they are level 3 which is good), and we added FAQ for some pages.

After doing the above, for the past 2 years the site has only been gaining more and more traffic and positioning, I'm talking we recovered the negative YOY traffic and started doing +30-40%, and suddenly with the second part of the July update a couple of weeks ago we get hit Badly and BIG.

I mean we're literally at -50% traffic YOY and the CEO is panicking and so am I..

Nothing was really done on the structure that can have such a bad affect..

The only things I can think of is:

1. Google is just moody and it didn't like this update (sometimes it just happens) but this drop isn't normal I mean -50% is messed up, and the craziest part is that it keeps dropping more and more day by day, and this should be corrected on its own with the next Google update.

2. Somehow Google doesn't like the way we added stars schema or FAQ schema?

3. Maybe it detected the 301 redirection as a bad thing finally? I'm talking I redirected the expired domain (which was REALLY doing the Same thing as us, like not a similar niche, it was doing the SAME THING) to a SUB PAGE, it wasn't directly to root, I did it that way to keep things safe, could this be the issue?

I would really appreciate your input here guys of what you think the issue can be, I don't want to make moves that would screw it up even more, and I really am just afraid that this can be just Google being Moody and just a patience game..

Let me know what you think?

Thanks!

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t2van said:

NO. I'm not back. I had a guilty lurk while between meetings. Saw this thread.

The answer is obvious.

OP you are USA, EU or UK?

Hmm, wonder what's happened past 2 years since you got back.

Home learning education resources no doubt saw a spike with teachers needing more packs to give students, parents want kids to do shit etc. Whatever it might be covid is the reason for the spike, just as the decline.

Go to google trends 'education resources' flat-lining for USA & UK why... It's summer... 18 months teachers etc been working and now people can finally go on holiday who gives a flying shit about education is what the thought process will be this will hit in with the same time as your decline in traffic. This dip coupled with the fact home schooling is not a hot thing at the moment will result in your loss of that additional traffic.

I bet compared to other years you are not that far down it's just a blip in people's habits everyone is going through it right now. You know your CEO has been giving you a hard time but the extra income gained and traffic won't last when things go back to "normal"

This isn't google, it's a consumer habbit.

There just like a fart, I'm fading back into the wind. Next time I am needed I will appear.

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