Comments on: How To Analyse Sudden Drop In Organic Traffic http://www.conversioncounts.com/blog/optimization/how-to-analyse-sudden-drop-in-organic-traffic/ Just another WordPress weblog Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:26:11 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc hourly 1 By: Ran http://www.conversioncounts.com/blog/optimization/how-to-analyse-sudden-drop-in-organic-traffic/comment-page-1/#comment-355 Ran Sat, 19 Dec 2009 08:21:30 +0000 http://www.conversioncounts.com/blog/?p=1003#comment-355 Thanks Brian, some useful insights there. Thanks Brian, some useful insights there.

]]> By: Brian Hancock http://www.conversioncounts.com/blog/optimization/how-to-analyse-sudden-drop-in-organic-traffic/comment-page-1/#comment-353 Brian Hancock Fri, 18 Dec 2009 21:25:01 +0000 http://www.conversioncounts.com/blog/?p=1003#comment-353 Great list! While sites can and do get banned and have technical issues with indexing like you mentioned above, I find this is rarely the case. Rather than start chasing your tail evaluating possible technical SEO issues, I think the first thing to do is determine the source (engine, keyword, or overall). For instance, many of my clients will do offline marketing like radio advertising from time to time. Naturally this can cause a sharp increase in direct traffic due to people typing the URL they heard in the ad into their browser. However, this also causes a sharp increase in organic traffic due to increased search activity for their branded terms (name of brand, URL, etc.). When they drop the campaign, those branded searches can drop dramatically. This in turn can make the overall organic traffic drop significantly. In short, if you just looked at overall organic traffic dropping and didn't get more details on what source dropped, you can wind up wasting a lot of time thinking there is an issue with indexing. If at that point you determine there is a good possibility of an indexing problem, I think you've got a great list of scenarios above. Great list! While sites can and do get banned and have technical issues with indexing like you mentioned above, I find this is rarely the case. Rather than start chasing your tail evaluating possible technical SEO issues, I think the first thing to do is determine the source (engine, keyword, or overall).

For instance, many of my clients will do offline marketing like radio advertising from time to time. Naturally this can cause a sharp increase in direct traffic due to people typing the URL they heard in the ad into their browser. However, this also causes a sharp increase in organic traffic due to increased search activity for their branded terms (name of brand, URL, etc.). When they drop the campaign, those branded searches can drop dramatically. This in turn can make the overall organic traffic drop significantly.

In short, if you just looked at overall organic traffic dropping and didn’t get more details on what source dropped, you can wind up wasting a lot of time thinking there is an issue with indexing. If at that point you determine there is a good possibility of an indexing problem, I think you’ve got a great list of scenarios above.

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