anand84 - 8:47 am on May 26, 2010 (gmt 0)

I have very few inbound links from footer/sidebar of other websites. Most of the links I have are from within the article content on other websites. And I have still lost traffic.

Additionally, another website I know has several thousand IBLs from sidebar blog-rolls and the website does not seem to have been affected at all. So I am really not sure if the drop in SERPS is because of this.

but this drop commenced end of March and not Mayday.

Website owners have been seeing the 'Mayday' drop since Mid-February. So, it is possible that the drop in traffic is because of the factor you have mentioned.