steerpikegg - 1:51 pm on Dec 7, 2010 (gmt 0)

I'm having my worst Christmas since my site was setup 5 years ago. Traffic dropped by over 80% on Monday 29th Nov and still no sign of recovery.

After a wild rollercoaster of a year, things finally looked like they had settled and we were making steady progress daily toward getting back to pre-mayday levels then bam! From nowhere we drop like a stone for no reason that I can fathom.

Since all the troubles this year I have fixed all possible canonical issues etc to no avail. I sometimes wonder if the webmaster guidelines and all this care and attention is even worth it. The sites that have shuffled up into my positions look like they have not been updated in the last couple of years, with no regard to any kind of structure, dup content and untold html validation / canonical issues etc. Why do I bother.

I'm giving it until January after which, if we are not back and steady I'm just going to leave the site to stagnate and try to earn a living elsewhere.