60% Drop In Traffic?

[keyplyr]

60% drop in daily traffic since Sep 22 and can't figure out why.

No change in Google, Yahoo or MSN SERP positioning.

No change in Google PR.

Host says no (apache) server issues.

I don't think I've accidentally blocked any groups or I would see 403s in log. Several people say they connect sucessfully and fast for various areas of US and Europe. I also experience no connectivity issues - but the fact remains that I've lost 5k (out of 8k) in traffic each day.

Anyone have a suggestion to why this could have happened? Thanks.

[isitreal]

If there is no change in the SERPs people just aren't clicking on your listing, is the text in the listing appealing, do you have a good title tag on your page, etc?

If there is no other change you're talking about psychology here, marketing stuff, making people want to click on your link. Or everyone in your target audience is taking a vacation...

[ncw164x]

This thread is about the same problem
[webmasterworld.com...]

[encyclo]

It's difficult to say without knowing a bit of background about the kind of site you have. Is it sales or info? Small or large ticket items? Where do your visitors come from? Mainly USA? As great swathes of the southern states, especially Florida, have been hit with poor weather, it can make some activities drop out of the priority list, which can include searching for and buying the kind of items you sell.

Other factors may be economic, such as increasing fuel prices, job instability, the uncertainty in a US election year - those kind of events can affect large-ticket items in particular.

Those are just a few of the things outside of the purely technical viewpoint which can affect visitor numbers on your site.

[MHes]

A lot of small directories have been hit. You may have been getting more traffic from these than you realised. We had a site drop out of google...... traffic was still healthy from appearing in backfill for small directories.

[keyplyr]

Thanks - I feel there is a physical reason. This change is too abrupt for economic or trend causes. The site (info/services/products) is #1, #2 or #3 for almost all search terms and generally gets approx 8k visits per day. Then on Sept 22 and each day thereafter it has dropped to about 3k. Something has caused this.

[keyplyr]

Turns out that traffic had not dropped, only my host's access_log fidelity.

[isitreal]

get a new host. Problems like this is why I only use professional level hosting, I pay for it because it's worth it. Odd thing is it doesn't cost much more.