Googlebot Drop-Off

Anemic bot hits since June - anyone else? why?

[pjean]

While Google referrals have remained steady, Googlebot hits dropped 75% for July and August is looking equally low. I've seen dramatic drops before, but at that time the volume of hits remained in the 50,000 and 100,000 hits-per-month range so I wasn't as concerned. Now the volume is _significantly_ lower. If my site was penalized I would expect to see that reflected in referring traffic and so far it isn't. Haven't been site changes in that time period either. I thought an August update would show a spike in hits, but it seems Fritz has begun and googlebot hasn't come by (or left too soon).

Is this cause for concern or just the new norm for googlebot behavior? How might I investigate this?

[samwise]

I wish I knew. I too am experiencing this. I don't know if my site was penalized or what the problem is but my traffic started decreasing in mid June. It decreased by about a third in July and now it's about in have of what it was.

Are there fewer people using Google in the summer?

I'm still listed, my index page and many other pages are showing up in google but many of my pages are now at 60 where they were at 5 to 15 or so.

I really don't know what to do or what actually caused them to drop so drastically. If anyone would care to comment that would greatly be appreciated.

Sam

[xlcus]

samwise,

pjean was talking about hits from Googlebot itself, not a drop in traffic from people searching using Google.

[BlueSky]

My guess is the bots have been spending more time picking up newer sites. I put one up in July and the little guy and his friends have been visiting practically every single day.