Google Traffic

Where has all the traffic gone?

[otnot]

Is it just me or has G. just gone crazy since Dominic? My traffic has been steadily increasing for the past year but it peaked in August at 200,000 hits for the month. At the rate I'm going this month I will be lucky to hit 60,0000. I'm in the top ten SERPs for my widgets but the higher I go the less traffic I get. My ADword campaign has dropped from 100 clicks/day down to 20, but the CTR has improved. Where has all the traffic gone? It tis the season to begin to be jolly or is it just going a Baa Humbug holiday season?

[nutsandbolts]

End of summer slump - expect sales to rocket towards the middle of this month all the way to Feb ;)

[otnot]

I certainly hope so! The funny thing about this is, my sales have actually increased so far this month. I guess there is no way to out guess consumers all you can do is keep your name in front of their noses so they don't forget about you.

Thanks

[MHes]

"my sales have actually increased so far this month"

which suggests better quality traffic. Perhaps Google is improving on relevancy?

With more asp pages indexed and ranking better, we all have to expect a hit on total traffic volume, but if relevancy is higher, we all gain. Also the public have to be getting better at searching, perhaps using 2 or 3 word phrases and thus hits we get will be more on theme for our sites.

[otnot]

I'm always amazed at how people get to my sites. It does seem that most people are using 2-3 word phrases to search these days. My logs are full of widget+widget+widget search terms. It keeps me busy building new pages for the new search trends. I'm not sure G's results are any more relevant than they used to be but they sure have increased the size of their index. I still see the same old spammy sites with the hidden text and links and cross-linking ect. The main advantage to G is that you can make changes and almost immediately see the results. It makes it so much easier to stay ahead of the pack by doing so.

Take Care

[Allergic]

Almost the same digit here. I talk to a lot of friends who often use internet and the multiple virus treat this summer, make a lot of them afraid of internet.

[mayor]

My traffic has suffered greatly too, dropping perhaps 50 or 60 percent since June despite feverishly putting up new pages.

I do wonder if the browser and e-mail spyware and viruses took the wind out of the Internet sails for a lot of people. Surfing has become a chore for many unless you know how to clean up the spyware and scumware and e-mailing has become seriously degraded to the point that filters are frequently removing legitimate email.

Also, the growth in the search indexes tells us there's more competition. Maybe we have to step up to dynamic page generation to regain our lost turf.

[Arnett]

End of summer slump

For me the traffic "slump" begins around the first week of May each year. My traffic will drop 10-25% then. During the holiday/vacation in July I expect another 10-25% drop in traffic. August is back to school month and traffic drops again by 10-25%. By the third week of September traffic and sales start to pick up steadily through Christmas. Christmas day is the busiest day online because of all the new PCs and internet appliances that people get for Christmas. This surge usually carries through January when traffic and sales seem to be supported by US Income Tax Return checks. As "tax season" ends and the returns slow to a trickle the slump seems to begin again.

I credit most of the slump to the fact that families have their children full time and are spending more time and money at home with summer break and family outings. In the past I've tried to keep up with the severity of the winter weather in the U.S. to try and find out whether it had any correlation to increases in winter traffic and sales. Any input on this would be appreciated.

[oodlum]

peaked in August at 200,000 hits for the month

"Hits" or "visitors"? There's a big difference. Hits aren't a reliable way of measuring traffic, as it depends on the number of files requested to load your page. JPEGS, GIFS, CSS all go toward your hit count.

2 people visit your page, 10 files requested each time = 20 hits.

In fact, if you half the number of files your entry page requests, you'll halve your hits to that page.

Could be your answer.

Judge your traffic on "unique visitors". Of course, this might be what you meant to say.

[MHes]

"Maybe we have to step up to dynamic page generation to regain our lost turf."

So true!

With all these dynamic pages now being taken seriously, duplicate content is everywhere and pages we had that were 'unique' are now in the index and treated as 'duplicate content', especially in our sectors where there are few ways of varying the text.

Google has opened the door to generated text and flooded the serps with the same content.

[Jakpot]

End of summer slump

Nah. It's football, baseball and California(Arnold)

[your_store]

Nah. It's football, baseball and California(Arnold)

I'll add Halloween to that list. Traffic is soaring for us, and I can only imagine people are looking at holiday related information instead of their usual sites.

[Hardwood Guy]

Guess I've been lucky...traffic is up, up and away. Build it and they will come..thanks Brett and the rest of you fine folks here at WW.

[Tropical Island]

We are getting new highs in traffic almost every week. Last week was a new record on two of our three main sites.

Can't complain.

[twilight47]

It depends on the type of site. Our traffic is starting to pick up for the pre holidays. Last month was down, with end of summer and back to school. I assume some sites get less traffic in winter, but we love the holidays. ;)