Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
I'm beginning to wonder if the latest Google update has changed the the traffic flow so much that a large number of our current visitors aren't ending up where they want to be and are hitting the back button. I suppose it's equally possible that we used to get a lot of visitors who didn't want to be here and left via ads, while the new visitors find exactly what they want and turn off the computer!
In any case, if it stays this way for another week I'll try looking at our stats for how long visitors are staying on site, see if there's been a change, but we are getting roughly the same number of visitors as before the big update. It's the first time I've seen a Google search update whose main effect, on us, is to kill our CTR:-)
We have noticed the same thing...
We have 2 sites... 1 retail and 1 informational
The retail site has always experienced a slow down right after a G update - each and every one of them - but, we have always stayed in our position. In other words - we never moved in the SERPS and yet it always seems that people somehow lose their equilibrium when doing searches after a G update.
Now - with our informational site - we are seeing again the same thing - except that we lost first page placement - which wasn't producing anything - and all the other pages stayed right where they were and they are not showing the same earnings as before - almost a 90% decrease.
Traffic is exactly the same - but no one is clicking.
My advice is:
Stay put.
Leave everything alone.
Take the next couple of days on the chin.
Everything will come back within the next 7 to 10 days.
Google doesn't owe me a living - but when we play in the same sandbox - everyone eventually wins (something anyway)
ARC
Stay put.
Leave everything alone.
Take the next couple of days on the chin.Everything will come back within the next 7 to 10 days.
That's pretty much my normal style and it's worked very well for me. All too often acting too soon causes more problems than it solves.
On the surface it sounds to me like you guys are experiencing a shift in traffic sources. Are you sure your traffic is coming from the same places and on the same search terms?
I think you bring out a good point...
Traffic as we see it seems to be coming from the same places...Organic and Referral in the same percentages...
The one exception is the loss of our home page on page 1 of the SERPS, but since that had a high bounce-off rate and no ads - we just lost the curiosity factor and therefore not all that critical.
I can't honestly say that I believe that people somehow lose their equilibrium but that is how all it seems to pan out.
Easier said than done - do nothing - but that always seems to work.
Nice to see that I am not the only one that stays put when everyone is feverishly altering things....
ARC
"People losing their equilibrium?"
No... I don't believe in Big Foot...(At least I don't think I do)
[edited by: Arctrust at 1:04 am (utc) on Oct. 6, 2006]
Its easy to see because my stats are rock steady normally - probably because I have a bunch (12) of high quality niche hobby sites and around 5 to 7k of uniques per day.
Because there are a bunch of sites on different unrelated subjects the effects of weekends, holls, weather, seasons, etc all seems to average the totals out nicely! Income is also increadibly consistent. (around 100 daily for 3.5 years)So trends are easy to spot.
The changes are good for some and by definition bad for others. Its the luck of the draw! Or maybe the quality of the content? Maybe the algo got better at distinguishing good from bad? Or the other way around!
Looking around the Google News forum it's obvious other stuff is going on now too. I haven't even looked at the MSN and Yahoo forums, but it might be worth while.
Traffic shifts can be really sneaky and deceiving. It can actually look like traffic is normal but dig into it a bit and you can sometimes find subtle changes that make big differences when you add them up.
That's especially true if much of your traffic comes off long tail search terms. In that situation you can easily find the shift happening out on the 3rd+ word(s) in the phrase. Suddenly you're dealing with the motivation of the visitor and how that affects the CTR on ads.
Blue widgets for sale in yourcity
vs
Blue widgets events in yourcity
It's very possible that the two examples above would deliver visitors to the same page, visitors with very different motivations and with very different likelyhoods of clicking on an ad even if they used the same search engine. Another big difference in these two visitors is the likelyhood that they'll look at more than one page on your site. Digging around in your logs might be the easiest way to see whats happening.
I wouldn't bother unless it drags out for a while though.
However, I do know I also get a lot of traffic from many other phrases and variants, and I'm inclined to suspect that there were shifts there.
The important thing is to build your content, build up relevant incoming links, and not worry too much about minor shifts.
Good luck!
Let us all know what you do and how you make out...
Keep us "posted"
ARC
We are an authority site, been aroudn for years, thousands of pages, great content, lots of inbound links, etc. etc. Had awesome rankings for years, lost much of it in March, gained it all back in August, lost it all again this past week.
Our numbers this past week are the curiosity: Our paid google traffic increased by 50% - we didn't touch anything. Our organic google traffic is down to a 1/4 of what it was last week. Meanwhile, and here's the kicker, although our revnue is understandably off by about 50%, our click to sale conversion rate is up by 50%...
So, yes, our traffic is down, too far down, but our conversion is up. Stillour traffic is down so much, that despite the uptick in conversion our revenue is still off. And, our spending on google ads has jumped.
But for sure, the traffic quality is better. I can't put my finger on it, bu it also feels that there is a regional affect somewhere...
Also, Froogle has jumped for us as well - more traffic, more sales.
Weird!
Still, I'd rather how it was last week than now...
And yes, we will also leave well enough alone, an wait it out, while we continue on with the things that matter: content, content and content.
I have noticed that my ads are targetted to my site's theme rather than to my page topic which may account for many long tail search visitors NOT clicking.
OK... I'll be a good boy and listen to the ol' hands here - do nothing. It ain't gonna be easy though...
I changed the section targeting and all I could but nothing helped so finally I emailed google. They actually got back to in a week or so and told me they had "fixed it" and "whaddyah-know......." the ads are what they should be now! Targeted for the site.
I seem to be having the same problem. After including the section targetting, the ads are targetted to my site's theme and NOT to my page's topic.
