My google traffic is fading

[smokeybarnable]

I've been away from seo for awhile. Is google still king? I've noticed way more yahoo and msn traffic over the past two months. It could just mean that googlebot doesn't like my site but is anyone seeing any trends?

Also is it really possible to optimize your site for all major search engines or do you have to pick one?

[caran1]

Mine has also disappeared. SEO seems to be a waste of time.

[tedster]

By all recent metrics reporting, Google's market share is not fading one bit. So what you are seeing sounds like it's specific to your own site.

It is most definitely possible for a site to do well in all 3 major earch engines, but if you've not been hands-on in a while, do be careful with what you consider "optimizing" to be. For example, read through this thread:

Natural vs. Unnatural - in SEO and the Google algorithm [webmasterworld.com]

[piatkow]

I think you need to examine your key search arguements and see how they are coming out in Google, MSN and Yahoo. If you aren't getting Google traffic then it is likely that there is something about your site that they don't like.

My experience is that you can stuffed by Google even when the others give you good rankings but if you get good placements on Google then the others seem to follow.

[funandgames]

Not if your links go to 'not so good' areas. Google is more tolerant than MSN and Yahoo to that.

[cnvi]

When was the last time you added robust unique content to your site? I ask because we have clients who are on both sides of that spectrum. Our clients who are more proactive with content updates continue to do well in Google. Our clients who have decided to not invest in content updates have experiences the same problem you described here.

[funandgames]

cnvi has a point there.

We have three categories of sites at the moment. We hope to remove the first category.

1. Sites that have not had much content added at all for a few years:

-->Rankings fading on all engines, especially Yahoo and MSN.

2. Sites that have had some content articles added over the past few years or several added recently.

-->Doing better on Google, but not quite as much on Yahoo and MSN.

3. Sites that have had many articles and content added daily.

-->Massive improvement in rankings on all engines for dozens of keywords.

Needless to say, we will be adding to the third category.

[caran1]

All my websites have handwritten content (takes me a long time to write), 60-70% of the visitors bookmark the websites and many people have written to me thanking me for making such a useful website. I have not sent any link requests earlier and will not in future, (I only have natural links) so I think I should say goodbye to Google traffic.

[funandgames]

Caran1,

Not true. Start saying hello to Google traffic if you add content on a regular basis. Also, the traffic from the natural links is far better quality traffic than search engine traffic. You will get more links with regular new content too. No need for a link campaign.

Good luck

[caran1]

I don't even rank for my website name for more than 1 month now , even though Google webmaster tools shows that thousands of pages from my website (it has a forum) are indexed. I wonder what is the problem

[funandgames]

You may need to check your outgoing links. This is by far the main reason rankings can go south on all the engines.

[anax]

caran1, there have been major uphevals to many sites in Google in the past two months. Some people have not been affected and give the usual answers; others have been almost destroyed. I lost 75% of my Google traffic on Oct 21; it bounced up for a couple days in late December and then collapsed again. These are specific algo/filter changes that are hitting certain classes of sites, but no one has been able to identify exactly what is happening.

If you scan the Google forum here you will find many very long threads describing this; there was a big hit in late October; another in late December; something also seems to be happening this week.

(For the folks who haven't been hit: many of us talking about this problem are experienced webmasters with years of SEO experience. It may not be happening to you, but we know there is something distinctive going on, even if we can't identify it. It's not an "add more content" and "get more links" problem.)

[tedster]

Well said, anax. Let's focus the discussion of this "something distinctive going on" in one place so it's easier to follow. Here's the current thread:
January 2007 Google changes [webmasterworld.com]

...and here are some of the recent ones:
December 2006 Google changes [webmasterworld.com] - part 1
December 2006 Google changes [webmasterworld.com] - part 2
December 2006 Google changes [webmasterworld.com] - part 3