Sudden drop in traffic - but still in first position

[pemba76]

I have 2 very popular keywords that has been holding first position in Google and i have been getting good traffic from them. Since the last 7 days traffic has fallen to half. I am still in the first position for the keywords.
Has anyone faced the same things with their top keywords ?
What can be the reason for this ?

[tedster]

The key may be that your site is no longer in the first position from all locations, or at all times of the day. Two recent discussion come to mind about time of day:

The Yo-Yo Effect [webmasterworld.com]
Traffic Throttling [webmasterworld.com]

[JS_Harris]

Last Sunday was a stellar day but every day since then traffic has dropped off gradually to the tune of 50% in 7 days. I just came to the forums to look this up too. No changes made to the site though I did notice one of the primary keywords now displays over 121 million results pages when it was only 68 million last week... my position didn't move (from my locations anyway).

edit: I should add that it's Google traffic only that is changed on my site and it's apparently the long tail keywords that I've lost, not the primary keywords. Makes sense given the doubling of serps for that particular keyword.

[edited by: JS_Harris at 8:02 am (utc) on April 26, 2009]

[pemba76]

Is it technically possible for a website traffic to be redirected from a search engine result by the web hosting provider.
Something like : When a visitor clicks the link to the website, the DNS resolves it to the dedicate IP then can this be redirected to another IP in their webserver and another page displayed.

[JS_Harris]

THIS might explain it -

When possible, Google will customize your search results based on location and/or recent search activity. Additionally, when you're signed in to your Google Account, you may see even more relevant, useful results based on your web history.

The following information was used to improve your search results for widgets:
Recent Searches
You or someone else recently searched for widgets using this browser. Learn more
If you're curious, you can see what a search for widgets looks like without these improvements.

The 'More details' link on your search results page can be used to display this page for approximately 30 minutes, after which it will no longer show this page.

So the option to shut off this "improved" feature vanishes in half an hour huh. If I wanted to see so many videos ranked highly I'd visit youtube... duh.

[edited by: JS_Harris at 10:11 am (utc) on April 26, 2009]

[sunhapol]

My traffic to all my sites also has declined 40-50% this week. It is declining everyday.

[Reno]

A 50% drop is significant and worrisome, but is it possible that some of that drop can be attributed to the fact that spring has finally arrived so people are getting outdoors more, rather than sitting by their computer? They're working in the yard, taking their kids to games, riding bikes. I notice drops like this every year around certain time periods -- in a weird sort of way, cold miserable weather is often my best traffic, since it's more comfortable for people to sit indoors with a cup of coffee, a favorite music cd, and surf the web. But being down by 50% is almost certainly something more than just warmer temps -- will be interesting to see how many others report the same thing...

..............................

[workingNOMAD]

I agree, over the last 5 years I always see a dip in traffic that starts around Easter and continues through until September time.

[pemba76]

Still trying to figure out the problem.

[Martin Ice Web]

Same thing with my page. It began right before easter and still holding on. Traffic dropped by 50%. I changed nothing. I noticed that the google DC 66.249... did not show up since then!
Maybe is like tedster was mentioning the yo-yo effect or traffic throttling. Though I was out of this hell but it seems that google changed the rules.

[AnkitMaheshwari]

Maybe for some of us this is a result of Google Local changes (http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/google-becomes-more-local.html) due to which the rankings have slipped few position down or on second page for different locations except for one where business is hosted.

[leadegroot]

No possibility that your site has been hacked and hijacked (but they've tried to be subtle and not taken all your traffic)?

[Martin Ice Web]

AnkitMaheshwari - google local changes are local search results on a map and not overall local search results.

[AnkitMaheshwari]

Hey Martin,

I am taking about the one box listing that Google has started to show based on IP address from Apr-09 onwards without the need of Geo-targeted query.

For one of my sites, as after top three results, maps take the first scroll and my site is just after it (#4 organic result), so my traffic has been hit for that search term.

[edited by: AnkitMaheshwari at 12:30 pm (utc) on April 27, 2009]

[bwnbwn]

This may be the cause of the problem as posted in the members area
[webmasterworld.com...] (need to be a Member to View)

In the thread he post about his traffic being redirected from an infected server not all of it just some and from the sounds of the post here this may be the culprit to explain your traffic loss.

[Martin Ice Web]

bwnbwn
thanx for sharing the post - but if it was an infected server there woulnd´t be these peaks sometimes. Its like a switch turned on and off ( YO-YO ? Throttling ? ) on the same DC.

Ankit,

if you treat it this way, you are right.