Positions up but traffic down

[eljacko]

Since the April update we have experienced a lot but positions are back and better than before across the board but traffic is down. Any reason why this could be?

Also noticed that different dc's are showing different positions for keywords but again by 1 or 2 positions.

[Receptional Andy]

There are a number of things that could affect this. To start with you need to verify that your data is accurate:

- Are you seeing personalised results (so your rankings are not what you think)
- Are you in an improved position that is likely to result in noticeable traffic improvements (top three is a good rule of thumb)
- Do the keywords you're targeting actually produce traffic?
- Are you viewing a different "version" of Google than the bulk of your audience (especially if your site has a regional audience)
- Is your traffic measurement accurate? What metric are you using?

[internetheaven]

The "April Update" as you've called it is no-where near over. What you are seeing (whether logged in or not) is mostly likely different from what most other people are seeing right now.

[eljacko]

I have just noticed my ranking have all dropped back to what they were at the beginning of the month when caffine was rolled out and indexing was all messed up.

[eljacko]

I have also noticed big sites drop in rankings, sites which ranked for the biggest words, surley Google is indexing wrong. Any one else sop this?

[1script]

If the SERP is up but traffic is down it could be because G* re-indexed the page(s) and picked up a different, less enticing to click at, snippet that's shown under the title.

Review a dozen of those snippets for your ranking pages, see if they have changed from those before and try to trace it back to any possible changes on the pages you've made. Maybe there is a more complicated HTML code or JS code that's obstructing the good text that in past went into the better snippet.

It's actually pretty bad to spend all the time/energy to get to good SERPs only to realize that people don't click on your listings - I would try to address that ASAP

Could also be seasonal - I bet if your traffic comes from skiing or snowblower - related SERPs, it would be down regardless of how high on the page you are.