Webmaster Tools Feb Drop in Impression, Traffic the Same

[rosslm]

Hi, my impressions shown in WMT dropped hugely on 3rd Feb, but this has not affected any traffic in Analytics so I've considered it an error.

Have read a few different posts about WMT being slow to update around this period, but is slightly concerning that a month on the impressions are still reported as so low.

Anyone else seeing this in WMT?

(just to be clear - no effect on actual traffic to site)

[aakk9999]

Hello rossim and welcome to WebmasterWorld!

When you say "hugely" what do you mean? 50%? Less? More?

When you say your traffic remained the same, I assume you are comparing the organic traffic from Google for periods before and after 3rd of Feb?

Have you checked WMT to see if you are getting less clicks after 3rd of Feb?

If you are indeed getting the same amount of clicks, but impressions droppeed, it could be:

- you had previously more than one entry on SERPs, which would count for multiple impressions, but a visitor may click only one of these. For example, if Google reduces host crowding, many sites will suddenly have drop in impressions, but not necessarily drop in clicks

OR

- you were previously ranking for irrelevant terms that did not get much clicks and therefore not ranking for these did not impact your traffic

You need to do some more digging and analysing your WMT and Analytics data before you find out what is the reason.

[rosslm]

Hi aakk, thanks for the welcome and your response!

Yes, I'm talking roughly 60% drop in impressions for a month now, according to WMT.

To be honest there isn't a great lost of clicks in WMT, which makes me think it was one of the scenarios you pointed out, eg. could be that I've gone from 8th to 15th for a big term or something like that - and now seeing a loss of the 1st page impressions - without a great loss in clicks.

I will carry on investigating!