Updating wordpress website can cause traffic drop?

[Thaparian]

Hi,

I run a number of Wordpress sites. Some of the sites were getting decent traffic without any updation.

I started updating the sites in order to get more traffic or maintain the level of traffic I was getting. But my traffic dropped.

This does not make sense. If I regularly update my site, it should get more traffic.

It has happened to 5-6 sites. So now I'm confused whether I should update my sites on regularly basis or not.

Has anyone else faced this kind of problem? I'm talking about Wordpress sites built back in 2008-20010.

[TheMadScientist]

Sure it can cause a drop, especially if the new link-structure or even the HTML "sends a different message" as to "what's most important", "what's part of what topic on a page" , and/or a number of other signals that can "get confused" by making a template change.

This does not make sense. If I regularly update my site, it should get more traffic.

That's a popular theory thrown around in the SEO community, but in practice it's not necessarily how things work.

[RedBar]

If I regularly update my site, it should get more traffic.

That's what Google would like you to believe but in my experience it's just another unproven myth. Sure I do have sites that are updated on a weekly basis and they do well but I also have sites that haven't been updated in 12-15 years and they still do well.

Here's one for you, over Xmas and New Year I'm uploading an html5 responsive site and replacing a 10 year old flat html brochure site. It's more or less the same site brought up-to-date with new information but with a completely different url structure etc, I just wonder how that will fare?

[netmeg]

Depends on what you're updating them with (as far as content) Depends on your niche, and whether or not you are maintaining authority in that niche (or if you ever had it) Depends on whether or not your content is really and truly unique. Depends on one or more of a hundred possibilities.

But no, you are not losing your ranking "just because" you are updating your site.

[Planet13]

+1 netmeg

There is a difference between updating and improving.

Make sure you are improving your site - in terms of providing a better product / content / experience for your visitors.

[Sand]

IMO, one of three things happened:

1. The drop is a complete coincidence, and had nothing to do with your WP update despite the timing.

2. Your markup changed dramatically, and Google needs a little time to process it.

3. Some of your plugins & other functionality broke in one way or another when you updated.

Edit: Just to be clear, did you update your themes, WordPress core, or both? A theme update has a much higher potential to impact things than a WordPress core update.