40% traffic from Google - is that good or bad SEO?

[born2run]

Hi, I'm getting 40% of my total traffic from Google. Is that good or ok SEO? Can it get better? What's your advice? Thanks!

[aakk9999]

It is good that you are not totally dependent on Google traffic. Whether this can get better (more traffic from Google) also depends on what your site is about.

Also, one thing to consider is that more traffic from Google is not necessary a good thing if this traffic is not well targetted and does not convert. In that case the traffic could be cost liability and not nessesary an advantage.

[RedBar]

So from where is the balance 60% coming?

Yahoo/Bing etc, directly typed traffic from TV/newspapers/mail shots.

I know some major companies that send out email shots to millions of registered users nearly every day whose Google's natural SERPs traffic is much lower than 40%, their Google AdWords traffic is another thing altogether depending what they are promoting.

[macgizmoguy]

If you can filter out other referring and social traffic -- A normally healthy site should have about 80+% of it's organic search traffic coming from Google and the remainder from Bing/Yahoo and others.

When Google only accounts for 10-50% of search traffic - that's an indication one or more specific PAGES of the site have been penalized with a -50 penalty - or worse.

StatCounter's 'Search Engine Wars' graph is good for instantly visualizing whether Google Likes, Dislikes, or Totally Hates Your Guts.

[deuces]

That's actually great depending on the other sources. Of course if the other 60% is spam then it's not so good at all. I think an important part is that percentages aren't as important as raw numbers so you should share those.

[dipper]

@macgizmoguy - except in Australia where Google holds about 95-98% of the market share in search volume.

[fathom]

If all sources of traffic are equal the chance that any one can substantially impact your livelihood (negatively) in minimal.

[lucy24]

should have about 80+% of it's organic search traffic coming from Google and the remainder from Bing/Yahoo and others.

But waitwaitwait. OP didn't say 40% (or any particular percent) of search traffic. The question was about total traffic. But it's much too general a question; it depends on all kinds of factors about your site and its {actual} {preferred} visitors.

In the narrower case of searches, it could easily happen that your particular content appeals to people with a different search-engine preference, in the same way that your content might appeal to an unusual distribution of browsers. Wide array of possible reasons that generally isn't worth investigating unless it can be established that your content is especially unattractive to some group ("this site best viewed with ...") or that some specific search engine hates you.

[anu88]

Nevery to reply on Google only for traffic other wise it would be hard for you to generate good amount of traffic when there is something call update.

I believe based on if you are getting 40% traffic from Google it's good if other 60% are also coming from some reliable or good sources.

[samwest]

80%+ from Google here....making my traffic analysis almost completely blind.

[Robert Charlton]

If all sources of traffic are equal the chance that any one can substantially impact your livelihood (negatively) in minimal.

Not putting all your eggs in one basked is a wise approach. I don't know, though, whether "if all sources of traffic are equal" is intended as a hypothetical illustration or as a condition to be strived for. I don't think in real life that channels which are this evenly distributed are either possible or desirable.

If you're in a country, say, where Google accounts for 4 times as much traffic as Bing (not just for you but more or less across the board), you don't want to be foolish about it and spend the the degree of effort on each engine necessary to even out the income channels.

Yes, definitely diversify... but by that I include the caution that you should not depend entirely on free web traffic. This is more easily accomplished for a business with a physical presence... not necessarily a walk-in retail outlet. But a company nevertheless that has broader presence than simply a website is going to be stronger in the long run than a site being tossed around by an algorithm. On the web, think beyond Google and Bing. Think way beyond just search traffic when evaluating safety of livelihood.

[Nutterum]

80% seems like the norm, but keep in mind that some websites are created to funnel traffic from social media channels more so than SE. Another rule of thumb I'd like to point out is that the bigger the traffic volume the higher your google traffic percentage should be (also depending on the number of content pages your website ranks for!) . Many big sites with 1+ million (000,000) organic visitors your see minimum of 90% coming from Google. The only exception of this rule is when you have a big international office structure (think banks or other similar institutions) then you should see less traffic from Google (more in the lines of 80%) and slightly more traffic coming from other providers like Bing, Yahoo, Yandex and other local SE competitors the geo-locations.

[JS_Harris]

The original question is flawed. The real answer can only be that getting an equal amount of converting traffic from all sources would be perfection since it leaves you equally vulnerable to all sources, but that's not what I think he was asking.

I don't think percentage of traffic from Google can be considered a SEO factor either, at least not an actionable one.

A better question would be "I'm getting x amount of traffic from Google and y amount of traffic from that other source, do you think I could get more from Google?" since more converting traffic is usually the goal. A) Does Google traffic convert for you and B) Do you think you could get more traffic from Google?

[born2run]

Yeah 40% of my total traffic comes from google. Then rest is direct and some yahoo/ bing

[webcentric]

Regarding organics. Bing is blowing Google away for me recently. Same with Yahoo. AOL is also contributing as is DuckDuckGo. Google for me is just a bit more icing on the cake. Percentages? it fluctuates but Google is always behind in the game it seems. Not sure why Bing has taken off and Google is dormant but that's the way the cookie crumbles.

Other posters are right. The initial question was poorly formed. Thanks to the OP for clarifying a bit finally.

[flatfile]

Ninja edit, oh I see you've clarified your question. Google has a massive search market share (90% in some countries), so your search traffic should be mostly Google in my opinion ... well for most sites I guess. So in your case 60% comes from other engines, that means Google doesn't like your site for some reason and therefore an SEO problem.

[Nutterum]

@born2run and @webcentric - what are you traffic volumes and are your websites local or organic ? It seems very very odd for such low percentages. Also have you cleaned up you GA accounts from bots referral and organic spam and the likes? With low total traffic volume these can massively inflate the data percentages from certain channels.