Another 50% traffic drop on Sept 27th Google September 2018 SEO update

[egyfitness]

I was having 12K visitors before 1 August . After the medic update my traffic dropped to 8K daily .

Now it has dropped again to 4K daily on 27th of September

I have been around since 2014 . I write quality articles myself . I don't do any black hat techniques . I am an honest writer that writes very throughout articles . Actually I never hire anyone to write for me



So where should I start ? How do I recover ?

What would you do if you were me ?

[keyplyr]

What would you do if you were me ?

The first thing I would do is investigate why you have all those server errors.

[justpassing]

I write quality articles myself.

I am sure you do, but don't forget to get a neutral opinion too, from external eyes, not your friends or family. We are not always objective about our own work, so it's always good, from time to time, to get such external opinion.

I am an honest writer

Google can't (yet?) measure the honesty of a publisher. So I would say that, at the end, it doesn't matter if your honest or not. But I think it's important, at least for your own conscious, but this is not what is going to pay bills.

That being said, as keyplyr said, check what those errors are and fix them. Also check the evolution of the number of impressions of your pages, and positions in the SERP (this is still from the GSC). You can also narrow these stats by platforms (desktops/mobiles). This might help you understand from where you are loosing traffic.

It's also possible that Google is not finding the "signals" that it is looking for to qualify your content of useful / authoritative / original. Additionally, I keep reading (don't know if this is true) that Google might downgrade health related sites, which can promote unhealthy(!) or dangerous things. If you are in fitness, may be you are on the border line of (un)healthy content.

And in 2018, there are common questions, about, is your site mobile friendly, slow/fast, HTTPS. It might not explain a 50% loss of traffic, but adding little details, can lead to bigger issues.

[egyfitness]

Last server error was 10th of August , when I was doing development work

My website have been ranking #1 since 2014 . I got hammered on 1st of August , then 27th Sep with no clear reason . It is not article quality issue , as my work is being copied daily into social media and youtube videos

My website is https and not slow as well

[egyfitness]

All my writing is about evidence based nutrition . Sites that outrank me just promote fad diets and unscientific information..

[egyfitness]

thats the problem , I have been ranking #1 literally for 4 years . I am being harshly punished for no reason..

[JesterMagic]

You may not have been punished. Ranking factors which your website is not strong in, Google may have boosted those signals which could have increased the ranking of your competition. Google has been talking previous about rewarding unrewarded sites. Of course none of us know for sure unless we get a notification of a manual action in the Search Console or you made an obvious mistake in an update to your site or something.

You are not alone though as a number of us has been struggling since March with these updates.

In our niche big brands and their fluff pieces now outrank our researched content.

[justpassing]

Sites that outrank me just promote fad diets and unscientific information..

May be this is what people are looking for. If I search for the value of Pi, I will prefer a simple page giving the straight answer, than a page which is explaining how Pi was determined, by whom and when. (Of-course you'll tell me that google will give the answer straight out of the SERP, and therefor no need to visit a site, but that's another subject)

Your ranking is one thing, people's interest is another one. It's not because a site ranks first, that people necessarily click on it. The SERP is giving some information (title, snippet), and people makes their choice. If people click on sites above you , and don't find the information they need , they'll come back to the SERP, and check the other sites. So if you re still on the first page, for your main keywords, and people are not visiting you, it means that other sites are more appealing, and better satisfying people.

I am being harshly punished for no reason..

It doesn't mean you are "punished". In everything there need to be a #1. You've been #1 for 4 years (which is already an exploit), may be those being 2nd and 3rd considered themselves better than you (I don't mean they are). So now, may be one or more sites are above you, but it doesn't necessarily mean you've been downgraded, it can be these other sites, being upgraded by changes in the algorithm. Nothing lasts forever.