Website – Traffic – Sudden – Drop
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11-Reasons for Website Traffic Sudden Drop
Sudden drop in website traffic is a point of concern and a very common problem in this digital scenario. There are always reasons to that. All those marketers who monitor their websites and keep them updated, fresh and follow the webmaster guide lines, seldom face this problem. Anyway! Some of the following may save you from being penalized by Google algorithms, address these issues promptly. To find out the website traffic sudden drop in user traffic on your website, just Calculate average SEO traffic fluctuations. Plot your weekly SEO traffic for the past 12 months and calculate the average deviation with excel.
1. Google Penalty
It can be of many types as Google consider over 200 factors to assess the website relevance and usefulness for the users. Penalty results in website traffic sudden drop. The Solution is to check over;
Google search console ⇒ Search traffic ⇒ Manual actions section.
If there is a red flag to your site, see the reason of the penalty what prompted Google algorithm to impose penalty. As a result, your website or web-page is deprived of the due benefit in terms of visibility. Meaning by drop in website Traffic.
2. Inaccurate Data
Your inaccurate date is always misleading to the users. It is not only immorally incorrect but you may face the google penalty as well. Make sure to present 100% accurate data.
3. Site Hacked
The menace of site hacking is very much prevalent and again the site traffic will drop. If your website is compromised, immediately carryout all the necessary steps as directed by the Google in their Content Security Policies.
4. Duplicate content
Content is king but only if your website carries the original content, not scrapped one. A useful and valuable content is loved by the search engines; as the visitor likes it because of its usefulness. Always check the originality of the content with the help of tools. Different tools are available in the market but I use copyscape.
5. User generated spam
All links are not beneficial. Only links relevant to your website are the links of credit. Go through the pages of your website and remove all the irrelevant links, offering for the user generated content or any other suspicions links. These hinder with your website traffic.
6. Redirects
For example your website is related to SEO content writing and other related products and at some place you make a link to a website which is spam or of no interest to the user visiting your website. Check for these suspicious redirects, as nobody likes to be redirected to a page which is not seen or undesirable. Search engines do not like this type of redirects. They are there to present the best relevant content in the browser to the visitor searching for.
Solution: Remove spam pages with 301 & 302 redirects and the pages with Meta refresh.
Note: Remove all the unwanted stuff.
7. Malicious links
These are one of the big reasons, for the website traffic sudden drop. They take away your visibility in the search results. Although this is off page violation, but, as a result of these flood of toxic links your website suffer. These harm your website the most, be aware of them. The best solutions are, to carryout regular audits (Best is once in a month audit) and keep analyzing the back links to your website with Google Search Console.
8. Google Algorithms Updates
Google algorithm updates are a continues process and Google normally doesn’t inform about any algorithm update. As a result, website traffic sudden drops. You have to remain updated and sometime see the news in the Search Engine News. But if you are following the Google webmaster guidelines then nothing to worry.
More over monitor the SERP for your keywords and carryout the SERP analysis with whatever tool you are using. See on the fluctuation graph how SERP is changing for all keywords and save your website from google algorithm penalty.
9. Major Site Changes
In website renovation, migration or updates or changes in design may effect the traffic. Get the help of Google search console and find the differences if any. Download this in CSV Format and Fix the Crawl Errors. Find the broken links and fix them. Moreover, carryout the detail site audits.
10. Link Missing
Power of Back links is acknowledged but links doesn’t guarantee you for leading you at some point i.e. losing the high quality links, results into sudden drop from SERP in traffic. Try and spot them out with the relevant tools available in the market. If you are able to pinpoint the missing link, you can’t do much except to contact the site owner and nicely asking him, to restore the link back.
Note: Always monitor your website at least by monthly audit and monitor the state of back links; it is important for the website health.
11. Competitors
Let me tell you that SEO is a continuous battle for the first page at Google. If your website is not on the first page and your competitor is out ranked then it is a matter of concern. As you lose the traffic only because of, not on the first page. Here, the question comes “Why him”. Why not me! Carryout the SERP Analysis, and find the best target keywords.
Finally, Fix the violations, and then submit a reconsideration request to Google in the “Google Search Console account, just go to the (Manual Actions) and click Request a Review”. This is how you can address the issue.
Note: Now Google will take week or two to consider your request. Do not get panic!