Google traffic dropped 70% in 2 days!!

[rlopes]

In short: on 17 May I have my highest Google traffic in a long time, and a day after it's down to 30% of it's average.

I checked Webmaster Tools, and I found only 1 Crawl error, dating from 17 May:

http://www.mydomain.com/index.html - 404 (Not Found)

But seriously, I've never had an index.html, only an index.php!
Here is a screenshot of both my GA and Webmaster Tools accounts:

Imageshack - screenshot4td.png

Ps: I just redirected index.html to the root domain, to see what happens.

 

[dvduval]

That is quite a drop. Did your redirect fix the problem?

 

[WebIntellects - Rob]

Do you have the position in SERP droped for all keywords or just for one of them?

 

[mdamin76]

How come there's 100 links pointing to your index.html file since it's not exist?

 

[hazelg]

How come there's 100 links pointing to your index.html file since it's not exist?

Same question here.

 

[enlytend]

Expired domain? Links from its previous life? And where are you ranking for those 600+ keywords?

 

[JulainKeller]

If the domain doesn't have any index.html file then its impossible to have links from its previous life. Must be something has been changed with the files. Check it with your web developer. Also, you have set a redirector to the index.html. Once you have done the necessary changes it will again fetch the traffic.

 

[stankope]

That is very disturbing to hear. You have to find the real reason behind it through traffic that comes to your site. I'm sure there's one.

 

[enlytend]

JulainKeller wrote:

If the domain doesn't have any index.html file then its impossible to have links from its previous life.

If there are 100 links pointing at index.html and the CURRENT site doesn't have a file by that name, it sounds like at one time the site probably DID have a file by that name and 100 pages linked to it.

But your advice to redirect any traffic for index.html to something other than a 404 page was correct.

 

[rlopes]

Sorry for the late reply, I'll try to answer all the questions...

That is quite a drop. Did your redirect fix the problem?

Thank god, yes!!! :lala::lala::lala:

Do you have the position in SERP droped for all keywords or just for one of them?

All SERPS dropped at once.

How come there's 100 links pointing to your index.html file since it's not exist?

God knows...

That is very disturbing to hear. You have to find the real reason behind it through traffic that comes to your site. I'm sure there's one.

JulainKeller wrote:

If there are 100 links pointing at index.html and the CURRENT site doesn't have a file by that name, it sounds like at one time the site probably DID have a file by that name and 100 pages linked to it.

That's possible, I don't know for sure.

 

[thebutler]

SERP changes

Dropping from a position of number two (or number one) to anywhere under four could easily create those kind of traffic drops.

 

[rattleguy]

Maybe the file was automatically created but you just didnt notice? How did you built your site? Template, site builder, home made?

 

[richrf]

All I can say is that I have witness all kinds of traffic patterns and SERP rankings associated with Links.com and the most important characteristics for maintaining good SERP rankings is:

1) getting traffic from relevant and authoritative sources

2) reasonable bounce rate

3) lingering traffic

Google will give new sites a "chance", but if it notices that traffic is finding the site uninteresting it will downgrade the SERP very quickly. In the case of Links, sometimes within a matter of days (or even a day).

Rich

 

[rlopes]

Maybe the file was automatically created but you just didnt notice? How did you built your site? Template, site builder, home made?

They file wasn't created. Maybe somebody linked to it with the intention of me getting a 404... Who knows.

All I can say is that I have witness all kinds of traffic patterns and SERP rankings associated with Links.com and the most important characteristics for maintaining good SERP rankings is:

1) getting traffic from relevant and authoritative sources

2) reasonable bounce rate

3) lingering traffic

Google will give new sites a "chance", but if it notices that traffic is finding the site uninteresting it will downgrade the SERP very quickly. In the case of Links, sometimes within a matter of days (or even a day).

Rich

Tell me about it

 

[vannarith]

Any changes to the domain or site changes will get effect on your SEO and i have met that problem too.

 

[weblaunch]

Rankings fluctuate all the time. New sites enjoy a "honeymoon" where they tend to rank high for a while.

 

[besttips]

I suppose it's Google sandbox .

 

[mohithanche]

In short: on 17 May I have my highest Google traffic in a long time, and a day after it's down to 30% of it's average.

I checked Webmaster Tools, and I found only 1 Crawl error, dating from 17 May:

http://www.mydomain.com/index.html - 404 (Not Found)

But seriously, I've never had an index.html, only an index.php!
Here is a screenshot of both my GA and Webmaster Tools accounts:

Imageshack - screenshot4td.png

Ps: I just redirected index.html to the root domain, to see what happens.

you need to do SEO for your Website...

 

[celinar]

Well its depend how long you are stay in search engines at top level if you loose ranking you will not get a single traffic even

 

[tq104B]

In short: on 17 May I have my highest Google traffic in a long time, and a day after it's down to 30% of it's average.

I checked Webmaster Tools, and I found only 1 Crawl error, dating from 17 May:

http://www.mydomain.com/index.html - 404 (Not Found)

But seriously, I've never had an index.html, only an index.php!
Here is a screenshot of both my GA and Webmaster Tools accounts:

Imageshack - screenshot4td.png

Ps: I just redirected index.html to the root domain, to see what happens.

It does not appear the redirect is working. One can still get to index.html directly and will display in the browser's address field. From what I have read so far, it is advisable to do 301 redirect from index.php, /index.html, /home.html to the root at /

If would like to do this, examples abound on the internet on how to, especially in the forums. See for example this discussion