Written on December 1st, 2009 at 01:12 am by Darren Rowse
What to Do When Your Search Rankings Drop
“I just lost all my Google traffic – help!”
This request hits my inbox every week or two from a distraught blogger who has logged into the blog’s statistics one morning only to discover that most of their traffic has completely disappeared due to the all powerful Google making some kind of change in their algorithm and how they rank sites which resulted in that particular blog either disappearing from search results or at least being buried many pages down in the rankings.
The feeling associated with this discovery of a loss of traffic can be sickening.
I still remember the first time it happened to me (back in 2004) as if it were yesterday – it was like someone had sucker punched me in the gut – really took the wind out of my sails.
Up until the day it happened traffic had been healthy on my blog – healthy enough to just make a full time living from. Then when the traffic from Google disappeared I was down to 30% of what I’d come to see as ‘normal’ traffic and suddenly my dreams of being a full time blogger seemed over.
What to do when your Google Traffic Disappears
OK – so the question that I’m asked each time this happens to a ProBlogger reader is – what should I do?
It’s a tough question to answer – partly because I’m not Google and don’t have any insight into your particular situation and partly because each time it happens it is different. I’m also not an SEO expert am won’t give you any technical advice – but let me give you some general advice to start with:
1. Don’t Panic
I’ve had this happen to me at least 5 times over the last 7 years of blogging and most successful bloggers I know can recall a similar number of Google fluctuations that have brought decreases (and increases) in traffic in their blogging history. It happens to us all – sometimes in big ways and sometimes in small ways. In chatting with one Google employee recently he told me that they are making daily (and more) changes to the way that they rank sites (mainly small tweaks) so over time we’ll all notice changes.
The key is not to make massive big changes to your site’s SEO too quickly or as a gut reaction to a change in your ranking.
For me the first time that this happened (when I lost 70% of my traffic) I was very tempted to make big changes to my site to try to fix things. I was advised by a few wise and experienced web masters to wait. I did and a few weeks later almost all of the traffic returned. Google fixed itself (phew).
If the traffic doesn’t come back after an extended period you might want to get some expert SEO advice and make some larger changes – but I personally am glad that I’d seen out the dips in traffic rather than doing anything to hurt my long term rankings.
Of course there are times when you might need to make some changes…. such as….
2. Have You Done Anything Black Hat?
Google has guidelines in place for webmasters. If you want to rank well in their search engine you need to play by their rules. Of course there’s a whole industry around ‘bending’ and ‘manipulating’ the rules and many web masters make a living by doing it – however if you are caught breaking the rules by Google you’re likely to be penalized.
If this is the case for you you have two choice:
- fix what you did that was wrong and ask for a reconsideration into the index
- keep doing what you’re doing and suffer the consequences
I know of numerous bloggers who’ve asked for reconsideration and have been reinstated back into the index. It can take a little while (the last one said it took a couple of weeks for them) but in the long run it can be well worthwhile.
3. Build Other Sources of Traffic
The biggest lesson that I learned back in 2004 when I lost most of my traffic as a result of a Google algorithm change was that I needed to diversify my approach to building traffic to my blogs.
Up until that time I was almost exclusively working on driving traffic via Google. It was like a drug that I’d become dependent upon in some ways and much of my day was spent writing content for Google and attempting to ‘get links’ to that content from other sites. I was not really writing for regular readers or trying to build community on my blog – I just wanted traffic that I hoped would click my ads and affiliate programs.
This approach had worked for me – however when my Google traffic disappeared I was left with little and realized how short sighted I’d been. I began to change my focus and started working on other sources of traffic.
I still love the traffic that Google sends me but today if it all disappeared it would hurt – but it wouldn’t be the end for my business. Next week I want to followup this post with another one looking at some of the ways to become less reliant upon Google traffic and to build traffic from other sources – stay tuned for more.
136 Responses to “What to Do When Your Search Rankings Drop” - Add Yours
dave lee
December 1st, 2009 1:16 am
Thank you for your post!
My only concern with “Black Hat” is that sometimes it is so cleverly hidden that certain software is actually black hat. I wish there was a toolbar I could have showing at all times indicating whether or not a certain site is legit, shady or just “wrong”… lol ! good luck with that one, yes?
For the most part, I can usually tell if a site is cheesy and has malicious items contained in it but for the newbie, I can see where they might get lured into the abyss of instant gratification.
Thanks,
DavidALee
Dean Saliiba
December 1st, 2009 1:17 am
Very good article. I’ve only been doing this for two years but ths Google thing has happened to me twice, thankfully each time it sorted itself out about a week later.
Himanshu
December 1st, 2009 1:26 am
I experienced the same problem on one of my blog, even some URL get disappeared from the Google Search, I submitted sitemap of my blog again in Google Webmaster tools and found it indexed back within few days.
Relying on Google is not too much smart phenomenon but its the fact that more than 60% of traffic from any normal blog came from Google. I can understand the meaning of Darren’s word, don’t rely on Google only, try to be potential user of one of any social bookmarking site i.e. Digg, Stumbleupon, Delecious.
Justine Smith
December 1st, 2009 1:28 am
I still have not done anything about my SEO but this post just reminded me that if I should do something ASAP in order to gain some new traffic methods.
Up until now, the 500 unique visitors coming to my blog are through my promotion on twitter, facebook, forums related to my niche and fans spreading the word. About to purchase your e-book and take my 31 day challenge ;)
John Paul Aguiar
December 1st, 2009 1:30 am
Great Post, I’m a newbie blogger and am dealing with the Google Shuffle every weekend that kinda hurts.,.lol
But like you said things did work them selves out after a few days.
Google is a luv hate relationship, i luv the traffic I can get, but hate that everytime I feel like my SEO is pretty good, Google changes the game plan again. It’s hard to keep up
Dr. Jason
December 1st, 2009 1:49 am
Thanks for the advice. I’ve been blogging for about 5 months now and still haven’t fully embraced the SEO part of my blog.
That’s my next area of discovery as I want to really get my blog up and going. I would eventually like to make this a full time business.
Thanks again,
Michael Hampton
December 1st, 2009 1:56 am
My five year old site used to rank well and lost some Google ranking this fall. Along with it traffic dropped by almost 50%. Ad revenues (in total) down by about 30%. After a couple of months of this I knew it was time to change things up.
The big things I’ve done are to finally roll out a new theme I’ve had in the works for months; and to test different ad placements and formats on the new theme. So far my AdSense revenue is holding steady (at its lower level) but I’ve tripled my Chitika income.
The other thing I’ve done is to publish more frequently and to start pulling in some content from people who want to increase their own exposure. This got me noticed by an A-lister in my niche who quoted extensively from one of my posts, sending me well over 10,000 visitors and over $200 in Amazon affiliate commissions from that one post.
So even with revenues way down, things are looking up.
I’d say if this happens to you, UNDO any changes you made in the previous month. Then start experimenting from there. You may be pleasantly surprised at the results.
Samantha
December 1st, 2009 2:02 am
Hi guys
I was also thinking of the same thing regarding my SEO, I always thought that my technique to optimize my site is good enough to go with the flow of the competition.
I agree that Google Shuffle hurts because we need to catch up with the new way to optimize our site. We always need a new technique to gain traffic on our site.
Kind Regards
Sam
X
Brad Edgar
December 1st, 2009 2:05 am
It’s always a good idea to diversify. I am fairly new at this game as well and I think google is my least profitable traffic generator. I have tried to focus on building a community of dedicated readers who return. This seems to be working out okay for me so far.
Google is a tough one to crack because you never know what they are going to do. I would have definitely considered doing some changes to get myself back up to the top of the goolge list I am glad you mentioned to wait it out.
Great post Darren
Oleg Mokhov
December 1st, 2009 2:13 am
Hey Darren,
Just like with income, the more you diversify and have multiple streams of traffic, the less risky and more stable your site will be.
Guest posting, writing high-quality comments, forum activity, search engine results, AdWords… the point is to not rely on just one traffic source, because if something happens to it, you can say bye bye to new visitors.
And also, with your Google example, it seems like something like that is a blessing in disguise. A site owner doesn’t write for search bots as much, and focuses on writing for human readers. So the quality of the writing goes up when you’re not reliant on writing for your traffic source (and instead focus on your readers).
I know I suffered from writing for search engines on a previous site, and how wildly the traffic fluctuated (and wasn’t of the highest quality) – and how I almost completely disregard ranking in search engines when I write (and have focused on guest posts and quality comments), and the stability and quality of my early readership has been great.
Thanks for the reminder to not become reliant on one source of traffic (or anything), and to strive for multiple streams of it instead,
Oleg
Ebooks blogspot
December 1st, 2009 2:23 am
And where do you get those other sources of traffic? I am also currently, more like testing, than really attempting to get traffic from Google to my ebooks blog, and I start seeing some positive changes, getting like 5, 10 sometimes 20 visitors a day, and slowly building my adsense balance. Where are other quality traffic sources???
Mark Foo | 77SuccessTraits.com
December 1st, 2009 2:25 am
As the saying goes, “Never put all your eggs in one basket!” This holds true for your traffic sources as well. In fact, if anyone were trying to build a business, never allow any one aspect of your business to be dependent on a single source or be largely dependent on a single source.
For example, if your revenue is largely generated through one source (e.g affiliate marketing), diversify. Go develop more income sources. Or if your revenue is largely dependent on a single client, then find more clients. The gist is, never allow anyone to hold you hostage in business or in life. This is also the reason why we need to create multiple streams of income so that we’re not dependent on our job to feed our families and fund our retirement.
Happy diversifying!
Cheers~
Mark
David Walker
December 1st, 2009 2:27 am
Thank you; this will put a lot of anxiety to rest. It is still distressing but expecting it to happen and knowing how to deal with it takes a big load off.
It’s when you don’t know how to deal with it that it drives you crazy.
I’m very interested in the alternative sources of traffic that you touch on, and look forward to next week’s post.
I’m not one for putting all my eggs in one basket because heavy reliance on just one thing can sometimes get the rug under me shaken bad, so bring on the baskets Darren.
Vishal Sanjay
December 1st, 2009 2:36 am
great post Darren especially the idea of creating alternate sources of traffic. I guess most bloggers these blog for search engines and that is why many have the fear of falling out of google
edd
December 1st, 2009 2:51 am
Thanks for the post, usually this is the main problem that all blogger faces. Your post has opened my eyes about it.
Anna McMahon
December 1st, 2009 3:15 am
It is really easy to get all worried when your rankings drop. Do not worry about it though. It really isn’t that big a deal. At the warrior forum they just recommend to keep commenting on Blogs to get some easy backlinks. It is definitely not the end of the world. A lot of people’s rankings will be dropped soon because of Google caffeine.
Learn Creative Visualization
December 1st, 2009 3:23 am
I keep suspecting so many “free” wordpress plugins if they do not send traffic data, and just don’t have the patience to sit and decipher the php code. The fact is one of my sites is still climbing alexa rank but has been dropping seriously on US traffic – a miracle.
The Emotion Machine
December 1st, 2009 3:26 am
Very helpful post! So far only about 10% of my traffic is from search engines. I hear most big blogs get MOST of their traffic from places like Google and Yahoo…so I know that this is an area I am going to need to work on. Thanks!
Alam
December 1st, 2009 3:26 am
I blog for sharing and I enjoy that. For SE ranking drop I think because of my domain extension.
Kristiono Setyadi
December 1st, 2009 3:43 am
I’ve already experienced this a short while ago and I just stuck on my knee, not doing anything, and leave it all behind (for a while). Suddenly, when I came back and try to start all over again, my index is coming back. Phew, I just thinking what if I was so responsive and hence I changed my site night and day just to see it was indexed again.
Thanks, nice article!
Ray @ The Stock Market Club
December 1st, 2009 4:21 am
Diversification is important in any business. It’s no different in ours.
Carolyn
December 1st, 2009 4:57 am
Wow, talk about timing! This just happened to me for the first time. Two weeks ago my Google traffic dried up. Gulp! I can’t figure out why this happened. Your post is awesome, and I can’t wait for the follow-up post.
And, the suggestion to rely on several different sources for traffic is priceless. Thanks!
Vivek Krishnan
December 1st, 2009 5:12 am
Basically, you are telling us alternatives to Google. You have failed to point out what can be done to get back the “Google” traffic.
Gabe | freebloghelp.com
December 1st, 2009 5:26 am
Google does change algorithms but the foundation of a site should be able to help maintain a decent SERP.
Core values like quality content, regular updates, decent traffic, and not violating any Google no-no’s can keep most sites pretty safe at their respective positions.
Andy
December 1st, 2009 6:00 am
As you mention this happens to most of us at some point and the first time it happens can really knock the wind out of you. I remember clearly the first time it happened to me and I seriously considered quitting. Thankfully the traffic slowly began to creep back up over a few weeks. The lesson is not to rely on Google, take it as bonus traffic because it can disappear so easily, and work on gaining other sources more sustainable sources of traffic.
David Knapp
December 1st, 2009 7:44 am
Great posts. I haven’t reached the point where I can notice if google is sending or taking away traffic.
I am looking forward to the followup posts on how to build traffic from alternative sources.
Needmoney.com
December 1st, 2009 8:40 am
Yeah SE traffic is nice, but you can’t make it your only point of focus. There’s a saying about eggs and baskets that seems apt.
We Fly Spitfires
December 1st, 2009 9:53 am
It’s kinda scary sometimes when you think about the amount of power Google has in is industry. If they decide they want to change the way SEO operates or if they want to push a particular method, everyone basically has to capitulate. Very scary!
Dana @ Online Knowledge
December 1st, 2009 10:16 am
Many online business (blog) is over when google penalize them because do not prepare other source for traffic.
Manon - The Passive Income Queen
December 1st, 2009 10:55 am
Hey this was totally insightful, I am relatively new at the Blog world and this post confirms that I am on the right track. I have chosen to implement various traffic driving strategies and although this specific incident has not happen to me I am doing something right. Looking forward to your next post.
Manon
Morgan
December 1st, 2009 11:48 am
Good tips – I’ve been there and it is no fun when you lose a big chunk of your traffic. That being said I always feel that it is these challenges that make you stronger so there is a silver-lining to an experience like this!
Denny Sugar
December 1st, 2009 12:02 pm
Nice title, to bad it didn’t deliver.
Instead you should have gone with “Why you should diversify your traffic sources” – since there really aren’t any tips/remedies you can sink your teeth into listed to help fix the traffic problem. Would be great if you could expand on item #3 a bit more in another post.
Don’t get me wrong Darren, I’m a big fan and avid reader but this post if the first one that I didn’t care for in almost 2 years so please don’t take offense.
charle
December 1st, 2009 12:42 pm
Google is a tough one to crack because you never know what they are going to do. I would have definitely considered doing some changes to get myself back up to the top of the goolge list I am glad you mentioned to wait it out.
PC NET WORKS κατασκευή ιστοσελίδων
December 1st, 2009 1:03 pm
I agree! patience is all you need with google
Jay Yanuaria
December 1st, 2009 1:40 pm
This is where diversification comes in.. There are lot of rules out there especially on sites that can give us a lot of traffic and we can break those things easily without our awareness so it is really better to have traffic in multiple sources.
Like 1 Million a day from 100 sources is better than 1million a day from 1 source.
Kevin @ Blog Tipz
December 1st, 2009 2:09 pm
Having a good variety of traffic sources is key. You don’t know when your rankings will drop in Google, but rather than take the risk, build out your brand.
Even though you might have a site ranking first out of 100 million sites, this doesn’t mean your site will stay there. I’ve seen a site drop from first to third, and then move back within a matter of two days. Was there any drop in traffic? Not really.
Your goal is to captivate your visitors to ensure that they will continue to return, rather than relying on mostly “random” searches.
Donny Gamble
December 1st, 2009 2:32 pm
This happened to me about a week ago because I was ranked #11 for the rem “network marketing business” and know I am not ranked at all. Even though I am in fact ranked pretty high for a couple smaller keywords, My traffic has dramatically taken a hit
grossesse
December 1st, 2009 2:59 pm
I want to make it clear that I’m not suggesting that rankings don’t matter, just that you have to look at the big picture. Too many people are still fixated on 1-2 keywords and are missing the boat, not only in terms of things that might be going wrong but in areas they could improve and compete on.
I do find one interesting change has happened over time, though. In the old days, if you ranked #1 for a single-word keyword (let’s say “computers”), you had a good chance of ranking well for other keyphrases that had “computer” in them. Not only was the long-tail shorter (people weren’t used to typing 3+ word queries), but the algos were much less sophisticated. These days, ranking for that single-word keyword is far from a guarantee of ranking for other phrases that include that term. Each phrase is often a separate battle.
Mike Stenger
December 1st, 2009 3:33 pm
Just something to add to this. Sometimes people make changes to their site and there can be broken links or missing content. This can sometimes affect rankings as well. If the big G or the loud Bing or the Yahoo sees all these broken links or missing content, it can hurt ya.
Cisco Training Videos
December 1st, 2009 4:06 pm
It has happened to me too. Your first impulse is to try to make big changes, but I have learned to wait it out and to be steady. Do not build up links to quickly.
Sean
December 1st, 2009 4:22 pm
Hey Darren
Thanks for all the great content – you really keep this blogging thing ‘down to earth’ so to speak.
It is very important to diversify and not develop ‘tunnel-vision’ when you are trying to get traffic. I always build for the longterm.
Thanks
Sean
Wezley
December 1st, 2009 6:00 pm
I think this is key:
“3. Build Other Sources of Traffic
…when I lost most of my traffic as a result of a Google algorithm change was that I needed to diversify my approach to building traffic to my blogs.”
You never really know when you’ll be hit by an algorithm change, but obviously from you 5+ times, anyone in this business for the long-haul is sure to run into it too.
I’ve had one of my websites in the “Sandbox” for quite awhile now.
David Morson
December 1st, 2009 6:37 pm
Yeah, really it is, Change in the Google algorithm suffers people a lot but you have to equip yourself with the changing technology and apply all the updated techniques of SEO as well as SMO.
Health Mind Spirit News
December 1st, 2009 6:54 pm
You have raised a very good point Darren.
If you rely too much on Google, and they pull the plug, you are basically stuffed.
I think you touched on a good point, that is
building a community to support your blog.
But how do you build a good community
, though, that supports your blog?
Rita
December 1st, 2009 8:20 pm
This is interesting. I liked the link to the recommendations from Google on things that they don’t like.
Rita blogging at The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide
Phaoloo
December 1st, 2009 8:59 pm
“Don’t Put All Your Eggs in One Basket”, I find the point 3 is the best solution.
Constantine
December 1st, 2009 9:10 pm
On point No. 2 Have you done anything blackhat?
Every blogger should be aware a hacker might have placed hidden links inside their blogger.
You might have done nothing wrong but a hacker might have messed up your site behind your back. It happened to me this year, a hacker hacked into my site and placed hidden links. It was google that sent me an email informing me my site was scheduled for delisting from their index because they had found hidden links. I was shocked to find 700 hidden links on my homepage!
Google makes an effort to inform bloggers when they find hidden links but most blogger don’t get the email because it gets into their spam folder. So, never empty the spam folder before going through the messages. You might miss a very important message
Penny Stocks
December 1st, 2009 10:19 pm
i have got bad experience with few of my big sites i have built and now its been a year but still those sites are not gaining back their rankings in Google. no blackhat methods i had tried but still i am not getting any way out.
anyways i started few new sites after those penalisation but still i hope to get those sites back in rankings someday soon
Google traffic is the main thing, it really hurts if our sites are not being loved by Big G
Todd - Home Construction Improvement
December 2nd, 2009 12:06 am
This happened to me two months ago and it was devastating. I too was told to sit back and wait but that’s just not easy to do. I made some house cleaning changes, asked for reconsideration and things came roaring back to life 3 weeks later.
This is the downside to the power of google and how dependent we are on their search traffic. Unfortunately, until other search engines figure out a way to break into the market we’ll all be at the mercy of Google.
John
December 2nd, 2009 12:40 am
I have dropped 70% in google traffic since Dec 2008 and I have no idea why. Lost minty fresh, lost any sort of stickiness on newly indexed posts, and fell off the face of the earth for my main keywords. From 1.2 mil page views in 12/08 to about 400k in 11/08. Still have yet to find out why it dropped and no tips from Google groups have gotten the traffic back. Sucks.
Basant Singh
December 2nd, 2009 1:43 am
My blog is doing quite well. Though it’s new and has only 10 posts I am getting majority of my traffic from Google! Only one of my post never appeared on Google search, Reason: I guess I had an e-book published on a different server whose content was same as the post. I had provided a download link to the e-Book from my blog post. May be Google penalized me for duplicate content. How to prevent this kind of scenario? Any guess? I removed that e-book and now the post is getting indexed.
work at home
December 2nd, 2009 2:08 am
When I happen to my blog I really got depressed, I thought that might be I use some unauthorized tips, but again I see my increase of blog traffic.
Lain
December 2nd, 2009 2:41 am
Such an important point there about not writing for an audience, but just trying to play the linking game. I’d rather be authentic and create meaningful content than just lure people over to sell them something. Doesn’t it feel better to create something of worth? Love what you’ve done with ProBlogger, so I can tell you agree…
Business Opportunities Seeker
December 2nd, 2009 3:24 am
Thanks for sharing this to us. I’m a newbie and a new member of Problogger Forum starting to build my brand in the internet. I’m very depressed this week because I lost almost 50% of the traffic and thinking of quitting my quest for online living. But I realized that this is only temporary. Maybe I made mistakes in my SEO campaign or any other things that get my site penalized by Big Google.
Now, back to normal. I am setting a goal to get 500 visitors a day before the year ends and make $300 from Adsense alone.
Hope someone will help me in my quest and give me more advice.
Cold sore treatment
December 2nd, 2009 5:54 am
I think that not only do you need to ask yourself whether you’ve done anything black hat, but whether you’ve made any changes at all in the 2 weeks or so prior to the loss in ranking.
If so, just undo the changes and see what happens – you’ll need to be patient though.
At the end of the day it is an extremely risky strategy to rely upon one blog or website. You need to diversify so that if this does happen to you your business isn’t wiped out overnight.
I speak from personal experience and was surprised at the number of successful internet marketers who have also suffered.
joey
December 2nd, 2009 6:20 am
I think it’s inevitable that a site’s page rank suffers as backlinks erode over time due to site shut down, google policy change, no fellow policy…
The key is to continue building new backlinks through different means to stay ahead of the game.
The Blog Report
December 2nd, 2009 6:52 am
Thanks for the tips. I have 6 blogs and was concerned with traffic decreasing on my most popular (cooking) blog. Yet it appears I’m still getting good traffic from the search engines including Google. So it looks like I have to work harder at generating traffic from other sources. I too would be interested in what these other sources are. I know advertising your blog works somewhat and social media brings me some traffic. Are there other ways to generate traffic?
Glucosamine For Dogs
December 2nd, 2009 8:19 am
Ugh, this post is invaluable. Im going to bookmark it but hope that I will never need it.
Thank you for the calm and sensible advice on a topic that I think everyone fears. Google is fascinating and keeps us all on our toes and I also appreciate the additional advice from the comments as well.
I agree – diversify, diversify, diversify!
Paul Hassing
December 2nd, 2009 9:55 am
Thanks for another ripper post, Darren. I am thoroughly sick of striving to orient myself to Google’s Fickle Finger of Fate.
The whole adsense/adwords rip-off is also galling.
So now I spend my former Google prayer time creating high quality content that will eventually get picked up no matter which way the wind happens to be blowing.
I’m happier, I’m writing heaps more and I think I’ll live a lot longer. Best regards, P. :)
Dave Doolin
December 2nd, 2009 10:19 am
The good and the bad…
1. I get between 10-30% of my traffic from Google, depending on how many other sources are firing. Basically, I get pretty much the same absolute traffic from Google every day. I’d like to get the organic search percentage up, but I’m that concerned with it right now.
2. Anyone concerned about absolute numbers dropping right now is not seeing a bigger picture. My absolute numbers have dropped pretty big in the last 10 days. First, I’m not spending hours per day promoting as I was last couple of months… and second, everyone’s numbers have to be dropping because my Alexa ranking is holding steady. So my traffic with respect to similar websites is holding up well.
Casey Watkins
December 2nd, 2009 12:53 pm
I try to get traffic from many places. Do not put all your eggs in one basket sort of thing!
Adam S.
December 2nd, 2009 1:50 pm
Good note. I would suggest to add hot words Google Hot Trends, Bing iRank or other sites which collect hot words in real time mode. I use http://www.newsonrails.com , that one publishes 100 Google hot trends (Google publishes only 40 hot trends). Just filter out garbage like “gagagaga”, and your blog will be picked up by GoogleBot.
hokya
December 2nd, 2009 3:08 pm
nice,
is the sitemap exclusion can be included as Black Hat effect?
Thanks
Ron
December 2nd, 2009 3:24 pm
Guest blogging to other related-niche websites is a good practice, and it is also good for your site, even if you post content off-site
Tim
December 2nd, 2009 3:47 pm
Yeah, I used to worry a bit more about Google rankings. I think Darren’s right about having diversity. It seems diversity is key in a lot of areas, including traffic and income.
One topic that Google baffles me about is their willingness to almost arbitrarily cancel Adsense accounts deeming a blogger a threat to their advertisers. Google can be a bit overbearing. Yeah, diversity IS a good idea.
Mike Skel
December 2nd, 2009 6:09 pm
Very good article that I can connect with. It happened with me twice. But my site did not go away completely, but it went away for few keywords. But it came back automatically after few weeks.
After that I had started targeting Yahoo and Bing. I am still to find out if other source of visitors are beneficial for my blog or not.
Kaspersky key
December 2nd, 2009 9:00 pm
Same happened and happening to my blog, but i am still waiting.
Clara James
December 2nd, 2009 9:21 pm
Good suggestion! I would like to add one more thing that is if one give full attention towards Google rules and avoid spamming, then there will be less chances to drop your site in Google.
Annabel Candy, Get In the Hot Spot
December 2nd, 2009 10:20 pm
Haven’t had this problem as I don’t think my site has been noticed by Google yet. Dying to know what your other traffic sources are though:)
Andy NairaBrain
December 3rd, 2009 1:23 am
One of my sites have experienced this before, though it was a little drop in ranking. Social Sites are good sources of traffic apart from google
loans buzz
December 3rd, 2009 3:15 am
when rankings dropped we should build more quality backlinks from the same niche blog.doing this ranks will increase
Angelus
December 3rd, 2009 3:51 am
I suffered the same dramatic traffic loss as you did back in 2004 – it was painful! Fortunately, I had several websites with different designs spread over a range of subjects, and with these I was saved from a total wipe-out. It’s still a bumpy ride with google at times.
Chris Palmer
December 3rd, 2009 5:15 am
Darren,
I think the biggest thing I take from this is the fact that you’re so intraspective about what you do. You admit when you’ve made mistakes or have been short sighted. I really like that.
Also, pretty good info here. I’m not too concerned about all of this yet as I really don’t have any traffic coming in yet. Just trying to get content, and then I can continue on day 3 of your 31DBBB.
HasOffers
December 3rd, 2009 10:51 am
wow. what a great post! This is what we are trying to preach to so many people. Not only can search engine traffic be unpredictable, it can also be tapped out. Affiliate marketing (using others to promote your website) is another way to “build other sources of traffic.” The performance based model is really incredible when you crunch the numbers right.
I put up a post today about “what is affiliate marketing” for those that are novices and want to learn more.
http://www.hasoffers.com/blog/2009/12/what-is-affiliate-marketing.html
SEO Consultant
December 3rd, 2009 12:03 pm
Hello I just search the google and I found out your site. Nice post I am very worth reading it. Thanks!
mike
December 3rd, 2009 3:53 pm
Has happened to me also a few times. It usually only last for a short while.
Asif
December 3rd, 2009 6:35 pm
The main source of traffic is link building. Exchnage link with high PR websites. If you get link from high PR websites it increases you position on Google and also give traffic.
Kelvin Servigon
December 3rd, 2009 7:04 pm
That is a very nice post. Thank you to this, for Google’s webmaster link. This is the first time that I read the guidelines. LOL
qualitypoint
December 3rd, 2009 8:19 pm
We also faced same problem 4 times with in a year.What darren said that exactly correct.Diversification is important.But Google is a Market Leader.Other than Google we may concentrate Bing , Yahoo & Lycos search engine. Now a days Social Bookmarking sites (Digg,Reddit, StumbleUpon etc..) bring great traffic and doing good job.
turisuna
December 3rd, 2009 8:52 pm
My traffic from google is not too good, so I try to find another traffic resource, for now my traffic from social bookmark is quite satisfaction although it’s not always stable, I need to work hard to make it better :)
Emilio
December 3rd, 2009 9:33 pm
Google’s webmaster tools can also give you a lot of information about your indexed pages, rankings, etc.
That would be the first thing I’d start and check for valuable information too
Cecilia
December 3rd, 2009 10:56 pm
I especially like the third recommendation regarding building other sources of traffic. This is just good business advice. No business should feel comfortable with most of their revenue coming from a single source. What if something happens to that source? You are totally dependent upon something outside of your control.
You can control your actions and diversifying your sources of traffic (and income) is a wise business move – regardless of whether or not Google change regularly.
KeithB
December 4th, 2009 12:04 am
Thank you for the post.
It hasn’t happened to me yet but forewarned is forearmed so I know what to do now.
1975jmr 侯壮马
December 4th, 2009 1:13 am
Very usefull tips, for understand the Google impact for trafic. That’s why we need multiple sources of incoming trafic (blog, facebook, twitter, and so much communautary networks)
Online Printing
December 4th, 2009 6:34 am
This is some great information…the question I have as many have posted is where and how have you found other GOOD traffic sources? Much of my traffic comes from Google and I have had pages disappear for a week or so and then return to page 1, like you mentioned….But, I would love to build other traffic sources. How did you go about doing that? I really do hate to have all of my eggs in one basket. Not good!
Nick
December 4th, 2009 9:32 am
Very good article. I’ve been blogging for about 3 years. My site has lost some Google ranking in these 30 days. The big things I’ve done is to publish more frequently, and quality contents. Also, I promote my site on Facebook, Twitter, and forums related to my niche. However, in general I agree with you, Darren. Patience is all you need with google.
Mark Thompson
December 4th, 2009 2:34 pm
It is important to remember that Google is always testing, so it may be that they tweaked their algorithm or are testing a usability feature.
My local business listing was ranking #1 for a highly searched term and all of a sudden it fell off the map. It was tempted to start changing my LBL or even remove it and verify a new one. Luckily I waited a few weeks and it ended up coming back.
As long as you didn’t do anything drastic to your site, it is best to wait and see if it is Google just doing testing.
steve
December 4th, 2009 5:07 pm
great post. It’s happen to me a few times but like yourself the rankings came back. sometimes you just have to keep writing through the storm and not second guess yourself
Samantha
December 4th, 2009 5:09 pm
I’m a newbie and I too mainly rely on google for traffic. Not too long ago I was dealt a blow by the mighty G to one of my blogs.
On my webmasters account it says im ranked 6 for my target keyword but my site is Nowhere to be seen. I don’t believe I’ve done anything black hat so I’m just waiting it out and hoping I show back up again in Google.
I’ve tried to diversify my traffic but as a noobie, it can be tough and at most times I find that I stretch myself too thin.
Anyways good post on sites that get the sandbox =/
Adam
December 4th, 2009 9:12 pm
This is exactly why you should focus on other traffic AND income sources, in case the sky falls on your head one day :)
-Adam
scheng1
December 5th, 2009 12:56 am
I guess I understand how the white mice in laboratory feel now. All of us are like white mice in Google’s laboratory. The minute they start new experiments, we react exactly like white mice
Free Article Directory
December 5th, 2009 3:13 am
Noticed that this happens around the holidays for the past few years. Just be patient. One of our site went from 1 to 60 few weeks back, yesterday, it was ranked 1 again. No changes were made to the site during this time.
Mio Navman M450D
December 5th, 2009 3:47 pm
You should keep more valuable content
for the users so more visitors can come
to your website. There should be a
better design so that search engine
gives you a better rank.
MichaelR
December 5th, 2009 9:02 pm
Sometimes its hard to figure out especially for new bloggers whats Black hat and whats White hat. Well I appreciate this post as ti will provide guidelines whenever it hit the fan.
socialspid
December 6th, 2009 12:16 am
SEO needs trial and error. Error but not to the extend that your site will be punished. Just keep it simple and be consistent with your posts. Don’t overdo things.
Used Macbook
December 6th, 2009 11:42 am
I’m in the situation where my top earning site has bombed on me during the busiest period of the year, thanks a lot Google!
Hopefully it will pick up again!
golesson
December 6th, 2009 2:14 pm
I will probably analyze my competitors to see what kind of improvements they have made.
Paramendra Bhagat
December 6th, 2009 4:21 pm
What percentage of your traffic is from Google? My guess is 90.
FremontAfterSchool
December 7th, 2009 7:15 am
One needs to target for specific keywords and update the content frequently.
Tom Kadwill
December 7th, 2009 10:31 pm
Great post.
I recently shuffled the pages on my website Tekrux. Now when you click on a link, to my site on google, it leads you to the wrong page. eg, when you click on page 5 on google, you are sent to page 7.
Any idea if and when google will correct this problem?
Thanks
Cisco Networking Forum
December 8th, 2009 1:30 am
Hi Tom. The same happened to me when I moved my forum around. It took a month for me for it to start recalibrating the links. Actually I think it notices right away b/c of the Google bots crawling, but to index the changes and to commit them and publish them took about a month. HTH
Cisco Training Videos
gabril
December 8th, 2009 6:59 am
Well, I don’t get it with built other source of traffic, from where you get that traffic if your site gone from serp? we had known the biggest traffic most comes from google.
Mike
December 10th, 2009 3:24 am
Darren,
Thank you for your well-timed post. My fitness and health blog suffered a big loss of Google traffic about 3 months ago. I have been developing alternate sources since then but perhaps I need to contact Google.
I hadn’t done anything black hat but I got lazy and invited a posting service to add some content. After 2 months of that and my occasional post things started dropping off.
Looking closer there were to many affiliate links, too many fat loss articles and the like. I deleted all of that and have been working to add quality posts and good links but still have the low Google contribution compared to where it was. The site is indexed, and ranks for a few things but not like it did.
Thanks,
Mike
SEO Blog
December 10th, 2009 6:24 pm
Great tips! Thanks for the post, I would say that blogs and forums, even twitter, is a great way to get your traffic going again.
Seo Orange County
December 11th, 2009 3:08 am
Fruitful tips are mentioned in this post for increasing web traffic when ranking goes down. One of our blog also getting more traffic by blog commenting and these visits comes from real visitors also. We have done social bookmarking, blog commenting and article submission and getting good rank for our targeted keywords.
Seo services Orange County
December 11th, 2009 3:11 am
Great post. We are doing social bookmarking, article and blog commenting for getting good rank in serp.
Thanks.
wopular
December 11th, 2009 5:37 pm
So, where’s the article about diversifying your traffic? It’s been more than a week. Get cranking :)
Jonathan
December 16th, 2009 9:58 pm
Hello,
I really enjoy this post. A few important guides here. It is hard to not panic when you see how much of your work just disappeared :(. Anyway , keep it up !
Tom Durkin
December 17th, 2009 7:42 pm
It would be interesting to see what would happen if say..google was completely taken away. It would really make you reach out and look for other sources of traffic. I think the lesson is that its essential to build a number of traffic sources: Don’t put all your eggs in one basket seems like a very fitting idiom here.
Having such a big dependency on google (even from your experience) can prove costly at times.
My blog is relatively new after I had to start again due to a hack, and currently around 90% of my traffic is coming from Facebook and Twitter.
Thanks for a great blog
janelle
December 18th, 2009 8:59 am
Huh… like being hooked on OIL as a country;)…
Patrick
December 18th, 2009 11:56 am
Very useful post, I went through a similar experience and entirely disappeared from google inexplicably for a few weeks. I decided to plough on regardless, and thankfully my site reappeared as before, as if nothing had happened. My first instinct was to panic, and redo the whole thing, but it turned out that sitting back and waiting for google to realign itself was the remedy I was after…. even though the only reason I didn’t revamp everything was because of hopeless levels of procrastination, it’s good to know this was an approved method!
Steve Benedict
December 20th, 2009 8:52 am
This happened to me a few weeks ago. I was chugging along great and getting good back links. One of my sites was “on the rise”. Life was good. I was spending several hours a day building links by myself. No blackhat, no linkbuilding programs…just me and my keyboard. I woke up one day and had fallen off the cliff. No first page rankings, nowhere to be found in the index. I was panicked and tried to get into every forum I could to see if anyone else had experienced the problem. I got a few old hands to reply and their advice was to just keep on “keepin’ on”. One went so far as to say that Google did this to a certain percentage of sites all the time, to keep them on their toes. He said that the google strategy is to maintain the “google slap” fear by dropping sites off. That way, everybody keeps looking over thier shoulder for the google cops, and is wary about stepping too far over the line. I’m not sure that’s the case, but it makes sense to me. Anyway, mine came back in three days and my blood pressure went back down to normal. Thanks for the article.
Quality pages and honest links…
Steve Benedict
Suave Doggie
SEO Dallas
December 23rd, 2009 8:06 pm
Thanks for sharing your experience. I have also been facing the same problem, but now i would do as per your advice & hope it will work out for me as well. :)
Authentic UGG Boots
December 27th, 2009 11:13 pm
Google is a tough one to crack because you never know what they are going to do.
Analog Designer
December 28th, 2009 11:54 am
I would get get just 5 to 10% of the traffic is from google. I don’t know the problem here. I really like you tips. Thanks a lot…
blogging for money
December 28th, 2009 1:17 pm
Don’t freak out, play by the rules and diversify. Good laws to live by my friend. Thanks
Argodots
January 1st, 2010 1:12 am
Nice article!
Fortunately this did not happen to me until now. But I would certainly not panic about it. Just keep writing interesting content for your readers. I believe that this is the only thing we should not forget as we are not blogging for Google but for real human beings.
I also strongly believe that in the future Google will be able to understand the real meaning of text in blog posts through the means of text mining. I hope I will still be here when the semantic web hits in ;)
DJ White Hawk
January 2nd, 2010 12:52 pm
Or maybe we all should boycott Google for it’s starting to manipulate the market monopoly just like Microsoft did. Just kidding!
Mel Menzies
January 3rd, 2010 2:31 am
This happened to me three months ago: a drop of about 40% on traffic. I had recently discovered that I had no meta tags on my site and had asked my web designer to incorporate them. He used a default set of meta tags/titles and descriptions across my whole site and Google didn’t like it because under the banner An Author’s Look At Life: Resources To Inform, Inspire, Encourage, I blog on a broad number of issues and the defaults didn’t relate to many of the articles.
However, when I queried it, I learned that Google had changed their algorithms at precisely the same time as I’d changed my site.
Now, 3 months later, I haven’t regained my former position as far as traffic is concerned (though, inexplicably, my ranking went up from 3 to 4), but neither have I lost any more. Fortunately, as a book author, I don’t rely on my blog for my income. Still – it’s very disappointing when you’ve put in the hard slog.
Happy New Year, Darren – and my very grateful thanks to you for all you’ve taught me about blogging over the past year. Mel
Jumpman
January 9th, 2010 7:22 pm
Thanks for the advice man. I actually just had this happen to me a couple of days ago, right after I read this article. At first I started to change things, but re-read the article, and decided to leave things as they were, and continue updating the site as usual. Sure enough, I went back to my normal spot. Thanks, you saved me from possibly making things worse!
Whitney
January 10th, 2010 9:32 am
This is a great insight into what to do when your search engine rankings drop. This happened to me on one of my blogs, and I still haven’t gottened the ranking back for that keyphrase, but I’ve learned to find other methods of generating traffic, it’s not the end of the world.
Paul
January 12th, 2010 9:59 am
EXCELLENT!!
My ranking is up and down all the time, Mainly down. Some good info here. Hopfully its gonna be going up
Thanks from
http://www.freebiethings.co.uk http://www.iphone-for-free.co.uk
Rich
January 14th, 2010 1:00 am
I had no luck with getting indexed until I started reading what it takes to ge there. I started a blog and put a link to my website and then submited articles to digg and others. Now with your great website I’m getting better and better at getting indexed. Thanks Rich of http://sanmarcostreeservice.com
fazamania
January 17th, 2010 4:21 am
i have one blog drop from PR3 to PR0 .. i dont know why… but still look for new tips .. this articles is very helpfull
κατασκευη ιστοσελιδων
January 18th, 2010 12:23 am
I have noticed that before google page your site up for some reason it page you down. e.g. if your site is at 5th place of results and you made some changes (extra links, change of contents e.t.c.) you will notice after a week or so to loose 2-3 places and after 1-2 days to be in 3nd place.
Denver Website Design
January 20th, 2010 8:07 pm
Good article for those who want to raise their search engine rankings.Keep throwing these type of articles…!!
Dean @ Footballgambler
January 27th, 2010 10:31 am
A similar thing happened to me on my first website, I was ranking on the 6th page for my keywords and then without changing anything my site just disappeared out of site.
Still don’t know why it happened and probably never will, with the way google keeps changing it’s ranking system.
Lepki
January 29th, 2010 12:33 pm
relax, review, tweak and watch!
Focus on converting rather than ranking – all will be fine.
Hari
January 30th, 2010 11:23 am
Thank you for an excellent article. So far I have not had any issues with Google traffic. But I have noticed that Bing and Yahoo traffic keeps going up and down (sometimes they are not indexing my site at all).
Blog Tactic
February 1st, 2010 11:57 pm
Definitely true. You cannot rely 100% on Google traffic. The problem however, it is difficult to gain much traffic from other sources.
mike
February 3rd, 2010 12:32 am
definatly other way of marketing also helps in making se better as compared with just to rely on google
JohnnyW
February 3rd, 2010 9:04 pm
I have found that variety is the way to go, especially when building those backlinks.
Photographer Judd
February 5th, 2010 4:29 pm
I live in fear of Google pulling the plug and it has really bugged me that I have all my eggs in one basket. I know I need to diversify…. i’m really new to blogging and building a “community” that will keep the traffic going if google should disappear is almost equally intimidating! Thanks for all your insights!!
Kids Baby Shop
February 6th, 2010 9:17 pm
My 4 months old site, little grow of visitor, I still learn how to make more traffic. Lost our link some time happened to us.
With 0 page rank, I will never surrender.
Thanks
Ben
February 7th, 2010 9:41 am
Best thing to do is just keep building those links – Weave your website to the web with more and more links.
sexy legs and body
February 8th, 2010 2:13 am
Great post, and excellent timing, I have hit bottom a month or so ago. I have lost just over 50% of my traffic, and more then 70% of my revenue. I have made some smaller changes, but nothing major, so I guess it is a good idea to wait it out. Traffic and revenue has slowly started to climb again, but very slightly.
Thanks for some excellent advice.
Colin.
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