Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • SEO Q&A
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • Case Studies
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Discover Brand Authority
      Moz Pro

      Discover Brand Authority

      Learn More
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      What is your Brand Authority?
      Moz

      What is your Brand Authority?

      Take the quiz
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • SEO Q&A

        Insights & discussions from an SEO community of 500,000+.

      June 3 & 4, 2024, Seattle
      MozCon

      June 3 & 4, 2024, Seattle

      Get tickets
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • Case Studies

        Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature: Moz Pro

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Reporting & Analytics
    4. Organic search traffic down 60% since 8/1/18\. What now?

    Organic search traffic down 60% since 8/1/18\. What now?

    Reporting & Analytics
    7
    11
    1694
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • RoniFaida
      RoniFaida last edited by

      I have a small health & fitness blog, and my Google search traffic suddenly dropped 60% around August 1 (I've attempted to link an image). My rank has dropped for 86 keywords. I have no manual penalty, so I'm guessing I was affected by the algorithm change.

      My technical skills are VERY limited. I've tried to find answers on my own, but every time I try to "fix" something, I only seem to make it worse. I do seem to have some structural/performance issues with my site (e.g., lots of 404 errors from uninstalled plugins and unwanted permalinks). I asked my server for assistance (I used managed Wordpress hosting), and they said they couldn't help.

      As you can imagine, this is quite devastating, and I have no clue where to go from here. I don't know if I'm allowed to link to my site here, but it's mommyrunsit dot com. Any assistance is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

      Sharon

      0lPu4wY

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • Jane7865
        Jane7865 last edited by

        how to check spamming backlinks for website light motion APK

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • sarahwalsh
          sarahwalsh last edited by

          If your organic traffic substantially decreases, this could be because of an algorithm update or because the business is possibly incurring a manual or an algorithm penalty?

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • Tomosal
            Tomosal last edited by

            Yes, same happened to my websites https://www.healthpaper.org and https://www.scienceworld.in. these site are in Hindi language. I need to know how to recover and grow web traffic.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • Dr-Pete
              Dr-Pete Staff @RoniFaida last edited by

              Unfortunately, I think the "not a penalty" line is sometimes a bit of a cop-out on Google's part -- anything that moves a bunch of sites up, is naturally going to move a bunch of other sites down. Even if those sites have technically done nothing wrong, it sure feels like to them like they're being penalized. I also don't like that Google claims they're rewarding good behavior, but then won't really tell us what that good behavior is. If it's genuinely good behavior, give us some guidelines (we're not asking for chunks of code from the algorithm).

              I'm comparing a case right now where there are two sites in the same industry, both seem decent, but one got a huge boost on 8/1 and one took a big hit. Hoping to glean some insights, but there's just a ton of speculation at the moment.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • RoniFaida
                RoniFaida @Dr-Pete last edited by

                Dr. Meyers,

                Thank you so much for your response. It is tremendously helpful, and I appreciate the actionable items that I can address right away. I am trying not to freak out, but honestly a 60% drop in organic traffic is devastating to a small site like mine,

                You may find this helpful as you collect data: I've been studying my ranking for various search terms.. One post in particular has been on page 1 of Google for 3.5 years, and it dropped down to around #10+ overnight. Some of the posts that have replaced mine in the top spots were written by bloggers who I know, all of whom are comparable to me in style and reach, and none of whom are either more or less authoritative than me. Their posts have been there all along but just ranked lower than mine.

                I've heard the theory that Google is not necessarily penalizing content, but rather they are giving a boost to deserving content that has previously been unrecognized. This makes sense, but it also kind of stinks.

                Thanks again for your help. I'll keep my eye out for new info about the algo update.

                Sharon

                Dr-Pete 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • Dr-Pete
                  Dr-Pete Staff last edited by

                  I've studied the August 1st update as much or more than most, and let me first be brutally honest and say that we're still at a pretty early stage of speculation. Until we have clear recovery cases, we're all just trying to tell a story from the anecdotal data. There are a lot of plausible theories, but we can't give you clear answers other than to confirm that the update was large and the health and fitness vertical definitely seemed to be disproportionately impacted.

                  The E-A-T theory is plausible, from what I've seen, but it leaves a lot left to be explained. We don't know what signals Google uses for Expertise/Authority/Trust -- are they on-page signals, link-based signals, citation-based signals... ? Probably a combination, and some of those are a lot easier to control than others.

                  Looking briefly at your site, here's what I might try if I were you. Again, this is educated guesswork at best:

                  (1) Your author name links go to pages that show all articles by that author. I know this is a common practice, but I would consider linking those to a full bio page for each author, with credentials. The on-page E-A-T signals probably aren't the whole picture Google uses, but they're the easiest to control. Currently, these pages also lead to more, similar pages (page 2, 3, etc.), which could look thin, but your rel=prev/next tags seem to be properly formatted. I'm more concerned that Google isn't seeing any information about the authors on those immediately linked author pages (other than a very short blurb).

                  (2) I know this can be a dicey issue online (especially if you're trying to protect anonymity to some degree), but I'd strongly recommend using your full name, properly capitalized. The use of just "sharon," "victor," etc. could make it harder for Google to connect you to third-party mentions and citations, unless those sites link directly to your bio pages. I strongly suspect Gogole is using some link/citation signals to establish E-A-T. it's a bit like having a consistent business name and address in local search -- you need to make it easy for Google to connect your name to mentions of you.

                  You do have some odd links to your site that almost look like they're tied to a link network, but I'm having trouble finding some of them manually (they're coming up in Link Explorer reports). If you've got any link profile problems, I'd consider cleaning those up ASAP. If Google is pushing hard and require more proof of expertise in your link profile, that's going to be a lot harder battle. There's no easy fix for that, other than continuing to try to build credibility. Again, I think the full-name issue might help here, but it's only one small piece of the puzzle.

                  Sorry you've been affected by this -- we're seeing a lot of small health/fitness blogs getting hit, and many seem to be decent quality, independent blogs by well-meaning people.

                  RoniFaida 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 4
                  • RoniFaida
                    RoniFaida @GastonRiera last edited by

                    Thanks, GR. I'm trying not to despair, but ugh. I'll read those posts - thanks so much.

                    Sharon

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • GastonRiera
                      Gaston Riera @RoniFaida last edited by

                      Hi Roni,
                      sorry to hear that you were hit by this god damn update.

                      Im writing to send you good wishes and hope. Also to sum up and add two other studies about the algorithm. Read them full and try to understand what's the issue in your site:

                      Analysis and Findings From The August 1, 2018 Google Algorithm Update – A Massive Core Ranking Update - GSQi
                      Google's August 1st Core Update: Week 1 - Moz Blog
                      Google’s August algorithm update strengthens as roll-out continues - Sistrix
                      The August 1, 2018 Google Update strongly affected YMYL sites - Marie Haynes

                      Best luck!
                      GR

                      RoniFaida 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • RoniFaida
                        RoniFaida @MiriamEllis last edited by

                        Thank you so much. I'll read those articles and see if I can figure anything out.

                        I would appreciate any suggestions. My site is https://www.mommyrunsit.com/

                        Sharon

                        GastonRiera 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • MiriamEllis
                          MiriamEllis Subject Expert last edited by

                          Hello, Sharon,

                          I'm so sorry to hear your blog was strongly affected by the August 1st update. From what I've read, health/fitness is one of the categories which has been most obviously impacted.

                          We are still in the early days of speculating about which signals Google is focusing on.

                          Here is Dr. Pete's post detailing what Moz has seen happen with this update:

                          https://moz.com/blog/googles-august-1st-core-update-week-1

                          Marie Haynes also wrote a blog post offering a theory that Google's focus may be E-A-T signals (expertise, authoritativeness, and trust), which I recommend that you read if you haven't already, bearing in mind, of course, that this is only a theory: https://www.mariehaynes.com/the-august-1-2018-google-update-strongly-affected-ymyl-sites/ She offers some suggestions for things you might analyze and attempt for your website.

                          I hope these at least offer some information, and if you wish to share your domain name here, perhaps our community can make some specific suggestions even though no one but some folks at Google can be totally sure what was targeted and how a site can attempt to recover.

                          RoniFaida 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                          • 1 / 1
                          • First post
                            Last post

                          Got a burning SEO question?

                          Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                          Start my free trial


                          Browse Questions

                          Explore more categories

                          • Moz Tools

                            Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                          • SEO Tactics

                            Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                          • Community

                            Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                          • Digital Marketing

                            Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                          • Research & Trends

                            Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                          • Support

                            Connect on product support and feature requests.

                          • See all categories

                          Related Questions

                          • TWB

                            When my new website went live I saw a huge spike in traffic for 3 weeks but then it halved again. Why would this happen?

                            My new website went live on 13th April and the organic traffic levels increased by 110%, staying at that level for 3 weeks. Then exactly 3 weeks later the organic traffic halved again, going back to the same level as the old site. Has anyone seen this happen before or worked out why?! Thanks Viki P2R76O9

                            Reporting & Analytics | | TWB
                            0
                          • peternachevat

                            Tracking goals on a subdomain with traffic coming from main domain subfolders. Mission Impossible?

                            Hello guys, I'm facing a huge challenge setting my goals. Here is the situation. I'm having the same Universal Analytics code on my main domain with different languages www.example.com/en/, www.examples.com/fr/, etc and my www.shop.example.com subdomain. So a French user will go to www.example.com/fr/, see a product that want's to buy and after the registration will see a thank you page on www.shop.example.com/success.html, and here comes the problem. My goal URLs are not "fired" with my filter. I have set up a filter (attached) to include traffic only for the desired profiles, but when this filter is on I can't see conversions. When the filter is off I can see conversions but for all languages. Any ideas how to set up the filter properly? Thank you! Filter.png

                            Reporting & Analytics | | peternachevat
                            0
                          • Pauly_Gigs

                            Google Search Console - Why is my average mobile position better than my average desktop position?

                            I'm wondering why my average mobile position is much better than my average desktop position. I'm wondering if Google is comparing the same queries for both mobile vs desktop or if they're only showing me the top ranked for each type of search. Is it example 1 or 2? Example 1: Desktop may have 5,000 ranking queries that average to 21.6
                                              Mobile may have 1,500 ranking queries that average to 8.5 OR Example 2: example.com has 5,000 total ranking keywords, those queries' average ranking in a desktop search 21.6 and mobile search 8.5. I'm curious to know exactly what I'm seeing in Google's Search Console. https://08875344305734164866.googlegroups.com/attach/777ae98664ed418f/Mobile%20VS%20Desktop.png?part=0.1&view=1&vt=ANaJVrEHOjRLlPH43i00NnC8PxaG3ct7bsHum_TWnUoa7xVamCpRp8jrvRQJL-gz4n7Q0otqKcKxcAJA5z1VySs2naQU_Zy5tDps6bJhUSZsLRQq4uU-tJQ

                            Reporting & Analytics | | Pauly_Gigs
                            0
                          • jancpc

                            Huge Traffic Drop without any change on website

                            Hello there, I've experienced a huge website traffic drop and I can't find a reason. I redesigned and updated the SEO strategy in early December and the traffic was increasing, that's why I have no idea why that is happening. I have a video on home page and the views/day dropped a lot as well, but not as much as website visits! Any inputs? Best regards, NIB6rwF.png

                            Reporting & Analytics | | jancpc
                            1
                          • Hyper-Dog

                            Loss of referral traffic after change of CMS, host

                            I have a client that changed from MoveableType to Wordpress. He also changed from a dedicated server to WP Engine. He may have blocked search engines for a week or two, so his organic traffic is down but only by 25%. He's 301 redirecting all of the old pages. The mystery is that his referral traffic from Google is down 90%. It's a popular blog, so that's thousands. It's been going on a month now. Anyone seen this before?

                            Reporting & Analytics | | Hyper-Dog
                            0
                          • BoomDialogue69

                            How can we view traffic from specific Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Reddit accounts in Google Analytics?

                            Dear Moz Community, This is a Google Analytics question. Using Google Analytics, we're trying to identify trends of visitors on a website from specific social media accounts, i.e: twitter.com/account-x facebook.com/account-x youtube.com/account-x reddit.com/r/account-x Ideally, we would like to be able to see the success rate for specific posts on these social media accounts, and how users engaged on the website after arriving from clicking a link on one of these accounts. Is this drill-down feature currently possible in Google Analytics? Many thanks for helping!

                            Reporting & Analytics | | BoomDialogue69
                            0
                          • NaescentAdam

                            Google Webmaster Dropped Traffic

                            Hi Guys, I've recently implemented a new site design with a new url architecture etc.. I set up Google Webmaster tools in early March and went live with the new site on 2nd April. Since the 6th April (4 days after going live) I've notice a drop in impressions from 15,000 - 28,000 per day to 3,500 - 5,500 per day. Now I'm kind of new to this, so after I cleaned up after my initial panic, I checked impressions vs. clicks. Impression are down 44% and clicks 31%. Not bad I thought but then again what if I dropped so far off the radar I never made an impression. 1. So first question: Are the number of impressions of a keyword independant of ranking. So if I rank #3,445,234th will I still see impressions listed but avg. position reflect #3,445,234? So while I was thinking of asking these questions I checked Google Analytics for which I have just over 3 years of metrics. Compared to the past; overall traffic and organic traffic are the same if not 10-20% better. 2. So second: Am I missing something? Its a resort website so easter just ended and you would expect the traffic to match and drop, but such a sudden and dramitic drop in Webmaster Tools impressions does not match Google Analytics. Infact Organic traffic climbed slightly. Can anyone offer any insight? Thanks, Adam

                            Reporting & Analytics | | NaescentAdam
                            0
                          • SpecialCase

                            Keep multiple Google Analytic / Webmaster accounts seperate?

                            Hi, I have a paranoid suspicion that putting all my websites on one Webmaster / Analytic account will mean any links between my sites won't carry any weight, and Google might consider similar content much more readily if 2 of my sites are in the same market. So I have about 4 different accounts with my main sites split across them. Am I being over paranoid? Do any of you have any problem with all your sites being on the same account?

                            Reporting & Analytics | | SpecialCase
                            0
                          Moz logo
                          • Contact
                          • Community
                          • Free Trial
                          • Terms & Privacy
                          • Accessibility
                          • Jobs
                          • Help
                          • News & Press
                          • MozCon
                          © 2021 - 2024 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.

                          Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.