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Massive drop in direct traffic

Discussion in 'General Business' started by dupe22, Aug 18, 2016.

  1. #1
    My website is 80% direct traffic. It has been very stable for last 2 or 3 years. Last week around 10 August, suddenly something changed and over the course of 2 or 3 days our direct traffic dropped to half. Needless to say, this seriously impacted our website. I still havent figured what happened or what caused this drop.

    Did someone else experienced similar thing?

    Do you have any ideas what could have caused such drop?

    Thx
     
    dupe22, Aug 18, 2016 IP
  2. qwikad.com

    qwikad.com Illustrious Member Affiliate Manager

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    #2
    The thing is when G Analytics doesn't understand where exactly the click came from it assigns it to the direct traffic. So your "direct" traffic might as well have been "organic" traffic that came from various sources. There probably were sites that had your link on them, now that those sites are gone from search results your "organic / direct" traffic has gone down as well.
     
    qwikad.com, Aug 19, 2016 IP
  3. dscurlock

    dscurlock Prominent Member

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    #3
    If I was the op, then I would have an seo audit done;
    no need to leave any stone unturned when you lose that much traffic...
    If it is related to source, then that would imply you have a lot of links
    on that source, and if the source went down, then that would suck...

    You should also back check your logs, and find out where traffic was coming
    in prior to the event, and what traffic is missing now; If it is a source
    issue, then it should not be that hard to find if you have lost that much traffic...
    ie: traffic from sourceA was showing up last month, but no longer showing up now...

    If I were getting that much traffic from 1-2-3 sources,
    then I think I would already be aware of where my traffic
    was coming from, as that would be alot of traffic from a single source.
     
    Last edited: Aug 21, 2016
    dscurlock, Aug 21, 2016 IP
  4. dupe22

    dupe22 Active Member

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    #4
    of course i checked the traffic sources and compared them with the past, but like i wrote, the drop is pretty much present on ALL channels and 85% was direct so there's not much to compare... still mystery to me...
     
    dupe22, Aug 22, 2016 IP
  5. dscurlock

    dscurlock Prominent Member

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    #5
    well, that is a lot of traffic, is it common for a site to get that much traffic from a single source?
    If that is the case, then that would imply it was an important source of traffic....

    If it was direct traffic, then they did 1 of 2 things:

    1: They cleaned up their site, removing your links.
    2: or the entire site is down, or even shut down.

    Either way, by losing that much traffic, then it
    must have been one hell of a source...

    maybe you will get it figured out...
    It sucks when you have to track down
    unexplained things that go wrong, and sometimes
    it can really suck just tracking the issue down...
     
    dscurlock, Aug 22, 2016 IP
  6. SirDubin

    SirDubin Member

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    #6
    Check out ur trafic sources and see what changed at them , maibe they removed ur links or stop promoting ur links or stuff like that.
     
    SirDubin, Oct 15, 2016 IP
  7. dupe22

    dupe22 Active Member

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    #7
    like i wrote, the traffic dropped across all channels, it is impossible all traffic sources would remove or disable the links at the same time, same day...
     
    dupe22, Nov 27, 2016 IP
  8. Quadropus

    Quadropus Active Member

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    #8
    If the traffic drops across all channels, it is likely a problem with your website, not others. Here's a list of things to check.

    Did you:
    • reconfigure any DNS?
    • remove a subdomain?
    • change your website template?
    • delete content?
    • remove a feature?
     
    Quadropus, Nov 27, 2016 IP
  9. Milliardo

    Milliardo Active Member

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    #9
    Well, first question is, has it happened again? If it hasn't, then IMO there's nothing to worry about. Sometimes that happens, even to some of the best sites there. If it's persistent, or else if you still have not recovered from that, then it's time to look deeper into your site. When did you last change your site? If your site still looked the same after 2-3 years, then yes you will definitely experience a drop in traffic. People will look for new content, and if they don't find any, then they will move on. Try asking your host also if they have done something which would affect people from going to your site.
     
    Milliardo, Nov 27, 2016 IP
  10. dupe22

    dupe22 Active Member

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    #10
    I didnt do any changes in the design, features, template or content - I simply didnt touch the website.

    The traffic hasnt recovered since then, it is still at 50% of what it used to be and I havent been able to find out what caused it.

    My guess was some problem with the server or DNS as Quadropus also suggested but I didnt discover any issues. I would also certainly get some notifications or emails from visitors if they couldnt suddenly access the site due to incorrect DNS settings or IP blocking. I am still clueless what really happened. :/
     
    dupe22, Nov 27, 2016 IP
  11. dupe22

    dupe22 Active Member

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    #11
    Here's a screenshot of the traffic from Analytics just to show you the drop.

    [​IMG]
     
    dupe22, Nov 27, 2016 IP
  12. hirensurve

    hirensurve Greenhorn

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    #12
    This is massive drop after checking your analytics screenshot. I would say this would be your organic traffic. Sometimes direct traffic also contains your organic traffic. It is just sometimes google analytics is confused between some links, which then shows in direct traffic.

    Reason for the drop in traffic: The recent updates from google have also resulted in dropped in our website traffic. The reason for this was we had many spam backlinks which was build by some paid agency. So those were penalized by google. Now we have started building backlinks again and this time we have opt for whitehat backlinks by comment posting on high pr blogs and forums.

    So you should also check your backlinks spam score on ahrefs etc.
     
    hirensurve, Nov 27, 2016 IP