How long did your plunge last?
The video that I linked above (and here) was designed to answer the question, What steps can I take to diagnose a drop in ranking?
It is only six minutes long, so it doesn't take any real time to watch.
Basically, Matt Cutts says:
1) check site:mydomain.com to see whether you are completely not showing up in Google or just some parts of your site are not showing up (and to see whether you are partially indexed); if you don't see a snippet, maybe you had a robots.txt that blocked G from crawling, so they might see a reference to that page, but G wasn't able to actually crawl it or fetch it; it may also show a warning in search results if G thinks you've been hacked or have malware, and that could of course lead to a drop in traffic (if people see the warning and decide not to go to the presumably hacked site);
2) check the Webmaster Console; these days, G is now (in the last 6 mo.) listing more messages than before to provide detailed information about what they see, and what may be wrong - things they think are violations of their guidelines, not just Hidden Text, Park Domains, and Doorway Pages; also, go to the Webmaster Forum, because there are many very helpful users there (he says);
3) determine whether the problem is affecting your site only, which would indicate that G thought it violated guidelines in some way, or it could mean that there is a server-related issue; it could also mean an algorithmic change; if the problem affects a bunch of people, it's more likely due to the algorithm;
4) check yourself in other search engines; if they're also not showing you, that's an indication that the problem is on your side (maybe failed to remove a robots.txt or a No Index, after deploying a test server - whatever that means
);
5) in the Webmaster Console, use "fetch as a Googlebot"; it should show you how G sees your page; you may see that someone has hacked it, has added a No Index tag or a "rel canonical" that points to a hacker's page; it can also show if, perhaps, you were trying to use cloaking (?) and did it wrong, ending up so that the user sees content, but the Googlebot sees an empty page;
6) ask if you made any changes to your site or page around the same time as the traffic drop (revamped design, host name, DNS?); if so, it may be that search engines are not able to crawl it and figure things out;
7) after checking these things, determine whether you should file a Reconsideration Request; that will let you know whether they have taken manual action on your site; Matt says they are now (in the past six months or so) providing more detailed information in their responses to Reconsideration Requests.
In the video, at this point, he says "you might not be ranking where you want, but at least you know that it's an algorithmic issue and so you can concentrate on what different things might be triggering from an algorithmic standpoint." On Google-Plus, I responded to this statement with "How does that help? How does knowing that it could be one or more of 200 different factors help to figure out what to change?" (paraphrasing myself)
As I stated above, I don't really understand a lot of the things I have listed here; I simply jotted notes or transcribed what Matt says. But I wanted to pass this along for anyone that it could help.Your suspicions are well based, Izzy. "Awkwardly worded when read aloud" but well based just the same!
"Misery loves company," as the old saying goes, but I never believed all of the old adages. It's tough, ain't it? 
I consider that an honor coming from you. Izzy!
Are you still in the plunge or spiking? Sounds like some sort of sports action, doesn't it? I never realized writing could be so hard. I wonder what Mark Twain would have said about Google?
- SirDentposted 12 years ago
0After two days of slightly increased traffic, mine seems to be plunging farther. The abyss awaits.
Did you read your hubs aloud, Dent?
Actually I have done that before. Problem is, the way I speak will be different than most other people because of my, I mean their, accent.
Just joking, Dent!
The greatest plunge of all - This is what my hubs look like
Why I should have! Considering we are almost neighbors! Hang in there. you will have your day too!
- SirDentposted 12 years ago0
I'm very hopeful that the rankings just need time to "settle" a bit - though I wonder if anything will truly ever "settle" if the Panda is run with varying effect every month. I had been fairly stable from August-September, then a big increase in views in September-October. Now I'm back down to the low numbers. My weekends are always lower than the rest of the week, though, so I'm ignoring the numbers until Monday.
- EmpressFelicityposted 12 years ago0
Removing Amazon capsules, RSS feeds, possible keywords, etc. hasn't affected my traffic in the least. Perhaps it's my southern accent when my hubs are read aloud?
My views today is dropping by the minute. I'm hoping it is just because it is Saturday, my lowest traffic day. Friday traffic is down by 200+ views compared to Thursday. This morning when I logged in at 9am, my traffic was down by another 100+ views, and by noon I had lost another hundred.
Yes, overall HP was remarkably stable through Sept and most of October, just a slight rise. Now it looks like there might be a major drop beginning.
My traffic has sunk today, but it's too early for me to know for sure whether it's a Saturday thing, or a Panda thing.
There are gains to be made using confusion as a smokescreen. But not by the likes of us, of course!
Well, at least my traffic doesn't get my hopes up and then dash them shortly afterwards. So that makes me better than you guys! Doesn't it?
Although I have slight gains in traffic after the weekends, I have always done so because of a particular niche my highest trafficked hubs are in. I'm back where I was with only 30+ hubs shortly after I joined HP. It may get better, but I doubt it will ever be something one depends on as a solid investment of their time. I do hope I'm wrong, however.
Just checked my GA stats for Saturday and my little spike was also 'direct' traffic. It also did not stay on the page for very long, which will impress the big G no end. Did we get content scraped?
Yesterday, I actually had more traffic from Yahoo than I did Google - times are strange!
wow.. I am way down.. 220 views.. that is a new low for a weekday. I have not had time to do any backlinking this week.. maybe this is why??
- SirDentposted 12 years ago0
More blue arrows....I'm going to sleep.
Well, I decided to do some research on the "reconsideration request" process, just because I didn't know whether anyone following this thread (as a lurker) might want to know about it. Now I feel absolutely livid.
It sounds like a good thing - that is, that someone whose traffic has dried up can have a way to get back into Google's good graces. I watched a whole bunch of videos - some from Google and some from people who have been through the reconsideration process, one successfully and one not.
The main video from Google starts, essentially, with this:
The video never got around to telling what you should do if you don't know what has caused the drop in traffic.
A second one (from G) actually says, Go ahead and tell us what you have done wrong. We already know about it anyway. !!!!!
Doesn't that sound like a parole board talking to a prisoner at their hearing?
I have just recently watched a DVD of one of those made-for-TV movies, about the McCuan child molestation case of the 1990s. (For those who don't know, several families were falsely accused and convicted of child molestation and imprisoned, and the frenzy of accusations all across the country resembled the Salem Witch accusations.) One of the mothers was requesting a visit with her son - after she had been in prison for years without even being able to see him at all! - and the psychiatrist said basically the same thing that Google said in the video - just admit that you have done wrong! [She refused.]
As I said, I feel livid right now. I didn't really have a plunge as such, my best hub has now shot up to nearly 2,000 views a day since last week when it moved to first spot on Google for its keyword!
I wouldn't wish the plunge on anyone Richie, so I hope the big G never looks your way. Congrats on your great traffic
Just when I thought I couldn't get lower..... I knew I should have stayed off the computer today. It's a lovely stripe of blue arrows.....OH but there is ONE red arrow...my vegan pumpkin pie recipe (considering it rarely gets any views...a small spike is even significant). Glad people are doing some baking this weekend.
It's me, my fault. I cause crashes everywhere I go. Vote me off the hub.
And CMHypno - omg...your writing is simply brilliant. Thank you!!!Apparently only us "illegal spammers" are finding great humor in this.
Well if its cool to make fun of someone who has dyslexia then feel free to laugh on you don't have to listen to anything I say but after all that separates people who are SEO over people who don't have any SEO knowledge. While your just assuming your going to make it big I'll be here knowing why your not
Related Discussions
- 24
Answers needed from an internet guru...or a psychic!
Today my HP traffic was the highest ever - WAY higher than it was pre-Panda. Since the switch to sub-domains, my traffic and earnings have steadily climbed. What I want to know is:Is this likely to last?Why is it happening?Just because I've endured some Google algorithm updates, am I likely to...
- 42
Is your traffic getting better by the day?
Mine is and its awesome... Earnings are great too... sorry I am soo excited.
- 73
Panda and Google Sandbox
Google have blocked IP address (for last 7 weeks). What can I do?
- 56
Has anyone recovered from the plunge?
By "the plunge", I mean specifically mean suddenly losing over 80% of traffic during the period from the 10th August* up until the present (technically speaking, it's the google traffic that goes, of course, incoming traffic from links is unaffected).By "recovered" I mean...
- 179
September 6th Traffic Plunge
Has anyone's traffic came back who plunged on September 6th? Mine has not.
- 191
How's Your Traffic Situation post Panda
Hi everyone, thanks for checking out this forum post. As the title suggests, I'd like to ask you all how your traffic situation is right now, post-Panda. I got a dreadful hit (a decrease of 50%) last week from Panda but now my traffic is rising again. How's yours? Is it still doom and gloom or is...