Drop in google referral traffic
-
Hi guys,
As we know, GA shows google as traffic source in two ways: google / organic for organic searches and google.TLD / referral for everything else: google groups, base.google.com, static pages, google reader, google image search, google search appliance/mini.
What we noticed is that around Oct 20th there's a huge drop of google.TLD / referral traffic to our site. Do you experience something similar? I couldn't find anything Google-related that happened around this specific date.
We use GSA for our site search and I'm wondering if this could be the reason - maybe someone from our development team made changes to GSA settings that affected this traffic source.
Looking forward to hearing from you!
Thanks.
-
Thanks for your replies.
After some digging I found that since July 2010 the google.* / referral traffic increased dramatically (from 6K to 66K per month), followed by the drop in October 2011.
Almost all of those people are using IE 8 or 9 but nothing specific in terms of location or new / returning.
Is it possible for IE to strip the query after the domain name so it appears to be referred from google.TLD/ only?
-
Our google referrals were up 30% the previous two weeks, went back to "normal" that week, dropped by 40% the next week, then doubled all through November and the first two weeks of December, then dropped slightly in the last half of December - it always does - and is now maybe 50% higher than in September. But the numbers are really too small to tell these days. (30 to 70 per day)
What did change over that time is imgres referrals increased by 200% and / referrals dropped by 80%
-
Hi
Your best bet would be to try and drill down into the data some more, and see if there's a specific segment of traffic within google.TLD. For example: location, new vs returning? Hard to tell unless you can find a more specific segment of traffic or provide more detail.
The only change I know of around this date, is when Google started encrypting keywords for logged in searches (not provided) but not too sure this would be related.
-Dan
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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.
Related Questions
-
In google analytic for google /cpc it is showing url with 404 which even not exists in my database
Hello All, In google analytic for google /cpc it is showing url with 404 which even not exists in my database that also more than 300 per day. How can it is possible? it is showing /black-friday-offers but I don't have such page. Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | pragnesh96390 -
Save a Google Analytics account
We recently started with a client who has Google Analytics already installed on their current site, but they have no idea the account login for it? Is there anyway to transfer ownership of this just based on the code?
Reporting & Analytics | | WillWatrous0 -
How to filter out client traffic
Hi, I would like to filter out traffic in GA that comes to my client site just to login into their application. Is there a way to create a filter or segment that if a visitor exits the site to a subdomain it will filter them out? For example, they land on the homepage (abc.com/), click the login tab (drop down screen) and login and go to their application dashboard (app.abc.com/). I would like to delete this traffic segment as it is creates high bounce rates and makes it difficult to test landing pages. Thanks so much, Donna 🙂
Reporting & Analytics | | WebMarketingHUB0 -
Mobile redirect causing traffic drop? Can I move analytics code to capture them as visitors before redirecting them?
Yesterday I implemented a mobile redirect as I don't have a mobile version of my site. As a result I've seen a drop in traffic which makes sense as my redirect script is at the top of the page. If I were to move the redirect script below the analytics code would that allow me to still track mobile users? Would this affect my bounce rate though?
Reporting & Analytics | | SamCUK0 -
Why my WMT is showing more clicks than my Google Analytics Organic Search Traffic?
Hello Everybody, Can somebody help me figure out this puzzle: My WMT is showing 6000 clicks, while my Organic Traffic in Google Analytics is showing only 3500 daily ... how is that possible? Best Regards
Reporting & Analytics | | Muhammad_Jabali0 -
Google Analytics Organic Accuracy?
Hi, On a cool summers day, I was quenching my thirst for SEO Knowledge in the depths of Google analytics, When I stumbled upon a most troublesome sight. I was Browsing the data inside Acquisition->Keywords->Organic and comparing them to Acquisition->Search Engine Optimization->Landing Pages, to find the results quite questionable.. Since Keywords->Organic measure the visits from the organic results, and Search Engine Optimization->Landing Pages measures the clicks onto one of my landing pages from Google, I assumed they should be the same or very close, (besides Keywords->Organic having visits from other search engines) but they were not the same, as a matter of fact it was telling me that Keywords->Organic visits = 1,474, 27.19% of total(5,422) and Search Engine Optimization->Landing Pages, clicks = 1,548 154.80% of total (1000). Even worst the Search Engine Optimization -> Queries clicks = 1,123, 160.43% of total(700). I have been searching, and come up empty handed in the answer so does anyone know why Google is showing me different results and strange numbers that don't make sense? Any information is greatly appreciated?
Reporting & Analytics | | KBB_Digital0 -
Webmaster tools traffic on one keyword dropped through the floor - ideas?
Hi there, We design and sell our own product range in a narrow niche, and we are also stocked by Amazon and a lot of other big retailers in the UK. During the first two weeks of Dec 2012 the position of one of our main keywords, which was in google SERPs on page 1 (8 or 9), dropped to page 4. The keyword describes the niche we're in. The drop is shown in the webmaster tools traffic report for that keyword. But it's the only one of our keywords where this has happened, and furthermore it hasn't happened for variations of the keyword. And in Adwords our quality score for the keyword is 10 For example say we were making and selling shopping trolleys - our keyword "shopping trolleys" has dropped through the floor, but "shopping trolleys (on) wheels" is just fine. Can anyone shed any light on what's going on here? Losing this one keyword has cost us some good organic traffic. i1uxSlB.png
Reporting & Analytics | | w1ll1am0 -
Why do I get lots of traffic from a bizarre keyword?
Bit of an odd one but I've been getting a large and steady stream of traffic over the last few months from a very random keyword that according to addwords figures shows "on data". Its our second biggest referring term only beaten by our brand name. We get more traffic from this term than keywords we have invested a lot of time in that show thousands of traffic volume in addwords. When looking at behavioral data its gets odder, a bounce rate of 98.11% time on site 2 seconds and page visits 1.02. So this traffic isn't real traffic and it's not real people. So my questions are, what is it? why do we get this random traffic, has anyone els noticed things like this and is it a problem? I presume it must be something to do with some sort of spam but apart from that i'm stumped. It's just one of those things that has been bugging me so I would appreciate any help. Kind Regards Paul
Reporting & Analytics | | pauldoffman0