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?

[TWB]

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

[TWB]

Thanks George, I'll give all the things you've mentioned a try.

[TWB]

Sorry I know it was a but vague but I was just hoping to convey the big spike! The traffic shown was just organic traffic so this source does seem to be the issue, unless traffic sources are being incorrectly allocated in Analytics.

[TWB]

Hi Michael

Thanks for coming back to me, I've been going round in circles with this. I've been looking at the Google Search Console traffic queries and there are some keywords which were getting, for example, 148 impressions towards the end of April that have had none in May but when I look at keyword clicks there are no obvious keywords with less traffic. A lot of the click queries are just down by 1 or 2 clicks.

The Ecommerce conversion rate of the traffic has stayed the same and is higher than the overall site average.

Looking at the landing pages has identified a few pages that were getting 50ish clicks at the end of April but now aren't so I'll look at those more closely.

Thanks again

[wholewhaler]

To analyze properly, I'd need organic landing page report, keyword report (from GA and Search Console), and logs for 404s.

Things to check:

• 404 adjustment - did you do something with your GA tracking as it relates to 404 pages that could have been getting organic traffic?
• Seasonal impact - what happened last year at this time, is there a weird holiday here for you? (Happy Garlic Day 4/19!)
• Brand confusion, were brand keywords possibly driving interest due to changes made, showing up as organic

I think the answer is hiding in your organic landing pages. Good Luck!

Best, 
george + WholeWhale Team

[Martijn_Scheijbeler]

The Graph that you attached doesn't say enough. You probably want to provide more information around what traffic sources were bringing in traffic during that time. Because of tat you hopefully will get some insights where the drop is coming from and where not. It could very well be that the traffic isn't even declining from SEO in your case (based on the data that we have from the graph).

[Tenlo]

Try to dig deeper into where that traffic was from, check for increases from one city during this time. Do you have Google Search Console connected? Also look at where that traffic was landing and what, if any actions it was taking.