I lost all traffic on Google.

Understanding and Addressing Sudden Traffic Loss in Google Search: A Case Study

In the digital landscape, maintaining consistent search engine visibility is crucial for online success. However, website owners often encounter perplexing scenarios where traffic suddenly plummets, raising concerns and prompting troubleshooting efforts. In this article, we explore a real-world case of a website experiencing a significant drop in Google impressions, analyze possible causes, and recommend best practices for diagnosis and recovery.

Background

The website in question is a community forum that historically received between 1,000 and 2,000 daily impressions on Google. However, on August 15, the owner noticed an abrupt decline, with impressions dropping to approximately 30 per day. Despite a two-month waiting period and various troubleshooting attempts, the site’s traffic remained at a low level, prompting a detailed review of the situation.

Current Context and Technical Setup

The key details of the website’s current configuration include:

• Site Type: Forum
• Robots.txt Configuration: The file explicitly references a sitemap containing roughly 300 pages, while other sections of the site are excluded from crawling.
• Indexing Status: The Google Search Console reports approximately 6,500 pages with indexing issues.

Despite efforts to resolve these issues, progress has been stagnant. The owner reports the following challenges:

• Requests for indexation of individual pages are consistently rejected by Google.
• Newly submitted URLs fail to appear in Google’s index after several days.
• A Google search query using site:* returns only two results, indicating that most pages have been deindexed or blocked.

Common Causes and Diagnostic Steps

A sudden search traffic decline can stem from various factors, including:

1. Manual Penalties or Algorithmic Deindexing:
   Google may have applied a manual action or algorithmic penalty (e.g., Panda, Penguin) that affects your site. Check Google Search Console for manual action notifications.

2. Robots.txt and Crawl Budget Issues:
   An overly restrictive robots.txt or misconfigured sitemap can prevent Google from crawling and indexing essential pages.

3. Review robots.txt: Ensure no crucial sections are blocked unintentionally.

4. Sitemap inclusion: Confirm all important URLs are listed and accessible.

5. Indexing Problems:
   The presence of 6,500 pages with indexing issues suggests technical problems. Use the URL Inspection tool in Google Search Console to identify specific errors for affected pages