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I recently added a new feature to a website, which resulted in a few hundred extra pages being added to the site.

I added these new pages to google sitemaps, with the hope that they would attract some 'longtail' queries.

However, it seems that traffic from google has dropped off significantly since this addition.

One problem might be that these new pages are rather light on content (although, they are very useful), and that they outnumber the 'normal' pages on the site.

  • Is this the most likely reason for the problem? If not, then what?

I would like to get back to the google traffic I had before this change, but am not sure about the best way to go. As I see it, my options are:

  • Remove the new pages from the site map (I don't think this will make a difference now)
  • Change internal links to the new pages to no-follow
  • Just wait?
UpTheCreek
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1 Answers1

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That's a plausible reason for the traffic to drop. If Google's Panda algorithm affects those pages then they may be filtered out or reduced in value. Then, because your links to those pages are essentially pointing to "nothing", you'll channel PageRank and general link love to "nothing".

Waiting to see if it improves is a good idea as this stuff tends to happen every now and then. But if you want to experiment and see what happens when you remove the content it would be a quick way to know for sure if it is hurting you or not.

chakeda
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John Conde
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  • Thanks. I guess, like you say, I'll probably wait a couple of weeks, and then start experimenting. – UpTheCreek Jul 16 '11 at 13:20
  • That happened with one of my sites too. We expanded the site on 22nd June and traffic went down significantly since then. Google has also removed sitelinks of the site. – Ritesh Jul 16 '11 at 16:08