Any ideas why my Google search traffic dropped considerably after 29th Oct 2013?

Question

I've noticed a sizable dip in traffic with www.topomap.co.nz so headed over to Google Webmaster Tools to see if Google had encountered any issues with the site.

Was quite surprised to discover that the "Search Queries" stats dropped considerably after Oct 29th. Any ideas why Google might suddenly have decided not to like the website so much?

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Webmasterworld has a forum where they keep track of how sites change in the Google SERPs on a day to day basis: http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4614058-7-30.htm — Stephen Ostermiller, Nov 10 '13 at 11:19

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 10 '13 at 02:30

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One thing that Google has talked about doing is to "penalize" websites that do not have text that's immediately visible by your users. They may finally have figured out that your site hides all that information to end users. (What you have in your Info tab is hidden by default.)

Of course, any website with just images, videos, or like you, maps, are not a good thing to be found with such a scheme. I guess that one way would be for you to leave the tab open by default and see what happens.

answered Nov 10 '13 at 02:30

Alexis Wilke

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Cheers Alexis, much appreciated. I have always worried in this way about the hidden content on my site that isn't visible until a user clicks open a tab, but it hasn't been an issue up until now (the site's been around years). I guess it's possible this might have become an issue now, though I'd hope Google would be a bit more advanced regarding this signal due to the popularity of single page sites now-a-days. Thanks again. – Gavin Nov 10 '13 at 08:42

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 09 '13 at 23:32

Google is making all kinds of changes right now (as always) with Hummingbird, Encrypted Search and Penguin 2.1 so those would be good places to start searching (if you aren't familiar already).

I didn't look very closely but I notice you solicit advertisers, do you add the rel="nofollow" attribute to what could be construed as 'paid links?'

Google (via Penguin) has been really cracking down on links that violate their webmaster guidelines, and sites that sell and/or buy paid links are both liable to be punished. Review who links to you and who you link to, especially links that pass PageRank.

Here's a YouTube video (one of many) where Matt Cutts discusses Google's thinking on paid links and advertisements.

No idea if that is the case but a drop that big looks like a penalty of some sort.

Thanks for the input Adam - much appreciated. I'm aware Google is always tweaking it's search algorithms to weed out spammy sites, etc. so I guess some signal from the site is probably causing the issue - just trying to figure out what it is. Paid links have never been purchased for the site, but I do know a lot of relevant sites and forums link to the site. The ad displayed bottom right is from Google AdSense so hopefully this isn't incurring a penalty. Bit of a puzzler as nothing is being done to game the system. Thanks again. — Gavin, Nov 10 '13 at 08:36

Any ideas why my Google search traffic dropped considerably after 29th Oct 2013?

2 Answers2