If you track website statistics, you may sometimes encounter the problem of decreased traffic. This may be caused by one or several factors:
- technical issues — server unavailability, errors in the robots.txt file;
- seasonality or sudden changes in user demand;
- problems with SSL certificate;
- changes in Google algorithms;
- Google search engine sanctions.
If you cannot immediately determine the cause, use Google Search Console and pay attention to the performance report:
- Check and rule out the possibility of seasonality and periodicity. Change the date range — set a period, for example, 16 months, and see if the traffic decline is related to a particular season or certain holidays.
- Compare the indicators with the same period. Check the specified range with a similar one (the same number of days, preferably the same ones) and track what changes have occurred for queries, URLs, or countries.
- Analyze all types of searches. Review and track where the drop occurred—in web search, Google Images, etc.
In general, it is recommended to review the statistics for the above parameters and track how sharply traffic has fallen and over what period of time. Then compare the specified dates with the work carried out on the site or with important changes in the site settings and, if possible, fix the problem.