Hi all. I know everyone's tired after today's outage but if anyone has any energy left, I would like to know if anyone else saw a significant drop in traffic after converting to version 7. We did and the result isn't pretty. While our volume hasn't been as high as many of you, a nearly 50% drop REALLY hurts us. Google Analytics reflects the drop and our orders certainly do.

Why the drop? Any info? If you did see a drop, what did you do and how long until your numbers were back up?

Thanks.

our move to v7 resulted in a -50 google penalty across all search terms, lost 90% of traffic overnight.

did you use the html catalog on v4? did you put 301's in place?

You are talking to a small independent, mom and pop store that is do-it-yourself. So, no.
We stupidly thought that Network Solutions® was handling redirecting the site pages. I guess you are saying no they don't?
Anything I can do myself from this point forward?

you need to check with them if they 301'd your old urls to the new v7 urls, otherwise all the linkjuice those old pages had will be lost, essentially meaning the search engines see your v7 pages as new pages so they won't rank as well.

have you been checking your rankings for any drops?

Our traffic went up, and after a few months it was way up.



no idea what that means or how you came up with it btw.

I can't find what that means either. 50 percent drop, maybe? Scooter advocates a product he developed called avenueselect.

We are hoping our traffic increases otherwise, for a small business, it's hard to justify NS prices. Our pages still turn up in searches but since we have so many, I can't be sure of exact ranking. In the meantime, I keep refining keywords, adding page titles, etc. If anyone has any other suggestions of what I can work on, please let me know.

I've covered in detail in other posts exactly what happened and how to avoid it.

Our issue was caused by the original html catalog generated by the old V4 store and how the SE interpreted the loss of those pages (as v7 doesn't use them). A -50 is when G**gle drops all of your rankings by 50 places, typically you stay there to for 3 months to!

Just an update. While on the phone to tech support about an export issue, I asked if the person had any idea why our traffic would drop 50% after the conversion. The question was initially ignored but after pointing out that Google Analytics shows the drop within a day of our September conversion and steady decline since. He said they had never heard of that happening and that he had "no comment on why people don't want to go to your site."

So, our current plan is to start going through our approx 4000 products and their related categories and checking all keywords, meta descriptions, etc to check and tweak. We have determined through a spot check of some of our products that the site's Google ranking position has now dropped from appearing on the first page to three, four pages back.

Also get your Google Base ( former Froogle) up and running it you havent already, its free and cant hurt.
Dave

Any good reference info? I can sift through a google search but if you've done it, I'd appreciate any pointers to a good source. The recommendation from you is enough to make me a believer. Thanks!

its not unusual for pages that have been 301'd to drop a little in rank before recovering.

do you use Google Webmaster tools?

I'm an amateur but I do.

There's literally TONS of stuff you can do to help improve you rankings and to generate some traffic, below are just a few suggestions.

Google Webmaster Tools is a must have for any online business.

Although 301 Redirects are in place have you updated any old static links using the old URL structure of version 4? Even though 301s are a permanent redirect it's best practice to update any outdated URLs with the new URLs.

Search Engine Optimization
-- are your URL's separated by hyphens so it shows as paper-products.aspx instead of paperproducts.aspx? There's some debate as to the actual impact hyphens have on ranking, but the general consensus I've found is that it makes it easier for the search engines to register the keywords in the URL.
-- have you optimized all your category and product pages using the SEO areas?
-- have you optimized your keywords and replaced any less descriptive links such as "Home" with more descriptive links such as "AOEARTWORLD". Just one example but unless you are selling Homes, or are using Home as a keyword it's a useless keyword and should be replaced with something that represents your site.
-- how often do you update content so the site stays fresh?
-- do you attend or watch any seminars on SEO? If not I would highly recommend doing so at least a couple of times a year just to keep up with all the changes that take place.

Online Marketing
-- are you running any sort of PPC campaigns?
-- do you actively look for places where you can have one way backlinks posted to your site? (Link building)
-- have you done any kind of Online Press Release that would be posted to the major sites such as PRWeb.com?
-- do you any type of e-mail marketing to your current customer base?

Also keep in mind that EVERY search engine is constantly changing the algorithms used to rank sites, it takes A LOT of work to get to the top and stay there, you can never rest on the proverbial laurels or you'll find yourself sinking.

If you're noticing less traffic I would highly suggest an e-mail blast to your customer base with something like. "If you are having trouble finding us on the web we have recently updated the software used to run our store and are working on getting our search engine placement restored. Because you are a loyal customer we are offering a 10% off coupon for any order over 50.00, just enter LOYAL during checkout to get your discount."

Again it's just a suggestion, but anything to generate traffic can't hurt.

Best of luck to ya!

Here is some information that might help you:
http://forums.networksolutions.com/index.p...ost&p=25468

Thanks everyone! When we started the site we worked our way up to the first page listings and sometimes first listed but lost most of that since September's changeover. We add products all the time and try to be thoughtful about keywords. The new software has thrown us a curve and my boss is just real disappointed since the holidays are generally busy for us. (Plus she just re-upped the contract.) The economy is bad enough but now we've lost the revenue we had come to count on.

Thanks for your help. I might check back with you if I still can't figure out how to do some of these things. The boss has left me on my own about this site and I appreciate your help.

It's been a year since we've been on 7 (or so)...we saw a change in some serps and temporary dips, but overall it was smooth. We've had solid traffic and conversion growth this year. I just wanted to chime in based upon the question that began this thread.

We're on our third month with version 7. Whereas we had orders everyday before the week of conversion, we goes days without now.

Hey aoeartworld. I should have also mentioned that prior to our migration, we put together a plan of action to address fluctuations or issues.

As soon as we migrated, we ran a brief, but deep PPC campaign - we added a blitz of content and did 2 press releases (among some other things). I am not sure if our plan of attack was what smoothed the serp fluctuations or not, but it did not hurt!

I think that I discussed this on the V4 boards prior to our migration...

Good to hear a voice on the side of ppc. Can only go forward with what we've got now. Thanks, though.

Actually, I only use PPC for absolutely specific reasons - and very infrequently. I personally believe organic is the way to go for the long run.

Ironically, I've gotten 5 phone calls from G00g in the past 2 weeks soliciting my patronage to do a PPC campaign - they are offering me a dedicated account specialist and some special attention...even biz at the "Big G" must be rough. (IMG:http://forums.networksolutions.com/style_emoticons/default/bigsmile.gif)

(IMG:http://forums.networksolutions.com/style_emoticons/default/martiniemoticon.gif)

...


I have seen no change in the dollar amount transfered to google PPC from my business credit card. Google is making a killing off of me, or should I say, killing me!!!!!!

(IMG:http://www.allpest.com/wot/smileys/rain.gif)

I'll add that I havent called G00g back - I agree with BobTheBugman that it's a great way to send money into the abyss.

True, we tried so much PPC and other PPC-driven sources... not for us.

Scooter