Need help? Check out our Support site, then


WordPress.com Forums » Support

Site stats falling off cliff for past 10 days

  1. ontheliner
    Member

    The WP new year stats report trumpeted record views on my blog and a 37% increase year on year. Suddenly since Jan 22 daily views have plummeted daily from 1,013 to 460 yesterday.

    Over the past 18 weeks the blog has averaged 20,000 views per month and 5,000 per week. Most of my hits historically result from web search, and what is clear in the WP daily tabulations is that referrers via search engines have slumped drammatically in just over the past week, from 631 per day to 240.

    I read elewhere in the forum that Google has changed an aspect of its search. How can we discover what's going on and how a blogger can respond please?

    My blog - http://shapersofthe80s.com

    The blog I need help with is shapersofthe80s.com.

  2. timethief
    Member

    If yours is an image rich blog that has previously been receiving many referrals from Google image searches this may be a factor. > http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/2013/02/01/google-image-search-redesign-raises-ire/

  3. timethief
    Member

    Note: All search engine issues are between the blogger and the search engine(s).

  4. ontheliner
    Member

    In my post above, the hot link to the relevant post in the forum did not publish. The post was headed Too many views? on Jan 27, 2013, 8:22 AM and member Raincoaster responded: “Clearly Google just changed their image search. Some people here are complaining their hits drastically dropped, and some are saying the opposite.”

    THIS WAS THE URL - en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/too-many-views?replies=3

  5. timethief
    Member

    I see that thread and I posted to it. The bottom line is this is not a WordPress.com issue. All search engine issues are between the blogger and the search engine(s).

  6. ontheliner
    Member

    Very interesting report, timethief, so thank you. My blog has a fair number of images of specialist interest, though wouldn't say my site was image-rich.

    What Google effectively seems to be doing is appropriating a site's images for wider distribution - in the way individual web users do when they post our images at Pinterest and Tumblr, so that the source blog doesn't receive a hit when other people "reblog" (ie, steal) the image.

    All this despite the fact I tag my rarest images with the code rel="nofollow"

  7. ontheliner
    Member

    Yes I appreciate that, timethief, but I bet a lot of other bloggers would like to know what they can do about this dramatic change. So we must pursue the issue beyond this forum.

  8. timethief
    Member

    I believe there are many WordPress.com bloggers, who are blissfully unaware of the changes to Google images search, some who benefited, and still others who have seen or will see their stats fall through the floor (so to speak). But we aren't allowed to create discussion threads here http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/forums-housekeeping?replies=1

  9. ontheliner
    Member

    Understood. . . One result I expect is that WordPress will soon stop placing ads on my posts (as part of the free hosting deal). There is no revenue for me in those ads, but WP will start to feel the pinch, do doubt!

  10. timethief
    Member

    Interesting observation but I had to tag this thread for closure.

  11. kathrynwp
    Staff

    You may want to check out some search-engine-specific forums as this issue is beyond our scope.

Topic Closed

This topic has been closed to new replies.

About this Topic

Tags