Google Traffic Going Down After Migration

[TheBigK]

At present, we exceed our earlier traffic; so it's all fine. But I must say it was a painfully long time to get it all back. Frankly speaking, it's totally foolish to rely on search engine these days. No matter what you do - you can't be sure that you'd keep growing.

With latest Google Panda update rolling out - we'll see how the site performs. Of course, we're the only thing all 'forum' based communities will need to worry about is the 'thin' content - which is mostly beyond our control.

 

[Smarsh]

At present, we exceed our earlier traffic; so it's all fine. But I must say it was a painfully long time to get it all back. Frankly speaking, it's totally foolish to rely on search engine these days. No matter what you do - you can't be sure that you'd keep growing.

With latest Google Panda update rolling out - we'll see how the site performs. Of course, we're the only thing all 'forum' based communities will need to worry about is the 'thin' content - which is mostly beyond our control.

Can you give an idea how long "a painfully long time" was? A few months? A year?

 

[TheBigK]

Can you give an idea how long "a painfully long time" was? A few months? A year?

About 2.5 years. Out of which I spent about 1 year of hard work trying to figure out what really went wrong, and the rest of the time trying to improve on the best practices - which we were following anyways.

In our case, the most definitive conclusion I derived; but everyone disagreed is that our site had wordpress integrated for the blog. It had a disqus plugin that resulted into sudden rise of JS related errors [nothing was under our control]. Since then -

1. We ditched WordPress and switched to XenForo to handle our blog as well [via XenPorta]
2. We took a BOLD step to let go of our precious backlinks and turn to all XF powered links.
3. We then relied on GWT to see which backlinks we need to restore and MANUALLY ADDED ALL THOSE ******* BACKLINKS! [We continue to do that]
4. We learned a big lesson - Google is the boss; and the boss may get angry for no reason. Agree to disagree with everyone.
5. Content based websites [forums, blogs] will have to rely on Google for traffic; and income in several cases.
6. Lesson: If things go wrong; take it easy.

 

[Anthony Parsons]

It had a disqus plugin that resulted into sudden rise of JS related errors

Why didn't you just remove the plugin? Google absolutely love wordpress. What Google don't like are some dodgy plugins and themes that create huge issues. Wordpress itself, with a semantic theme and well coded plugins, Google eat it up far better than Xenforo.

 

[Sadik B]

About 2.5 years. Out of which I spent about 1 year of hard work trying to figure out what really went wrong, and the rest of the time trying to improve on the best practices - which we were following anyways.

In our case, the most definitive conclusion I derived; but everyone disagreed is that our site had wordpress integrated for the blog. It had a disqus plugin that resulted into sudden rise of JS related errors [nothing was under our control]. Since then -

1. We ditched WordPress and switched to XenForo to handle our blog as well [via XenPorta]
2. We took a BOLD step to let go of our precious backlinks and turn to all XF powered links.
3. We then relied on GWT to see which backlinks we need to restore and MANUALLY ADDED ALL THOSE ******* BACKLINKS! [We continue to do that]
4. We learned a big lesson - Google is the boss; and the boss may get angry for no reason. Agree to disagree with everyone.
5. Content based websites [forums, blogs] will have to rely on Google for traffic; and income in several cases.
6. Lesson: If things go wrong; take it easy.

Hey Kaustabh, I spent a few minutes on your site and here's some feedback...

1. Engineering Stream is a required field while registration. Not everyone is an engineer so you should have an option of "Not an Engineer". I would suppose that field itself would be discouraging a few people from signing up.
2. You are absolutely right that it is foolish to rely only on Google for traffic and income. Are you diverisfying? I saw no option for a Premium Membership. If your audience is predominantly Indian, there's InstaMojo, a payment gateway for Indian websites and Blogs which you can be setup in a day. I used to think people will never buy premium membership but my site, club-oracle is now selling between 4-5 premium memberships per week.
3. Have you ever talked to sponsors? How about Ad agencies. Post e-commerce boom in India, there are now media agencies providing decent CPM rates for Indian traffic. Last week I talked to a business development guy from pointific.com. Doesn't hurt finding out how much they can pay.
4. You should consider email marketing for the best of your content. I open Google News every day, and Indian Express for general news and tech2 for tech news. You should position your site as the Go To place for tech info and email marketing is the best way going about it.

Regards,
- Sadik

 

[TheBigK]

Why didn't you just remove the plugin? Google absolutely love wordpress. What Google don't like are some dodgy plugins and themes that create huge issues. Wordpress itself, with a semantic theme and well coded plugins, Google eat it up far better than Xenforo.

I did remove that plugin; but it was already too late. I had already spent a month really figuring out the 'source' of errors and by the time I discovered that it was the plugin; it had generated million+ errors. Google continued to say that wasn't the cause of traffic getting affected; but that's the ONLY thing we could really identify - because there was a clear graph showing errors piling up and traffic going down.

WordPress, is good. I know it's got a ton of tools, plugins and themes that make up for a GREAT blog. We however had to decide on keeping a Uniform URL Structure throughout the site; to be handled by just one software [XF] instead of two - WP+XF. We're happy even with XenPorta 1. Now hoping that XF will release an official addon so that we can replace the XP. Else, we'd be looking to migrate to XP2 as I think Jaxel has done a good job.

Hey Kaustabh, I spent a few minutes on your site and here's some feedback...

1. Engineering Stream is a required field while registration. Not everyone is an engineer so you should have an option of "Not an Engineer". I would suppose that field itself would be discouraging a few people from signing up.
2. You are absolutely right that it is foolish to rely only on Google for traffic and income. Are you diverisfying? I saw no option for a Premium Membership. If your audience is predominantly Indian, there's InstaMojo, a payment gateway for Indian websites and Blogs which you can be setup in a day. I used to think people will never buy premium membership but my site, club-oracle is now selling between 4-5 premium memberships per week.
3. Have you ever talked to sponsors? How about Ad agencies. Post e-commerce boom in India, there are now media agencies providing decent CPM rates for Indian traffic. Last week I talked to a business development guy from pointific.com. Doesn't hurt finding out how much they can pay.
4. You should consider email marketing for the best of your content. I open Google News every day, and Indian Express for general news and tech2 for tech news. You should position your site as the Go To place for tech info and email marketing is the best way going about it.

Regards,
- Sadik

Thanks a lot for your feedback. Lately, we've seen interest from those who are from non-engineering background and introducing a 'Not A Formal Engineer' option. We'd however like to change the label to 'Engineering Discipline Of Your Interest:' because that's what it is for.

Regarding other suggestion, I've noted them. Never heard about Pointific; will definitely get in touch with them. Would be really nice if you could make an introduction

 

[Sadik B]

Regarding other suggestion, I've noted them. Never heard about Pointific; will definitely get in touch with them. Would be really nice if you could make an introduction

Yes I can. I am negotiating for ClubOracle right now. If I end up working with them, I will introduce your site.

 

[Anthony Parsons]

We however had to decide on keeping a Uniform URL Structure throughout the site

Fair enough. I had always had my forum in a folder, so the home directory has been empty for many years since changing from VB to XF. When XenWord came along, and continued its direction, I ended up using it because WP is so effective. After installing WP as our homepage, traffic increased around 10%, so we're seeing a nice win from it. Sorry about your ****ty experience with a bad plugin. They do exist and have devastating effect on sites when installed. I keep mine so minimal... literally less than 10, typically... if not 5 at most.

 

[TheBigK]

@Anthony Parsons - I've nothing against WordPress. In fact, if I ever start a new blog, it's going to be on WordPress. It's just that WP didn't fit into our scheme of things. I continue to run my personal blog on WordPress (click the superblog link in my signature).