I noticed a strange drop in traffic across many forums.

[jonsidneyb]

I have not been out here for awhile but something strange is going on.

I noticed my forum was getting slower but it is not just my forum.

On similarweb I took a look at my forum and found that on September 13th I was getting 110k views I climbed slowly to 260k views on Jan 19th then things took a nose dive and by Feb 16th I was back to 120k views. All of my data is from Sep1 to Feb16

I sent a message to one of my admins and he shot back data on some other forums. He showed me 7 other forums that went into rapid decline starting either Jan 19th or Jan 26th. The forum I looked at have ranged from losing 1/3 to 2/3 of their traffic. Out of the 7, 2 of them are starting to show mild recoveries starting on Feb 2nd while others have continued to drop.

I started checking random forums and I am finding this trend all over the place.

I looked at Xenforo and between Jan 19th and Feb 2nd it dropped from 190K to 100K then bottomed out and is having a modest recovery.

 

[jonsidneyb]

Does anyone know what is going on? This is really strange. Sadly for me mine forgot to bottom out yet.

 

[CTXMedia]

Surely it just indicates that fewer similarweb data gathering users or bots visited (since that's where they get their data from)?

It's a bit like taking Alexa data as gospel - don't!!

However, that's not to say you haven't had a slow down - what does your Google or other analytics data tell you (based on actual activity at your site/server)?

 

[jonsidneyb]

Surely it just indicates that fewer similarweb data gathering users or bots visited (since that's where they get their data from)?

It's a bit like taking Alexa data as gospel - don't!!

However, that's not to say you haven't had a slow down - what does your Google or other analytics data tell you (based on actual activity at your site/server)?

I am also seeming the log in count change at about the same ratio. I normally have 400 people logged in about now. I am at 250, during the day here almost never dropped below 500 and was closer to 700. It has been in the 400's during the day time.

 

[jonsidneyb]

 

[jonsidneyb]

 

[jonsidneyb]

One of my members commented that another site they go to has had a drop in participation. They took a hard dive on January 19th as well.

 

[SchmitzIT]

Nice to see you again, Jon

Google rolled out a major update to their algorithm shortly before:

http://dejanseo.com.au/googles-first-algorithm-update-2014/
http://moz.com/google-algorithm-change




p.s. Tried hitting you up on skype a few times, but haven't managed.

 

[RobParker]

The site you're using isn't correct. Compare it to your own analytics from google.

That site shows our traffic in February as a quarter of what it was in January. We do see a drop between Jan->Feb but it's MUCH less severe and I imagine it's pretty unique to our forums as we run a football site and January is our peak season (for transfer related news).

 

[CTXMedia]

Just out of interest Jon - what do your XF stats show from your ACP for a similar time period - posts, threads, active users?

 

[jonsidneyb]

Just out of interest Jon - what do your XF stats show from your ACP for a similar time period - posts, threads, active users?

We show a pretty harsh decline still.

 

[RobParker]

That's not the same period...?

 

[BirdOPrey5]

Not sure what it's like elsewhere but around here colleges are often off for most of January and classes resume near the end of the month- if your audience is college aged they could be transitioning back to classes.

 

[jonsidneyb]

That's not the same period...?

getting the same period now.

 

[jonsidneyb]

The same period is captured here plus some extra days. Similarweb it looks like to me shows how many people visit and the internal stats are showing logins.

I think that it makes since for logins to lag visits.

 

[jonsidneyb]

Not sure what it's like elsewhere but around here colleges are often off for most of January and classes resume near the end of the month- if your audience is college aged they could be transitioning back to classes.

You might be right. We have all ages, many 50-60 year olds but a lot of 20 somethings as well.

 

[jonsidneyb]

I don't think it is college students after looking again. I need learn to interpret data. This goes back to when I moved to XenForo. I remember that day the forum was down. I don't see the this the same thing for January of 2013 and the February decline that is continuing into march.

 

[jonsidneyb]

Not sure what is causing it but my nose dive is continuing. We have changed nothing but are dropping fast.

 

[wickedstangs]

pretty cool... mine is steady even with the server crash..

 

[jonsidneyb]

pretty cool... mine is steady even with the server crash..
View attachment 70040

How the heck did you manage that?