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If your online business has been up and running for a while, it's highly likely that search engines have indexed your web site. Your site ended up in the index because either you have incoming links or you have manually submitted it to search engines.
Being indexed in search engines means that your web site is now a part of the search engine's database, and it can come up as a result for relevant searches. A good place in the search engine index can translate into additional visitor traffic, provided that your web site attains a top-30 ranking. I still remember how elated I was when back in 1996 when search engine traffic started showing up in the traffic logs. I could not stop talking about it for weeks.
However, search engines can be fickle creatures when it comes to generating referrals. Fluctuations in search engine indices, planned algorithm changes and many other factors can greatly affect search engine traffic. This is why it is so important to have a Plan B and avoid being completely dependent on the vagaries of search engines.
Let's examine several possible reasons you might experience changes in your rankings, and therefore the pattern of search engine traffic to your web site:
A search engine is a work in progress. Major search engines are constantly tweaking their site ranking algorithms(formulas) that are used to display search results. These changes can alter the number of visitors sent to a web site. Note that this can translate into either an increase or a decrease in traffic.
While search engines are busily adjusting their algorithms, webmasters are constantly perfecting their web sites. (you keep updating the content of your web site, aren't you?) Unfortunately, some modifications have unpredictable side effects and end up being detrimental to a site's search engine health. Changes that affect internal linking, page flow, and navigation, as well major revisions to the text of the site, should be completed with utmost care.
Changes in a site's link partners and changes in link partners' own web sites can affect your web site's search engine rankings. Part of your search engine rank is computed by evaluating incoming links. Your search engine rank can be adversely affected if there are fewer incoming links, or if the site linking to yours has undergone a major facelift.
Overzealous search engine optimization can occasionally backfire. Excessive keyword density of a page can set off search engines' spam filters. The thresholds are typically set high enough that this would not happen unless you were trying to really optimize for a particular keyword. Tripping a spam filter can result in a dramatic reduction in a page's rank.
As you can see, there are many reasons why a web site rank will undergo many fluctuations. Don't panic; instead, systematically evaluate the changes you have recently made to determine whether they could have resulted in a lower search engine rank. In Part 2 we will discuss techniques for regaining a lost page rank.
- Do Search Engines Hate Your Web Site?
- Holistic Search Engine Optimization
- Basics of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) For Coaches