Site Migration and Traffic Help!
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No. That's not the sole cause b/c I can still see blog content indexed on Google. It looks like you currently don't have Google Analytics tracking codes setup on the blog content, so any visits you are getting aren't getting captured in reports.
Also on the old site, you had two separate sets of Google Analytics tracking codes set up on the blog content (UA-743349-4 and UA-30229507-1). It's possible the code was firing twice causing double counting.
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If don't have the analytics code set up on the blog pages, why would that affect my GWMT data?
Both GWMT and Analytics show a decline on the relaunch date. Would updating the title tags be the issue? Even without unique tags would it justify the huge drop?
I have a feeling it's a bunch of small things contributing to the drop in traffic and need help identifying the underlying cause of the decline. Thanks for your input.
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You're right. It wouldn't. Just the analytics.
Updating the title tags isn't the issue cause it looks like they didn't have unique title tags before the transition. But it should help boost organic traffic.
You may be right (it's a lot of small things). Have you looked at your traffic sources before and after to see if anything stands out? Is the drop evenly spread across direct, organic, PPC and referred traffic? Is it primarily in one area?
I'd be happy to take a look if you want to give me temporary access to your analytics and WMT. Sometimes it just takes a fresh pair of eyes.
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I've identified it as only affecting organic search traffic, direct and referral were largely unaffected. I do not mind giving you read only access. What email should I grant access too?
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Okay. I see a few things.
The vast majority of the lost traffic is from local (LA, San Fran & San Diego) locations. People searching for "car insurance", "cheapest car insurance", "cheapest car insurance California" and other similar keyword phrases. You no longer have a page on your site optimized for those terms so you're not showing up in search results.
It looks like you might have auto as a menu choice under "insurance items", but...
(1) It's hidden behind your site logo when the drop-down menu appears so visitors and search engine spiders can't get to it. It IS indexed. (I see it in your sitemap and when I do a site command.)
(2) On your old site, the home page was optimized for "Cheap Car Insurance in California". Now you're tending to use the term "auto" more than "car" and you're also not using the word "cheap" and "cheapest".
Two other observations: duplicate content and drive-to-learn 404.
(1) You've got a lot of duplicate pages on the site, e.g.
http://www.shiftins.com/blog/7-sins-car-insurance-buyers-make/
http://www.shiftins.com/blog/7-sins-car-insurance-buyers-make/www.shiftins.com(See how the domain name is appended at the end of the second URL?) The later is redirected to the former, but it means you’ve got crawlers wasting a lot of time trying to index duplicate content and you're diluting your SEO equity. Of 269 pages, 267 are redirected duplicates.
(2) The drive-to-learn scholarship page is driving a lot of good traffic. But there appears to be a missing page (below). Visits to the 404 page stopped around the 19th, so you may have fixed this already.
/404.html?page=/content/insurance-program-application.aspx&from=http://www.shiftins.com/drive_to_learn_scholarship
I suggest trying to fix these things to see if it makes a difference. I also highly recommend the other item we talked about - indexing and optimizing the blog.
Your bounce rates, time on site, page views and conversions all appear to have improved since the new site was deployed. That's great!
If you want the list of queries that were driving impressions before the conversion (and now aren't), email me (so I get your email) and I'll pass them along.
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"The vast majority of the lost traffic is from local (LA, San Fran & San Diego) locations. People searching for "car insurance", "cheapest car insurance", "cheapest car insurance California" and other similar keyword phrases. You no longer have a page on your site optimized for those terms so you're not showing up in search results. "
Just curious what section of the Analytics data are you looking at to make this determination? All of the pages I used to have were supposedly moved over to the blog then 301'ed. Was this really not done or were the pages not optimized properly?
**"(1) You've got a lot of duplicate pages on the site, e.g. **
http://www.shiftins.com/blog/7-sins-car-insurance-buyers-make/
http://www.shiftins.com/blog/7-sins-car-insurance-buyers-make/www.shiftins.com(See how the domain name is appended at the end of the second URL?) The later is redirected to the former, but it means you’ve got crawlers wasting a lot of time trying to index duplicate content and you're diluting your SEO equity. Of 269 pages, 267 are redirected duplicates. "
Are all of these duplicate pages coming from the blog? How can I identify these?
**Your bounce rates, time on site, page views and conversions all appear to have improved since the new site was deployed. That's great! **
Thank you that was the idea behind the redesign. Now I just need the traffic back!
**If you want the list of queries that were driving impressions before the conversion (and now aren't), email me (so I get your email) and I'll pass them along. **
I would greatly appreciate the list. Please email me at "greasy(at)gmail.com"
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Here is a photo showing that deep crawl is hard at work.
I've also added this URL which has a zip file that contains all your URLs your screaming frog crawl review and the pages that contain Google analytics the pages that do not and what UA number is attached to the page. http://d.pr/f/1f1AL
I want to clear one thing up you cannot get duplicate hit's using Google analytics twice on one page as long as the UA numbers are different the only thing that will happen is your bounce rate will go down dramatically. ( I am talking about full JavaScript snippets) can have two UA's in the same snippet and be okay.
I started to crawl here is a bigger photo I will post it to you when I'm done I will look at the information I've sent you so far I think you will find it very valuable.
http://i.imgur.com/i0F739b.png
All the best,
Tom
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so far if you look at the Google analytics indexed URLs and site map URLs compared to the URis downloaded you should upload the site map I gave you in the last post screaming frog XML sitemap with a XML image sitemap will be a step in the right direction.
It is a larger photo
http://i.imgur.com/IIhIx7q.png
Tom
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All done use the URL provided to go through every issue on your site. remember you can click on anything to see more there are thousands of problems you can look directly at and see a fix for.
IN the URL
You will see green arrows to click on you can also click on anything highlighted in red or if there is a word for a number member you can click on it and see a lot more than what you see in the very beginning.
You have a lot of broken links it also appears your canonical URL is non-www but you 301 redirect to www.
USE THIS URL TO SEE EVERYTHING:
UES THIS FOR A summary http://d.pr/f/bvxB
Sorry it took me so long
Tom
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Excellent summary Thomas. Is that custom or are you using a paid tool to generate that?
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Thanks for clarifying the point about duplicate hits.
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Hi Donna,
Thank you.
The report is something you can customize to be completely white labeled very easily in less than 10 minutes. The tool is https://www.deepcrawl.com it starts at a very reasonable rate $80 and is capable of so much.
I would recommend Deep Crawl to anyone there fantastic.
All the best,
Tom
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_Just curious what section of the Analytics data are you looking at to make this determination? _
(1) I looked at GA reports, Audience > GEO > Location > United States > California.
(2) I looked at a download of GWMT impression data comparing 9/28 - 10/30 to 10/31 - 12/1 data, sorted by the calculated difference in impressions data.
(3) Then went back to GA, looked at landing pages and searched for "car".
All of the pages I used to have were supposedly moved over to the blog then 301'ed. Was this really not done or were the pages not optimized properly?
I don't know if all pages were moved and properly 301'd. I did see at least one error though. /automobile/car-insurance-program.aspx redirects to /drive_to_learn_scholarship, which obviously is not the correct URL.
Are all of these duplicate pages coming from the blog? How can I identify these?
The screaming frog scan that Thomas sent should help you identify them.
_If you want the list of queries that were driving impressions before the conversion (and now aren't), email me (so I get your email) and I'll pass them along. _
I've emailed you the file.
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