Drop in Ranking for a Reputable Dictionary / April 14, 2017

[lascribacchina]

One of the sites of my customers (a very reputable, high quality dictionary) saw a 46% drop in rankings starting from April 14, 2017.

Has anyone else seen something similar and has some tips?

Many thanks,

Tatiana

[wholewhaler]

Gross - that is the worst feeling to see that kind of drop for a client. I would need a look at your GA data for landing pages/keywords from Search Consule to accurately diagnose. But, here are some solid threads to chase:

• Google Knowledge Graph - We saw this when Google added graph answers for medical terms for one of our clients. Action: do the search incognito to see if Google Graph screwed you.
• GA tracking broken - make sure there isn't anything odd with your filters, check an unfiltered account. I have seen interns accidentally filter out a part of site or subdomain.
• Relaunch issues around 404 pages.
• Use MOZ to track your top traffic keywords. Falling off of SERP 1 / Page 1 can cause this kind of drop
• Seasonality - make sure you are looking at year-over-year, if the keywords are seasonal it could be normal. IE Christmas traffic is going to drop in Jan...

Hope that helps, feel free to post some more data and I can take a look. GL!