Update on Our Health Website’s SEO Recovery Efforts Following Significant Traffic Decline
Last month, I shared some concerns about our website—a well-established health platform—that experienced an unexpected 80% drop in search engine traffic. The causes behind this sudden decline seemed elusive, prompting a series of strategic adjustments. Today, I want to provide a detailed update on the steps we’ve taken and insights gained from this experience.
Acknowledgments and Community Support
First and foremost, I sincerely thank everyone who offered suggestions and insights in response to my initial post. Your expertise and time are greatly appreciated, and your feedback has been invaluable as we navigate this challenge.
Implemented SEO and Site Optimization Strategies
Here’s a comprehensive list of the actions we’ve undertaken:
- Enhancement of Site Navigation and Accessibility
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Made “About Us” and “Contact Us” sections more prominent, positioning them in both the top right corner and footer of the site for better visibility.
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Technical Site Clean-Up
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Removed unnecessary social media JavaScript code to streamline page load times.
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Author and Profile Optimization
- Linked directly to Dr. Kamal Patel’s profile from relevant supplement and nutrition pages.
- Highlighted his academic credentials, including his double Master’s degrees and PhD (C), making these details more prominent.
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Added structured data (Person schema) to enhance search result listings: Kamal Patel’s Profile.
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Refinement of Robots.txt and Meta Tags
- Heavily revamped the robots.txt file to allow Google to index certain essential pages.
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Applied
meta=noindex, followdirectives on specific pages within/topics/xxx,/rubric/xxx, and/history/xxxdirectories to manage indexing appropriately. -
Content Visibility and Linking Improvements
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Restored links to references at the bottom of articles, which were previously hidden to reduce page length, thus improving content transparency and SEO.
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Domain Management and Redirects
- Blocked mirror domains despite having canonical tags in place to prevent duplicate content issues.
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Eliminated outdated or redundant pages, such as
/stacks/xxx, by redirecting them to relevant content. -
Schema and Markup Corrections
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Addressed and fixed various schema markup issues to ensure proper understanding by search engines.
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On-Page Element Simplification
- Simplified
<title>tags for clarity and better SEO. - Streamlined author info boxes to enhance readability.
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Reduced size and prominence of call-to-action options for a cleaner look.
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Link and Domain Authority Management
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Disavowed six low-quality domains from our top 25 linking sites, as identified in Google Search Console, to improve backlink profile.
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Mobile Optimization
- Enhanced the visibility of “About Us” and “Contact Us” sections on mobile devices.
- Added clear, obvious
<h1>tags on mobile pages to improve user experience and SEO.
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Content Structuring and Segmentation
- Divided comprehensive pages on L-Carnitine and Citrulline into multiple smaller pages, testing if such segmentation influences Google’s perception of our content depth and relevance.
Reflections and Community Parallels
Interestingly, these adjustments echo what happened to Metafilter as discussed by Matt Haughey. To document our experiences, we also published an article on our site titled Google and Examine.com.
Engaging with Industry Experts
In line with recommended practices, we reached out on Twitter to search engine liaison @searchliason and Google’s John Mueller, hoping to gain further insights and assistance: Tweet about our situation.
Conclusion
While the road to recovery is ongoing, these proactive measures are part of our commitment to ensuring that our authoritative health content reaches and assists as many users as possible. We remain vigilant, adaptive, and open to further optimization strategies.
Thank you once again for your support and valuable input during this process. We will continue to monitor our site’s performance and share updates as we work towards restoring and enhancing our search visibility.
