Q: How do I determine why my traffic has dropped in Google Analytics?
There may be times where, when looking at your website traffic in Google Analytics, a clear spike, or conversely, a drastic drop has occurred. Following are 5 ways to identify what could have happened.
- Verify that the Google Analytics Tracking Code is still installed on your website. Oftentimes, when developers are working on system upgrades, or a site refresh has taken place, the tracking code is erroneously removed.
- Study the All Traffic > Source/Medium report in the Acquisition section of Google Analytics to identify where the traffic drop may have transpired. (Perhaps your Paid Search campaigns were paused?)
- Compare your traffic to a previous period to see if this is a pattern and is nothing to be concerned about.
- Examine your data utilizing the Absolute Change sort type to look at the biggest increases in traffic and biggest decreases in traffic over time.
- Check to see if any filters were applied as these affect traffic data.
