Monday we reported how SlashFilm.com & movie blogs saw a huge decline in traffic around February 14th and how Google's Matt Cutts said he will look into it.
Well he did and their traffic is back, for the most part. Peter Sciretta the owner of Slashfilm.com told me on Twitter that as of yesterday, almost all his traffic from Google has returned. Peter added that he was told it was an "error on google's side" and Google fixed the issue and now Slashfilm.com and other movie blog's Google traffic is back.
SEMRush.com graphs confirm the traffic has returned:
Here are the relevant tweets from Slashfilm:
@rustybrick yes, most of it but not all
— Peter Sciretta (@slashfilm) February 25, 2014@glenngabe @rustybrick I heard it was just an error on google's side
— Peter Sciretta (@slashfilm) February 25, 2014Glenn Gabe also shared how another movie blog saw a fix in their traffic. ScreenRant.com according to SEM Rush has the same pattern:
Glenn Gabe thinks it has to do with a Panda monthly refresh but I am not too sure to be honest. Yes, there was some sort of update but that was closer to the 12th and not the 14th. This seems more of a weird Google bug than a Panda related issue but what do I know.
All Matt Cutts told me was "this was a transient issue that affected a small number of sites, and the issue is now fixed."
If I was Slashflim.com or another movie blog impacted by two weeks of lost traffic, I'd be pretty upset about this bug. What recourse does one have? Not much. Just make sure you have a loyal readership and try not to depend on Google so much. Easier said than done, I know.
Forum discussion at Google+.
