TechTarget, a business-to-business marketing company, experienced a 25% drop in Google organic traffic in November. Though the company stated that organic Google traffic trends do not directly impact company revenue, the decline was significant enough to be mentioned in its fourth-quarter 2019 earnings report [PDF], released Wednesday.
November traffic change. “Unpaid traffic represented 94% of overall traffic in the quarter,” the company wrote in the earnings release. “This metric is crucial as it contributes to our 76% gross margin and significant operating leverage, unlike many internet businesses where traffic acquisition costs increase linearly with revenue. Historically, Google’s algorithm changes have benefited our high-quality content. However, Google’s November algorithm treated our registration-protected content and older content differently, causing a 25% decline. We believe this is a technical SEO issue, and we are testing some changes that we hope will improve the results over time.”
The report further explained, “Unlike many consumer internet models, the volume of our organic traffic is not directly correlated to our revenue, as shown by our Q4 2019 results. While traffic increases are preferable, future traffic improvements would not directly boost our revenue. Our branding products, which account for approximately 15% of our overall revenue, are most directly correlated to website traffic. Our strategy of premium pricing, which results in some unsold inventory, means we haven’t seen revenue impacts due to traffic changes.”
Was there a November Google update? Google indicated a series of smaller updates in November. Reports from some sites mentioned 30 to 50% drops in traffic during this period.
TechTarget dropped 25%. TechTarget reported a 25% decline in Google organic traffic in November. SEMRush, a toolset that tracks Google traffic across keywords, shows a 20 to 25% drop in organic traffic from October to November 2019. Here is the chart:
Technical SEO mistakes? The company cited a “technical SEO issue” as a potential cause for the drop in Google organic traffic and expressed optimism about some tests it is running to regain traffic. While technical issues could be a factor, not all Google updates are related to technical SEO issues. In fact, Google has stated that core updates have no specific fixes and recommend focusing on overall site improvement.
If the November updates were related to a core update, making a single technical SEO change is unlikely to reverse TechTarget’s 25% drop in organic traffic.
SEO changes TechTarget is making. We spoke with Don Hawk, the Executive Director & Co-Founder of TechTarget. Don is not an SEO expert, but he provided insights into three main areas the company is focusing on to reverse the Google traffic decline:
(1) **Member protection areas:** TechTarget has several implementations for its member protection areas requiring account registration to view some content. Don noted that Google might have viewed one of these changes negatively. The company is testing more changes to these areas to see if it impacts Google traffic.
(2) **Older content and site architecture:** TechTarget has produced a significant amount of content over the years. Like most large content sites, revisiting older content can sometimes lead to improvements in Google organic traffic. The company is making changes to how it serves and structures this content for Google.
(3) **Page speed:** Although not a major focus area, the company is also looking into page speed. Some testing tools impacted page load times, and changes are being made to these tools to enhance page speed.
Why we care. SEO and Google organic traffic are crucial for many companies, even publicly traded ones, to the point where changes and concerns are often disclosed in earnings reports. Ensuring a sound, healthy, and stable website that performs well in Google search is essential.
This is why there will be a session at SMX West next week on how to “Future-Proof Your Sites For Google Core Updates.”
