Sites that crashed in early September are bouncing back
A number of sites whose Google traffic flatlined around September 4 have surged back, some fully, and nobody knows why yet. Plus: ChatGPT may be citing Reddit less, and a free way to score your AI visibility.
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Sites that lost Google traffic in early September are bouncing back
One SEO reports that a number of sites whose Google traffic flatlined around September 4 have surged back, some fully, including sites on health and money topics and sites focused on sports. The drops hit Google Search and, for some sites, Discover (the news feed in the Google app); he says they were real, based on site owners who contacted him after getting hammered, and a second SEO says her sites show a huge rebound but not a complete recovery. Nobody knows what caused the drops or the return yet.
A number of the sites that fell off a cliff around 9/4 completely surged back yesterday. They dropped heavily in Search and some in Discover as well.
These were insane drops, though. I mean, flatlining. Now completely surging back for some.
yes! Seeing the same...not a complete recovery but a huge rebound.
Who this affects: Anyone whose Google traffic dropped sharply in the first week of September.
- Our take: open Search Console (Google's free traffic report), click Performance, set the date range to early September and compare it with the two weeks before. Look for a sharp drop and a sharp return.
- Our take: if you saw a drop, do not delete or rewrite pages in reaction yet. A number of sites recovered on their own.
Quick hits
ChatGPT may be citing Reddit and YouTube less, LinkedIn more
One SEO ran checks in Semrush (a paid SEO data tool) and found the newest ChatGPT models cite Reddit and YouTube less and LinkedIn more, with the shift hitting consumer topics harder than business ones. She flagged that the timeframes in the data look off, so treat it as an early signal, not a settled fact.
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A free step by step guide has you ask the three big AI engines the questions your customers ask before they buy, score how visible you are in each answer from 0 to 3, and turn that into one number out of 100. Repeat it next month to see whether the number moves.