Make sure that (1) the analytics code is still added to every page, as intended, and (2) that the traffic is indeed being recorded on every page. If using Google Analytics, go to the “realtime” report, and open the website in a new window so you can view both side-by-side. Click around on the site to be sure your visits are being recorded.
I’ve seen this kind of thing happen before, and it is usually because a new page template was created and was being used that did not include the Google Analytics JS code, and as a result, no traffic to those pages were recording traffic.
This can also happen if a new plugin was added (or an existing plugin was updated) that creates a JS conflict for some pages or area of the site, effectively not recording traffic for those pages with the conflict.
Thread Starter
Rich
(@mdbang)
Thanks for the tips. The thing is, it’s site-wide down to individual pages and not just the total of all traffic. Our most viewed page went from around 900 views in July to under 300 in August and has stayed there and I see consistent things like this on all pages I’ve looked at.
I’m using Jetpack to view the site stats so I suppose it’s possible that there’s a problem there with the way it’s reporting. I’m looking for other ways to dig into it more, but still can’t find a possible culprit.
Have sales/conversions/downloads/form submissions/engagement/anything else dropped by a similar factor? Also, looking at Jetpack analytics, are the keywords that are driving your traffic displaying your site as you’d expect in an incognito window/private browser? These data points would help determine if analytics are simply being underreported, or if traffic is really down.
Of course, if it’s an issue of analytics being underreported, it’s likely a code issue on your site or server — something blocking the analytics script from firing all the times and on all the pages it’s supposed to. Maybe additionally install Google Analytics, it can load in tandem with Jetpack analytics, and might help outline trends — both won’t be exactly the same, but it might help troubleshoot what analytics are missing, and from where, in Jetpack.
If it’s actually a traffic issue, take a look at the sources that typically drive traffic to see if there have been changes. Algorithm changes/organic search result placements, referral link changes and on-site content changes can all affect this.
Also take a look at your robots.txt to be sure you’re not all of a sudden blocking search engines from all or part of your site. Similarly be sure that the “Discourage search engines” checkbox is UNCHECKED at Settings > Reading. If that was accidentally checked, that will adversely affect search engine traffic.
Google Search Console can similarly help identify issues (and changes) in traffic.
