Baidu publishes a structured procedure for investigating traffic drops, which is more useful than the general advice most engines offer.
The order
- Confirm the drop is real: check tracking before checking the site.
- Check site availability and crawl exceptions for the period.
- Check index volume for a corresponding fall.
- Check whether an algorithm announcement matches the date.
- Only then examine content and links.
Why order matters
Most investigations that start with content are investigating the wrong thing.
Alien Road
How we apply this
We follow this sequence for Baidu and an equivalent one for Google. Ruling out tracking and availability first has repeatedly saved clients from rewriting content that was never the cause.
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