Investigating Organic Traffic Drop for a Battery Distribution Company

The project involved a deep-dive analysis of an e-commerce platform specializing in battery distribution, which had experienced a prolonged decrease in search visibility and organic traffic. The investigation focused on identifying the root causes of a major drop that occurred in late 2020 and developing a recovery roadmap to restore the website’s rankings.

Traffic Drop Investigation

• Historical Analysis: A review of search console data confirmed that the website’s steady growth stopped abruptly in December 2020.
• Technical Health Check: The audit revealed that core pages remained functional and the CMS (WordPress) remained unchanged. However, a significant correlation was found between the traffic drop and a massive loss of historical backlinks.
• Backlink Erosion: Investigation showed that only a small fraction of the links present before the drop remained active, signaling a collapse of the site’s authority.

Backlink Profile Audit & Toxicity Report

The audit identified a highly unnatural backlink distribution that likely triggered a negative response from search engine algorithms:

• Host Concentration: A massive 83% of the total backlink volume originated from just 10 domains.
• Low-Quality Sources: The profile was dominated by low-authority “link farm” domains, such as coupon sites, generic directories, and low-quality blog mirrors.
• Forced Patterns: This skewed distribution (hundreds of links from a single domain) served as a strong signal to search engines of artificial link building and manipulation.

Strategic Recovery Recommendations

To reverse the decreasing trend, a multi-step recovery plan was developed:

• Domain Authority Boosting: A strategy was implemented to acquire high-quality, “dofollow” links from trusted, high-authority domains to upgrade the entire website’s reputation.
• Diversity-First Linking: The plan emphasized a natural link-building cadence, moving away from bulk acquisitions and focusing on a diverse range of referring domains.
• Link Sculpting: Recommendations included focusing authority-building efforts on the homepage to elevate the global ranking potential of the entire domain.