We run a number of websites here at [Nd]. One of our websites generates thousands of hits per month. Over the weekend, something ‘interesting’ happened. People stopped going to that website. They didn’t trickle off, or find something more interesting, they just stopped coming all together. Why would this happen? It has something to do with Google Search, Google Analytics, and Google Webmaster. After checking  all settings in Google Analytics and doing some research the problem seems to stem from the data supplied by Google Webmaster. The data indicates no search listing impressions are being made of the site. That would explain why no one is coming to the site.

Within days of the initial occurrence,  visitors to the site drastically reduced. The only error I found was the default site in Google Webmaster that was linked to Google Analytics was not the fully qualified domain name. Strange, I don’t remember setting it up like that. Mercilessly,  2 days after the flatline, data started populating automatically and people started to come to the site again, but only about half as many. In the meantime, I tried to call Google to no avail. Now 5 days later with no explanation as to what happened, the problem seems to be self correcting. Google, a little help with things of this nature would be nice…