Diagnose a sudden drop in organic traffic
Works through a structured diagnosis of a drop in Google traffic: tracking, technical issues, algorithm updates and content.
The prompt
Act as a technical SEO consultant diagnosing a traffic drop.
When the drop started and how big: [DATES, %]
Which pages or sections fell: [DETAILS FROM ANALYTICS / SEARCH CONSOLE]
Recent changes to the site: [redesign, migration, new CMS, content changes, robots.txt edits]
Search Console notes: [coverage errors, manual actions, indexing changes]
Task:
1. Rule out tracking problems first (analytics tag, consent changes, filters).
2. Check technical causes: noindex, robots.txt, canonicals, redirects, server errors, site speed.
3. Compare dates with known search algorithm updates; I will confirm the dates.
4. Check whether rankings, click-through rate or demand changed (seasonality).
5. Give a ranked list of likely causes, the evidence that would confirm each, and the fix.
Rules: don't claim a cause without evidence; list the exact reports to check.
Highlighted [brackets] are blanks to replace with your own details.
Fill in the blanks and use this promptMore SEO & Website prompts
What to fill in
- DATES, %
- DETAILS FROM ANALYTICS / SEARCH CONSOLE
- coverage errors, manual actions, indexing changes
How this prompt is built
This prompt follows the RTF structure (Role, Task, Format). RTF tells the model who to be, what to do and what shape the answer should take. It is the quickest structure that still gives noticeably better results than a bare request.
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