Update: I’ve reverted to the old design just to see if visitor count goes back up. This will be up for a couple of days. Process of elimination going on here. Just so I don’t tear out all my hair in frustration.
Something’s terribly wrong with the new Beautyholics Anonymous. Ever since I updated the design to this blog (on June 1), my visitor count has dropped drastically. No bragging or conceit intended, but I’ve lost an average of 900 visitors a day ever since the launch.
See what I mean?
My first approach to fixing the problem was to check the statistics tracking code. There are three methods used to track visitors on my blog – Google Analytics, Statcounter and WordPress.com’s own tracking stats. All seemed to be in order. I have the blog subscribed to my own Google Reader, and I have been getting the updates as posted. Despite the Feedburner subscriber count, I’m still not getting the average readership number. I’m running out of options here.
Dear readers, I really need your help.
1. If you’re subscribed to my feed via an RSS reader (e.g. Google Reader) and/or via email, please let me know if you’ve been receiving any updates to my blog. I know that posts have been rather sporadic, but there are a few more articles posted after the blog redesign.
2. The only changes I’ve made to the blog, other than the physical ones, are the addition of the LinkWithin widget and threaded commenting plugin. I’ve noted that a lot of you bloggers out there also use the LinkWithin widget. If you’ve encountered any problems with that on your blogs, please let me know.
3. For readers who are subscribed to my feed via Google Friend Connect (or something of the sort), and have my feed on your blog sidebar, please let me know what the last post update is.
As a temporary solution, and part of a process of problem elimination on my part, please delete the current feed and resubscribe.
http://feeds.feedburner.com/BeautyholicsAnonymous
If you have any ideas on what’s going on, what I can do to fix this problem (by the way, it’s not due to the lack of posts, even though they have been sporadic of late. Lack of posts would result in a gradual decline of readership, not a drastic drop in a day), I highly appreciate your help and advice.
Many thanks in advance!
Tine, I’m receiving your updates. It’s working fine. Has your traffic gone to zero or is it a loss in numbers? Did you find out if the loss is organic traffic ie those from search engines? If so, run a search on the search engine and see if your posts are still being indexed.
Otherwise, just re-installed your traffic monitoring scripts again. They could have gone wonky after the update.
Okay, another possibility that I just remember could be where you place your traffic stats code. It happened to me once but I forgot the details. You should place it where it can track every page – like footer or sidebar – maybe your new template works differently from your old.
@Sesame: It’s a significant loss in numbers, but not zero. The blog and posts are still being indexed in Google. As for the traffic stat codes, I used Wordpress plugins for those. The code would be automatically installed into the footer without me having to make any changes. Did you use plugins for those, or manually inserted the code?
Anyway, it sounds like a good idea. I shall reinstall all those plugins and see if they work. Thanks!
I have been receiving your email updates so no problem there. But what a disaster. I hope you get it fixed soon.
Oh no, maybe the code wasn’t inputted correctly? It’s just impossible! I can still open your site with the new layout without much problems! 🙂 Oh well, I hope the numbers go up again!!! I am sorry I won’t be able to help I have ZERO knowledge on stuffs like these!
Hi Tine,
Just to let you know that I’ve not been receiving any updates from you via email at all. Not too sure why but that could be the reason?
I’ve been getting your posts successfully on my Google Reader.
Subscribed on Google Reader and receiving you loud and clear. My phone wouldn’t load your site due to javascript (but it loads mine with the same scripts so thats odd). Another thing might be what Sesame said – where the codes are placed and if there is a slow down of loading of the site then perhaps people are still coming in, just that they aren’t waiting for the footer to load so stats are lost. Hope you catch this bug soon!
Man so sorry to hear this! I’m getting your newsletters okay by the way, no problems so far.
Hi. I’m receiving your posts by email like normal. No problem there.
I’m receiveing your posts by email fine. I agree with Sesame and Paris, it may be a problem with the codes and where they are placed. I would check the plugins you use work fine and maybe adding the codes manually if they don’t work. I hope you fix the problem soon.
yup im receiving ur post updates no problemo on me side and u changed back ur layout!
both also i like ^^
xoxo elle
You use a wordpress plugin? Hmm…not sure about that one cos never tried. If you’re still keen to test, try manual insert instead. Your plugin could be incompatible with your new template.
I read from Google Reader and haven’t had any problems getting your posts. I used to use the Wordpress.com stats plugin but stopped when it just stopped counting the visits when I would change themes. I also used to use Statcounter but also stopped.
What I use now for my Wordpress blog is Statpress. I just installed the plugin and enabled it and never had a problem since!