Sitemap Question/Warning

[APOS Recruitment]

Dear All,

A quick question if I may...I've noticed that my site visitor stats have dropped by 80% over the weekend and today compared to last week.
I went in to Wordpress and the following Alert was there......

Warning!
The Google XML Sitemaps plugin(s) might cause issues when used in conjunction with Yoast SEO.

Both Yoast SEO and Google XML Sitemaps can create XML sitemaps. Having two XML sitemaps is not beneficial for search engines, yet might slow down your site.

Recommended solution
We recommend you deactivate Google XML Sitemaps and have another look at your Yoast SEO configuration using the button above.

This warning is generated by Yoast SEO.


Has anyone else had this? Is the above solution what you would do -i.e. follow the Yoast SEO advice. (with my cynical hat on I'm doubtful) ?

Thanks for any advice.
All the best
Rob

 

[fisicx]

Bin the sitemap. Google has already indexed the site and new posts get pinged anyway so you don't need it.

However...

Visitor number are not linked to the sitemap. Visitor numbers really are down by 80% if that's what your stats are telling you. Now is the time to really dig into those stats and see where you 80% have gone. Your starting point will be entrances, compare the last few weeks and see if there are any patterns or obvious differences.

 

[makeusvisible]

As per fisicx's comment, it sounds like the sitemap message could be a red herring.

An 80% drop is significant, especially if your traffic is in the thousands per month.

My first step would be to dig into Analytics as follows;

1. Which types of traffic have dropped? Is it organic? Or could it be referral....eg an advert which has come to end or been removed. If the traffic which has dropped is organic, then proceed to 2.

2. Did you have a diverse set of keywords which was driving traffic to your site? If so which ones have suddenly dropped. Could it be for example you had a high volume keyword which has dropped to page 2? If this doesnt help...proceed to 3.

3. Check webmaster tools. Assuming you have created a webmaster tools account, this will alert you if there is any penalty been placed on the site, or any technical issue Google has flagged (malware for example).


Hope that helps.

 

[Codefixer]

Hi,

As MakeUsAWebsite suggests you really need to dig deep into your Analytics, segment your data and determine what traffic source has dropped.

In Google Analytics go to Reporting > Acquisition > All Traffic > Source/Medium

Then click into the Source/Medium results and identify which one has suddenly dropped.

Once you know what traffic source has been affected, then you can look at what may have caused it.

When doing comparisons make sure you look at a fairly decent timeframe, rather than judging a couple of days this week compared to last week. Anything from a sunny couple of days could have a major effect on a sites traffic.

 

[fisicx]

Maybe I'm missing something but they don't appear to have any analytics installed...

 

[Codefixer]

ah ok well spotted, I haven't looked at the source code. They can look at whatever package they are using to monitor stats.

 

[APOS Recruitment]

Thank you all for the replies. I'll bin the sitemap.
And yes we did have some kind of promotion on recently via Twitter. Must engage brain more or look at invoices/e-mails for when these promotions end.

Thanks again.

 

[eesltd]

Why you guys are so crazy about all these sitemaps, plugins etc... Just make sure that your website is 100% crawlable, and there is no need to take any further actions.