That topic has been discussed at length in the SEO community but recent events got me back to it. I have to tell this story and get it off my chest as I found myself both on the validation advocate side and the seo side.

So a few days ago I stumbled upon a huge traffic drop over the week-end, like half of the traffic was gone, gone. That evening, I checked all the possibilities on why the heck half of a site traffic would suddenly disappear; maybe some referrers? search position drop? email delivery? etc. to no clear signal. Everything was going the same direction: down. Continue reading →