After reading about Hubspot’s traffic drop in Ryan Law’s post, I spent last weekend studying traffic growth. Here are the key results:
Key Takeaways
- Traffic surged in August but declined with each update
- Large sites were hit the hardest – 77.78% faced declines
- SMBs performed better, with 80.95% gaining traffic
- Lower-content sites saw growth, while high-content sites experienced declines
- Product pages outperformed blogs in traffic growth
Study Overview
I have analysed traffic trends across 30 sampled SEO and marketing websites through four Google core updates in 2024-25
- Sampling – 30
- Category – SEO and Marketing
- Mix of small and large sites
- Total of 4 updates
Out of 30 sites analyzed, 19 sites (63.3%) gained traffic while 11 sites (36.7%) experienced drops.
Core Update Impact (Aug 2024 – Jan 2025)
- Aug 3, 2024: Most sites saw traffic growth.
- Sep 9, 2024, onwards: A declining trend began.
- Dec 9 & 22, 2024: The number of sites losing traffic increased with each update, indicating a progressive ranking shift.
Large vs. Small Sites
Large sites were heavily impacted, with 77.78% (7 out of 9) losing traffic post-September.
- Biggest drops: Semrush (-48.78%), Hubspot (-53.93%), Wordstream (-61.33%).
- Exceptions: Ahrefs & Moz gained traffic.
SMB sites performed better, with 80.95% (17 out of 21) gaining traffic.
Biggest gains: Backlinko, Stanventures, Seobility.
Top 10 Gainers and Losers
Top 10 Gainers
| Website | Traffic Gain (Percentage) |
|---|---|
| Ahrefs.com | 4.01M (79.94%) |
| Backlinko.com | 175,008 (19.12%) |
| Stanventures.com | 128,202 (634.57%) |
| Moz.com | 85,941 (9.61%) |
| Seobility.net | 73,482 (27.02%) |
| SERanking.com | 66,845 (20.70%) |
| Sitechecker.pro | 61,229 (21.37%) |
| SEOReviewTools.com | 58,652 (29.30%) |
| SEO.ai | 56,170 (46.11%) |
| SurferSEO.com | 45,628 (16.58%) |
Top 10 Loser
| Website | Traffic Loss (Percentage) |
| Semrush.com | 7.97M (-48.78%) |
| Hubspot.com | 6.34M (-53.93%) |
| Wordstream.com | 961,731 (-61.33%) |
| NeilPatel.com | 472,717 (-29.59%) |
| SearchEngineJournal.com | 83,799 (-20.91%) |
| TheHoth.com | 72,919 (-27.53%) |
| SearchEngineLand.com | 76,312 (-18.75%) |
| RankMath.com | 65,478 (-15.82%) |
| LinkAssistant.com | 59,201 (-22.43%) |
| Mangools.com | 54,632 (-19.87%) |
Content Impact Analysis
- High-content sites were affected more than medium or low-content sites, with a higher percentage of traffic drops.
- Medium and low-content sites showed better resilience.
Site-Specific Observations
- Ahrefs gained traffic (+79.94%), while Semrush lost nearly half (-48.78%).
- SERProbot saw growth despite minimal content.
- SearchVolume.io increased traffic with just 79 blog pages, but product pages saw the most growth.
- Seobility & SERanking showed higher growth in product pages than blog pages.
- Seobility:
- Blog/wiki pages: +18.61% (16,036 → 19,020).
- Product LP: +36.15% (241,098 → 328,253).
- SERanking:
- Blog pages: +31.60% (43,262 → 56,932).
- Product LP: +21.04% (275,772 → 333,787).
- Seobility:
Product-focused pages are experiencing significant traffic growth, while blogs continue to show moderate but steady gains
Key Takeaways
- Traffic surged in August for some but declined with each update
- Large sites faced significant traffic losses, while SMBs benefited.
- Large sites were hit the hardest 77.78% declines
- SMBs performed better, with 80.95% gaining traffic
- Product-focused pages outperformed blogs in traffic growth.
- Lower-content sites saw growth, while high-content sites experienced declines