Forensic SEO Blog: evidence-led guides

Why did my website traffic drop? In most cases, for one of six reasons: a technical or indexing problem, a Google algorithm update, a security issue, a spam issue, seasonality or falling demand, or a site migration. A seventh cause is a tracking error that only looks like a drop. The fastest way to find yours is to read the shape of the drop in Google Search Console, then rule causes out in order, starting with the ones you can prove.

Forensic SEO is an evidence-led investigation into why a website lost, or never gained, organic search traffic. Instead of running a generic checklist, a forensic SEO consultant uses Google Search Console, server logs, crawl and rendering tests, analytics and change history to prove the root cause first, then fixes it in order of business impact. It answers “why did this happen?”, not just “what could be improved?”

“Discovered – currently not indexed” means Google knows a URL exists but has not crawled it yet. Google’s Page indexing report explains that this usually happens when crawling was expected to overload the site, so the crawl was rescheduled. On small and new sites it more often reflects low crawl priority: weak internal links, an unreliable or slow server, or sitewide quality signals. Fix the cause, request indexing once, and give Google time.