SEO Forensics · USA & UK
Sudden traffic drop, core update hit, or a migration that went wrong? A forensic SEO audit uses server logs, crawl data and your own Search Console evidence to prove the root cause, then gives you a fix plan ranked by revenue impact. From $999 · 2–4 weeks · Led personally by Raihan.
Featured in Google Search Central Office Hours · 4.9★ from 69 reviews · 12+ years · Calls in US & UK hours
Definition
A forensic SEO audit is an evidence-based investigation into why a website lost, or stopped gaining, organic traffic and revenue. Instead of running a generic checklist, forensic SEO reconstructs what happened: when the drop started, which pages, queries and templates were affected, what changed on the site, and which Google updates landed at the same time. Each possible cause is tested against the data until the real one is proven.
The result is not a long list of “issues”. It is a clear root-cause finding and a prioritized recovery plan your team can act on.
Every audit is led personally by forensic SEO consultant Md Raihan Islam, with 12+ years of technical SEO investigation behind it.
When you need one
Most clients come to me after something broke and nobody could explain why. If any of these sound familiar, a forensic SEO analysis is the right starting point.
Clicks fell sharply over days or weeks, and nothing obvious changed.
Rankings moved right after a Google core, spam or helpful content update.
A new platform, domain, URL structure or theme, and traffic never came back.
Important pages are no longer indexed, or Google picks the wrong canonical.
Tools show green scores and agencies send reports, but growth is still stuck.
A manual action, negative SEO, hacked pages or spam links you cannot explain.
The difference
What’s included
Every audit is scoped to your problem, but these are the areas I check to find the cause.
Exactly when traffic changed, overlaid on site releases and Google updates.
Which queries, pages, templates and countries lost clicks and impressions.
What Googlebot actually crawls, how often, and what it ignores. Part of my technical SEO consulting toolkit.
Index bloat, canonicals, noindex, robots rules and orphaned pages.
Whether Google can see the content and links your users see.
Redirect chains, lost URLs and broken mappings after a move.
Quality signals, thin pages and pages competing for the same query.
Manual actions, toxic link patterns, hacked pages and spam.
How it works
Evidence first, then action. Here is what happens from the first call to the final walkthrough.
We define the incident: what dropped, when, and what changed. Week 1.
Read-only access to Search Console, GA4, and server logs where available. NDA on request.
Timeline, hypotheses and testing against the evidence. Weeks 1–3.
The proven cause, ranked fixes and developer-ready tickets. Weeks 2–4.
A 90-minute call with your team to agree what gets fixed first.
What you receive
Investment
From $999
For most small and mid-sized sites. Large ecommerce, enterprise and multi-language sites are usually quoted at $1,500–$10,000+ depending on size and data access.
You get a fixed quote after a free 30-minute call, before any work begins. If the fix turns out to be small enough for your own team, I will tell you on that call.
Case studies
Two engagements where the cause was hidden behind “healthy” audit scores. Every number comes from a completed engagement.
SEO Recovery
revenue growth in the first 30 days
complete SEO roadmap
Ecommerce & Technical SEO
keywords ranked Nov 2022 → Apr 2023
technical health score
Technical health 69% → 92%, keywords nearly tripled
Start the conversation
Tell me what dropped and when. On a free 30-minute call I will tell you whether an audit is the right next step, and give you a fixed quote.
If your SEO problem is difficult, if others have already tried, that is usually where my work starts. Send me your URL and tell me what is not working. I will identify the real problem and tell you exactly how to fix it. Clearly and honestly.
Forensic SEO, sometimes called SEO forensics, is the practice of investigating search performance problems the way an investigator works a case: establish the timeline, collect evidence from logs, crawls and Search Console, test each possible cause, and prove the one that explains the data. It is used when a standard audit cannot explain a drop.
A regular SEO audit lists everything a tool can find on your site today. A forensic SEO audit starts from a specific problem, such as a traffic drop, and works backwards to prove what caused it. You get one clear root cause and a ranked recovery plan instead of hundreds of equally weighted warnings.
My forensic SEO audits start at $2,500 for most small and mid-sized sites. Large ecommerce, enterprise or multi-language sites are usually $5,000–$10,000+, depending on size and the data available. You get a fixed quote after a free 30-minute call.
Most audits take 2–4 weeks from data access to the final walkthrough. Urgent incidents, such as an active traffic collapse, can be prioritized.
Yes. That is the core of the work. I line up your traffic data against your own release history and the dates of confirmed Google updates, then test which explanation the evidence actually supports. Often it is a combination, and the report shows how much each factor contributed.
Read-only access to Google Search Console and GA4 is enough to start. Server or CDN log files make the analysis much stronger when available. I sign NDAs before receiving any data.
Every finding comes with developer-ready tickets your team can ship. If you want hands-on help, the audit can continue into an SEO recovery project or a monthly retainer.
Then I will tell you. Sometimes the cause is tracking, seasonality, pricing or paid media rather than search. Knowing that early saves you months of spending on the wrong fix.
