Why did my website traffic drop?

First, is it real?

Rule these out before investigating anything else.

• • Tracking broke. A site redeploy that drops the analytics script produces a perfect cliff to near zero. If the drop is a cliff rather than a slope, check the script is still on the page.
• • You are comparing against an unusual period — a campaign, a press mention, a seasonal peak. Compare to the same period last year rather than to last month.
• • Filtering changed. Excluding your own traffic or bot filtering being enabled both reduce reported numbers without changing reality.
• • The season. Most local businesses have one, and it is easy to mistake for a problem.

Narrowing a genuine drop

Split by channel first. A drop only in search points somewhere completely different from a drop across every channel at once.

• • Search only — a ranking change, an indexing problem, or a Google update.
• • Every channel at once — more likely tracking, or something wrong with the site itself.
• • One page only — that page lost its ranking, was changed, or broke.
• • Direct only — often a measurement change rather than a real one.

If it is search

Search Console shows impressions and clicks separately, which is the distinction that matters. Impressions holding steady while clicks fall means you still rank but people stopped choosing your result — usually a title, description or a competitor's richer result.

Impressions falling means you lost ranking or visibility. That is a different problem and a slower fix.

What not to do

Resist changing several things at once. A drop is frightening and the urge is to rewrite everything, but then nothing can be attributed and you will not know what worked.

Change one thing, and give it a few weeks. Search moves slowly in both directions.