Healthy drop

How it shows up in RankUpside

The Healthy drop finding is a good-news item under Worth knowing. It fires when a page with at least 200 impressions before loses 40% or more of them, while its buyer clicks stay at 90% or more of the prior four weeks.

The headline reads "Fewer impressions on [page name], but buyer clicks held". The detail adds that the searches that dropped weren't sending buyers, and the fix reads "Nothing to fix."

Why it happens

Google shows a page for many searches it only loosely matches, such as a broad question a service page happens to mention. When Google narrows what the page is shown for, after an update or after the page is rewritten to focus on its service, those loose matches fall away.

Those searches made up a lot of impressions and almost no clicks. Losing them shrinks the impressions chart while the searches that bring customers keep their clicks. It often comes with a better click-through rate, because the page now shows mostly to people who want it.

How to explain it to a client

"Impressions fell on searches that weren't sending customers, such as loosely related questions. Clicks from people looking to hire held steady, so the traffic that matters is intact. No action needed; we'll keep watching buyer clicks."

How to check it yourself

1. In Search Console, compare the two periods for the page.
2. Open the Queries tab and sort by the change in impressions.
3. The searches that lost impressions should be off-topic or informational. If buyer searches lost clicks too, it isn't healthy.

Common mistakes

• Reacting to an impressions chart alone.
• Restoring off-topic content to win back impressions that never sent customers.

Related term: Impressions

Impressions measure reach, not interest, which is why a fall in them can be harmless.