- Every day, for every website, MrKeyword compares the last 7 days of Search Console clicks with the weekly average of the 4 weeks before.
- A fall of 30% or more, from a usual week of at least 50 clicks, sends an email to the workspace owners and a message to Slack if you connect it.
- Each alert names any Google ranking update that overlaps the week and the three pages that lost the most clicks.
- Google's ranking updates are imported twice a day from Google's own Search Status Dashboard and shown under the dashboard's trend chart.
- At most one alert a week per website. It runs on every plan, including Free.
What a traffic drop alert is
A traffic drop alert tells you, without opening any report, that a website is getting clearly fewer clicks from Google than it normally does. MrKeyword's version watches the clicks Google Search Console reports for your site and sends one message when a week falls well below the usual level, with the two facts you need first: whether Google was rolling out a ranking update at the time, and which pages lost the clicks.
Most traffic drops are noticed late, when someone happens to open Search Console or a monthly report. By then a broken template, a stray noindex or a core update has had weeks to cost you visits. A daily check against your own normal week shortens that gap to a few days, limited mainly by Search Console's own reporting delay.
How MrKeyword detects a drop
The check uses only your own Search Console data. There is no industry benchmark and no estimate.
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Take the newest 7 days
Each time Search Console delivers a new day of data for a website, MrKeyword adds up the clicks for the latest 7 days that have data.
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Compare them with a usual week
It adds up the clicks for the 28 days before those 7 and divides by 4. That is the website's usual week. A check needs 35 days of daily data, so a newly connected website starts being checked after about five weeks.
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Decide whether it is a drop
A drop is a week at least 30% below the usual week, when the usual week is at least 50 clicks. Below 50 clicks a week, small sites swing too much from week to week for an alert to mean anything.
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Add the context and send one message
MrKeyword looks up any Google ranking update that overlaps the week, or ended in the 7 days before it, and the pages that lost most against their own usual week. It then emails the workspace owners and posts to Slack if connected. If the slide carries on for several days, you still get one alert that week, not seven.
What an alert contains
| Part of the alert | What it shows | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Clicks this week | Search clicks in the 7 days to the newest Search Console date | Your Search Console daily totals |
| Usual week | Average weekly clicks over the 4 weeks before | The same daily totals |
| Drop | The fall as a percentage of the usual week | Calculated from the two figures above |
| Google update | The ranking update that overlaps the week, if any | Google's Search Status Dashboard |
| Biggest losses | Up to 3 pages, each with its usual weekly clicks and this week's | Your Search Console page data |
| Next step | Content first if an update overlaps; technical checks first if none does | A fixed rule, not a guess about your site |
How the Google update tracker works
MrKeyword reads Google's own list of ranking updates twice a day, from the public feed behind the Google Search Status Dashboard. It keeps every incident Google files under Ranking, such as core updates and spam updates, with its start date, its end date (or “rolling out” while it has none) and a link to Google's incident page. Serving and indexing outages are left out, because they are not ranking updates.
The list is used in two places:
- On the dashboard. Under the 28-day trend chart, MrKeyword lists the updates whose rollout overlaps the chart's days, each linking to Google's page, so you can read a dip against them.
- In each alert. The alert names the update that overlaps the drop week or ended in the week before it, because ranking effects can show after a rollout finishes.
Nothing on the list is typed in by hand or taken from a third-party “volatility” tracker. If Google has not posted it on the dashboard, MrKeyword does not show it.
How to read an alert
An overlap is a clue, not proof. A drop that starts in the same week as a core update may have another cause, and Google's own guide to debugging traffic drops lists technical issues, security issues, spam actions, algorithmic updates and changes in what people search for as the main causes. The alert points you to the likeliest first check:
| What the alert says | Check first |
|---|---|
| Update overlaps | The pages that lost most. Compare them with the pages that now rank for their queries, and improve the content. Google's core updates guide explains what it recommends. |
| No update overlaps | Technical causes: a broken page or template, a robots.txt or noindex change, a redirect, or a migration. A site audit finds most of these. |
| One page lost almost everything | That page itself: is it still live, indexable and the same page it was? |
Search Console runs 2–3 days behind. The newest days in a check can still grow a little as Google finishes its counts, so the alert says which 7 days it compared. Our guide why did my website traffic drop? walks through every cause in order.
Turn on drop alerts freeConnect Search Console and alerts are switched on by default, on the Free plan too.
Start freeEmail and Slack
Alerts go by email to every owner of the workspace, and are on by default. The This Week page shows the newest comparison for the selected website, up or down, and has a Traffic alerts card where owners and admins can:
- turn the email alerts off or back on for the workspace;
- connect Slack by pasting a Slack incoming webhook address (it starts with
https://hooks.slack.com/services/), send a test message, replace it or disconnect it.
The Slack message is one line: the website, its clicks for the 7 days, the percentage below its usual week, the overlapping Google update if there is one, and a link back to MrKeyword. Other team members can see whether alerts are on, but cannot change them.
What MrKeyword does not do
- It does not tell you the cause. It shows which update overlaps and which pages lost clicks; deciding why is still your call.
- It does not alert on small websites. A usual week under 50 clicks is not checked for drops, and a website needs 35 days of data first.
- It does not watch Bing, Google Analytics or keyword positions for these alerts. The check uses Google Search Console clicks only. Position changes are in rank tracking.
- It does not alert in real time. Search Console data arrives 2–3 days late, so the earliest alert is a few days after the drop starts.
- It does not track unconfirmed updates or “SERP volatility” scores. Only updates Google itself posts are listed.
- It does not send alerts for traffic going up, and it sends at most one alert a week per website.
Traffic alerts in each plan
Drop alerts and the Google update timeline are not metered. They run for every connected website on every plan; the plan sets how many websites you can connect.
| Plan | Price | Websites watched |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 1 |
| Starter | $10/month | 1 |
| Growth | $19/month | 3 |
| Agency | $49/month | 10 |
See pricing for every limit.
Questions and answers
Traffic drop alerts questions
How does MrKeyword decide traffic has dropped?
It compares the last 7 days of Google Search Console clicks with the weekly average of the 28 days before them. A fall of 30% or more, from a usual week of at least 50 clicks, counts as a drop.
Where does the list of Google algorithm updates come from?
From Google's Search Status Dashboard. MrKeyword imports every incident Google files under Ranking twice a day, with its dates and a link to Google's own page. Nothing is added by hand.
Does an overlapping Google update mean the update caused my drop?
No. It means the drop and the rollout happened at the same time. Check the pages that lost most against the pages that now rank, and rule out technical causes such as a noindex, robots.txt or redirect change.
Can I get traffic drop alerts in Slack?
Yes. An owner or admin pastes a Slack incoming webhook address on the This Week page, can send a test message, and from then on each alert is also posted to that channel.
Why did I not get an alert for my small site?
Alerts need a usual week of at least 50 clicks and 35 days of Search Console data. Below that, normal week-to-week swings would trigger false alarms.
Is it included in the Free plan?
Yes. Drop alerts and the Google update timeline run for every connected website on every plan, including Free.
Sources
- Google Search Status Dashboard: Ranking history — Google's list of ranking updates with their dates, the feed MrKeyword imports
- About the Google Search Status Dashboard — Google Search Central, on what the dashboard reports
- Debugging drops in Google Search traffic — Google Search Central, on the main causes of a traffic drop
- Google Search's core updates — Google Search Central, on what to do after a core update
