How does one tell if there's a problem with their website.

[dfms]

I have a site www.best-homes-and-rates.com for California 1st time home buyers. I have a sitemeter and a tracking system that tells me about my traffic. I was getting around 80 - 85 hits a week and growing. I got involved with link exchange and have not recovered since, that is 80+ hits/week to 2.
How do I know where to look for whatever problem I am having. If you review my site, just above "exact" there is a blue world, click on that to see what I mean.
Thks Dan -dfms-

[speakak]

I just visited your site 3 times with no problems.
Do's your web stat give you IPs of who visits?
How many links have you added sense the problem?
Did you have a free trial web-site watch that expired? They are counted when ever they check your site.
Get 5 friends to visit your site 5 times and hit all pages all on the same day and see if your web-stat is correct.
I have 3 web-stats and they give different counts.

[rlrouse]

You need to get some links in to your site. The Google Link: command only shows a couple of backlinks.

If you have already done some link exchanges, those links will show up eventually with the link command. Keep working for more. Links are like air: there will never come a time when getting more won't help you.

[cyanide]

The first thing you need to do, is find out where those hits were coming from.
If they came from google, then maybe you've fallen down the charts a bit and more SEO is needed.

If they came from other sites, maybe your link was taken down.

[janeth]

I think you said that after you exchanged links the problem happened.

When your sending out email to exchange links the hits will go up due to people looking at your site. When you stop the hits will slow down a lot.

I agree I would start by finding out where the first hits came from.

[rlrouse]

When your sending out email to exchange links the hits will go up due to people looking at your site. When you stop the hits will slow down a lot.

Excellent point. For a site with low traffic, sending out dozens of link exchange requests could indeed result in a temporary, yet significant burst of traffic.

[carolin.c22]

I think the site has no problem..except the banner in buttom

[Kloans]

Originally Posted by rlrouse

Excellent point. For a site with low traffic, sending out dozens of link exchange requests could indeed result in a temporary, yet significant burst of traffic.

Definitely true...Ive been monitoring my new site and when I was submitting to directories I was getting, like you, about 80 hits per day but those were only due to me submitting to directories. Now that I am not submitting as often I am getting between 10-20 hits per day now.