---
title: Site Performance Crisis — Asymmetric Applications (2025-12-12)
type: article
created: '2025-12-12'
updated: '2025-12-12'
source_docs:
- raw/2025-12-12-weekly-call-w-108479355.md
tags:
- seo
- server-health
- asymmetric-applications
- traffic-drop
- 400-errors
- indexing
- priority
layer: 2
client_source: Asymmetric Marketing
industry_context: b2b-services
transferable: false
---

# Site Performance Crisis — Asymmetric Applications (2025-12-12)

## Overview

During the [[wiki/meetings/2025-12-12-weekly-call|2025-12-12 weekly ops call]], Mark and Karly identified a significant and ongoing traffic decline on the Asymmetric Applications company website. The issue was flagged as **top priority** for immediate investigation.

The problem has two compounding signals: a sharp drop in Google Search impressions and a massive volume of server-side 400 errors, both suggesting a structural problem with site indexing or URL routing.

---

## Symptoms

| Signal | Detail |
|---|---|
| **Traffic drop** | Impressions down ~25% over the last 30 days |
| **Peak comparison** | Previously receiving ~9,000 impressions/day; now near zero |
| **400 errors** | 86,000 "page not found" errors in server logs |
| **De-indexed pages** | Multiple pages visible in Search Console as de-indexed (primarily blog posts) |

> *"Back in here, we were getting 9,000 impressions a day. Right now, we're getting nothing."*
> — Mark Hope

---

## Suspected Causes

- **Broken URLs / missing redirects:** The volume of 400 errors strongly suggests pages that were previously indexed by Google are no longer resolving — likely due to URL structure changes, deleted content, or a failed migration step.
- **Google de-indexing:** Some pages have been explicitly de-indexed in Search Console, though these appear to be lower-quality blog posts rather than core service pages.
- **Server instability as a contributing factor:** The site shares a server with ~60 other client sites. Bot traffic on the [[wiki/clients/current/village-of-maple-bluff/_index|Village of Maple Bluff]] site was causing server-wide 500 errors and bandwidth spikes around the same period, which may have contributed to crawl failures. See [[wiki/ops/server-health/2025-12-12-bandwidth-spike|Server Bandwidth Spike — December 2025]].

---

## Investigation Priorities

1. **Audit 400 errors** — Pull the full list of URLs returning 404/400 from server logs and cross-reference against previously indexed URLs in Google Search Console.
2. **Check redirect coverage** — Identify any URLs that were changed or removed without corresponding 301 redirects.
3. **Search Console review** — Examine the Coverage and Pages reports for patterns in de-indexed or excluded URLs.
4. **Crawl the site** — Run a fresh crawl to identify broken internal links and orphaned pages.
5. **Correlate timeline** — Determine whether the traffic drop aligns with a deployment, plugin update, or the server bandwidth events.

---

## Action Items

- [ ] **Mark Hope** — Investigate 400 errors and traffic drop; identify and fix broken URLs, missing redirects, and indexing issues
- [ ] **Karly Oykhman** — Review Search Console alongside Mark; assist with identifying affected pages

---

## Related

- [[wiki/meetings/2025-12-12-weekly-call|Weekly Call — 2025-12-12 (Mark Hope & Karly Oykhman)]]
- [[wiki/ops/server-health/2025-12-12-bandwidth-spike|Server Bandwidth Spike — Village of Maple Bluff (2025-12-12)]]
- [[wiki/clients/current/asymmetric/_index|Asymmetric Applications — Client Overview]]