What's happened to American traffic??

[cots]

I wonder if anyone else has noticed this problem?

We are based in Europe but our sites are hosted in the USA. This year we have seen a major drop off in traffic and sign ups from the USA and I mean major! America used to make up 65-75% of our traffic and sign ups. Now it's less than 30%. Our overnight sales from the USA have become virtually non existent whereas before, I used to be excited about getting back to work in the morning to see overnight sales!

I know we are not alone in this as other webmaster pals are experiencing exactly the same. I asked our hosting company if they had any ideas and they didn't. They could only blame the recession.

That doesn't work for me. The recession in Europe is just as bad, and not only that, but why would traffic fall so dramatically. Yes I can see the recession causing sign ups to slow down - but not traffic.

I have even seen exactly the same pattern at my TGP/Showcase sites. Surely if things were tight financially free site/pics would be even more popular, but not so.

It's almost as if someone is hijacking our US traffic!!!

So has anyone else spotted this and/or have any ideas why it is happening?

[NylonMichelle]

signups a little bit slow and I can see a general drop of traffic, but nothing significant.... wired story and sorry, no idea what is going on...

[somona]

Oh Cots !

Here in North America, the recession is really a big problem....
Many persons lost their jobs recently in some industry part we couldn't think, ( I think to some great car manufacturers ( GM, Chrysler ...) and some aeronotics industries ....many lost their jobs, they also lost their houses, and of course, have to pay all their credits ...
In those cases, you can think how far we can be in their consommmations priorities....
I saw many websites decided to simply slow their updates, or do better prices, or simply stop, but, we all do this for a part of pleasure, and we have some great ressources to keep a great work . The recession will not be eternal.

[The Heron]

tubes maybe. but sounds like you might have a connectivity issue if it happened very suddenly...

[jscott]

yesterday i made 25% of my normal gross income :(

[NylonMichelle]

my numbers are slowly coming back to levels pre Sept 08 for my member site, but clips4sale, with at least 80% US traffic, is still down 50%...

Anyhow, yesterday I had the best day in the lats 12 months...