Hi Expert
We have been having the ads running for months and our website sessions picked up to hundreds and thousands. I forgot to top up the payment card which caused the ads stopped for 2 days. then the Sessions just dropped to less than 10. could this be the google or if SEO destruction can cause the same problem? Is there anyway I can find out? Appreciated.
Amsterdam Art
So what you’re describing is actually totally normal and not really a problem with your SEO at all. It sounds like your traffic was heavily dependent on paid ads, and when those ads stopped running for two days, your traffic dropped to almost nothing. That’s not SEO destruction - that’s just showing you how much of your traffic was coming from ads versus organic sources.
Here’s what likely happened. When your ads were running, you were getting hundreds or thousands of sessions from people clicking on your Google Ads or Facebook Ads. The moment those ads stopped because of the payment issue, that paid traffic disappeared immediately. What you’re left with now is just your organic traffic, which is apparently only around 10 sessions. That tells you that your SEO hasn’t been bringing in much traffic - you were relying almost entirely on paid advertising.
To figure out exactly what’s going on, go into your Google Analytics and look at your traffic sources. Check the Acquisition report and see where your traffic was coming from before the ads stopped versus after. You’ll probably see that paid search or paid social was driving almost all your sessions, and organic search was minimal. This will confirm what I’m saying.
Thanks for your guaidance Rutvik. I totally understand how poor our SEO performance has been after 6 months of work on it. I am still keen to understand that the paid ads (pmax shopping) seems take time to pick up momentum as well. the budget almost doubled but still very low session after 4 days. Appreciated if you could again shine some light on it.
Hi !
Your website sessions dropped sharply because your paid ads stopped for 2 days due to a payment issue, not because of SEO problems. Pausing ads instantly removes paid visitors, while SEO issues usually cause a slower decline in organic traffic. Check analytics to see if organic sessions are stable, which confirms the drop is from the ads stopping, not SEO destruction.
Hi @AmsterdamArt2025! This kind of drop is almost certainly caused by your ads stopping, not by any SEO issue. When Google Ads pause for even a day or two, the paid traffic usually goes straight to zero, which explains why your sessions fell from hundreds or thousands down to under ten. SEO doesn’t collapse overnight, if there was an organic problem, you’d see a slow decline, not an immediate crash. You can confirm this by checking your Google Analytics acquisition report: if paid traffic dropped while organic stayed the same, then it’s purely an ads interruption. Once you restart your campaigns, Google may need a short learning period, but your traffic should recover. 
Hi Amsterdam,
Thanks for reaching out. A sudden drop in website sessions right after your ads stopped is almost always caused by the ads being paused not by Google penalizing the site or any sudden SEO issue.
If most of your traffic was coming from paid campaigns, turning the ads off (even for a couple of days) can cause sessions to fall sharply. SEO-related drops usually happen gradually over time, not overnight.
You can confirm this by checking Google Analytics or your ad platform to see the breakdown of traffic sources. If Paid Search/Ads traffic went to zero while other channels stayed the same, that confirms the cause.
Once your ads resume, traffic should recover though it may take 1–3 days for the algorithm to re-optimize.
Let me know if you need help checking the analytics or restoring performance.
Best,
ajibtech
Yes AmsterdamArt2025, your SEO performance has been low, and that’s mainly because the previous optimization wasn’t done properly. But don’t worry now that we’re correcting things the right way, you’ll gradually start seeing improvements.
Regarding the paid ads (PMax Shopping), it’s normal for them to take some time before gaining momentum. Google’s algorithm needs a bit of time to learn about your products, audience, and conversions. Even if the budget is increased, the first few days are usually slow because the system is still in the learning phase.
Typically, Performance Max campaigns can take 7–14 days to stabilize and start delivering steady results. During this time, Google is testing different placements, audiences, and bidding patterns.
Just give it a little more time these slow early results are expected. Once the learning phase is complete, you should see stronger sessions and more consistent performance.
When your payment card ran out and Google Ads stopped for two days, that alone can cause your website sessions to drop from hundreds or thousands down to almost nothing. This is completely normal , if most of your traffic comes from paid ads, the moment ads stop, sessions collapse instantly. SEO cannot drop that fast; organic traffic usually declines slowly over weeks or months, not in 48 hours.
You can confirm this by checking GA4 and Google Ads: if paid traffic went to zero but your organic traffic stayed the same, then everything is fine and the drop was only because ads paused. Once you restart the ads and Google finishes re-learning your campaign, your traffic should return within a day or two.
Hi ,
No, pausing Google Ads does not directly hurt your organic SEO rankings. Google keeps paid and organic algorithms completely separate.
What you are seeing is likely the “hard truth” about your traffic sources. It sounds like your store was almost 100% dependent on Paid Traffic. When you turned off the “faucet” (Ads), the water stopped because there was no “Organic” foundation underneath to catch it.
How to verify this:
Go to your Shopify Analytics or Google Analytics 4 (GA4) → Look at User Acquisition.
I suspect you will see that “Organic Search” has always been very low, even when Ads were running.
Strategic Advice:
Since your business model relies heavily on Paid Ads (which is expensive and risky, as you just saw), your #1 priority should be maximizing the revenue from every single click.
You can’t afford to pay for a user to visit and only buy one small item. You need to boost your Average Order Value (AOV) to make those ad dollars safe.
We often advise merchants in this situation to implement Product Bundles or Post-purchase Upsells (using apps like our app, Fether). This ensures that even if traffic fluctuates, the customers who do come will spend more, keeping your ROAS healthy.
Hope this clarifies things!
That’s super frustrating—sudden drops can feel worrying! Usually, when ads stop (even briefly), traffic can dip dramatically, especially if you rely on paid ads for most of your visitors. It’s pretty normal to see sessions plummet right after ad spend pauses.
SEO issues usually don’t cause such an immediate, steep drop—that kind of decline is almost always tied to paused ads, tracking issues, or something suddenly blocking visitors.
To dig deeper:
I’d suggest double-checking your ad platforms too, just to make sure everything restarted okay and that there are no issues with tracking scripts on your site.
Hang in there—this kind of issue usually resolves once your ads are back up!