Why did my website's traffic drop by 93% in one day?

Shopify Discussion
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Topic summary

Multiple Shopify store owners experienced dramatic traffic drops (30-93%) in their analytics starting around November 1-8, 2024. The issue stems from Shopify’s implementation of stricter GDPR cookie consent requirements.

Root Cause:

  • Shopify rolled out changes on October 31st and November 8th that automatically block data tracking for European visitors unless explicit cookie consent is obtained
  • Previously, Shopify tracked users by default until they opted out; now users must opt in first
  • The “Partially collect before consent” option was removed entirely

Impact:

  • Shopify Analytics shows significantly reduced traffic numbers
  • UTM tracking and ad campaign attribution severely affected
  • Third-party analytics (like Google Analytics) may show different numbers since they track independently
  • Some merchants report active checkouts and purchases while analytics show zero visitors online

Attempted Solutions:

  • Installing Shopify’s Privacy & Compliance app (cookie banner)
  • Adjusting customer data protection preferences
  • Multiple support tickets escalated

Current Status:
Shopify support confirms this is expected behavior due to GDPR compliance changes, not a bug. Traffic numbers remain suppressed even with cookie banners installed. Support indicates no further action can be taken and merchants should expect permanently lower analytics numbers going forward. The consensus is that reduced tracking is the “new normal” rather than inflated previous figures.

Summarized with AI on November 7. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
5

That’s really interesting, I chatted to support about it too and have to say got nowhere…

I did discover that Google have recently implemented a core update (https://status.search.google.com/products/rGHU1u87FJnkP6W2GwMi/history), so not sure if that had an bearing on it, we did discover we had another issue but still not sure if that contributed or not - waiting for further feedback on this.

I will update here if I have any further information and hopefully between us we can get to the bottom of it!

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