Mitasys x EuroSchool

Analysis window: Jan 2025 to Jul 2026 · India focus · Source: Ahrefs

Organic traffic: what happened, and how we recover

A data-backed diagnosis of the search-traffic decline from the January 2025 peak to now, the reasons behind it, and a prioritised recovery plan focused on the pages that drive admissions.

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What happened

Traffic fell about 61% from its January 2025 peak

Organic traffic peaked near 81,000 monthly visits in January 2025, eroded through 2025, then fell sharply from December 2025 to a low of about 16,500 in April 2026. It has since recovered about half of the cliff, to roughly 31,800 by July 2026. Year-on-year, the decline is about 59 percent.

-61%Organic traffic, peak to now (Jan 2025 to Jul 2026)
~81K -> ~32KEst. monthly organic visits (peak vs now)
~88%Share of the loss that is in India
42 -> 46Domain Rating: authority actually rose (links are not the cause)
Monthly organic traffic peaking at ~81K in Jan 2025, falling to ~16.5K by Apr 2026, recovering to ~31.8K by Jul 2026.
Monthly organic traffic. The peak was January 2025, the low was April 2026, followed by a partial recovery.

Where the traffic went

The loss is concentrated in the educational blog content

About 70 percent of the lost traffic came from the informational blog library. The commercial campus and locality pages that drive admissions held up well, and the homepage barely moved.

Traffic lost by section: educational blogs 70%, campus/location pages 23%, tools 4%, other 2%, homepage 1%.
Where the traffic was lost, by section (top 250 losing pages).

Underneath the traffic, the ranking footprint tells the clearest story: the site's total ranking keywords collapsed from roughly 78,000 to under 5,000. Almost all of that was the lower-position "long tail" of rankings, while the strongest top-3 positions actually held or grew.

Stacked-area chart of ranking keywords by position bucket: the long tail (positions 21-100) balloons then collapses, while top-3 stays thin but steady.
Ranking keywords by position. The long tail (positions 21 to 100) was wiped out; the top-3 core held.

What this means

The pages that convert to admissions enquiries (campus and locality pages) are largely intact. What collapsed was a large volume of thin informational content that was carrying traffic but little admissions value.

Why it happened

One primary cause, one confounder, and two ruled-out

We tested each possible cause against the data and reconciled them so nothing is double-counted. Here is the honest split.

Primary ~70% of the decline

Google core updates demoted the thin informational blog content

Google's late-2025 and early-2026 core updates re-judged EuroSchool's large library of mass-produced informational and general-knowledge posts (GK questions, festival and syllabus explainers) as low value, and demoted or dropped most of them. This was selective by content type, which is the signature of a content-quality change, not a technical fault. The site's total ranking keywords fell from about 78,000 to under 5,000, almost all of it lower-position rankings, while the strongest top-3 positions held.

Not an SEO issue ~27% of the decline

Branded searches lost traffic while still ranking #1 to #2

About a quarter of the measured decline sits on branded searches like "euro school [location]" where the school still ranks first or second, and in one case improved from 2 to 1 yet still shows less traffic. Because the ranking did not fall, this is not a ranking problem that on-page SEO can fix. It reflects either a change in how many people are searching the brand, or a measurement effect in the traffic estimates. We recommend confirming this with first-party Search Console data before acting on it.

Mostly overlaps small unique effect

AI Overviews now answer many of these questions directly

On EuroSchool's informational queries, Google's AI Overviews rose from 9 to 60 (within the top 250 keywords) and the featured snippets the site used to hold dropped to zero. On most of these queries the page also lost its ranking, so this overlaps the core-update effect above rather than adding to it. Even where EuroSchool is cited inside the AI Overview, clicks fell sharply.

Bar chart: AI Overviews on these SERPs rose from 9 to 60 while featured snippets fell from 72 to 0.
On EuroSchool's informational queries, AI Overviews replaced featured snippets.

What it is not

Backlinks and seasonality are ruled out. Link authority rose through the decline (Domain Rating 42 to 46, referring domains healthy), the opposite of a link-loss pattern. And the fall persists after removing the school-admissions seasonal cycle: year-on-year, like-for-like months are still down about 50 to 59 percent.

Two small charts showing Domain Rating rising from 34 to 46 and referring domains healthy throughout the decline.
Link authority strengthened throughout the decline, which rules out a backlink problem.

Recommendations

The recovery plan, in priority order

About 72 percent of the decline is addressable through content quality, re-indexing and AI-Overview work. The branded portion (about 27 percent) is a demand or measurement question, not an on-page ranking fix.

PriorityActionWhy it matters
Must-fix Connect Google Search Console and Analytics The single biggest gap. It is the only way to confirm which pages truly left Google's index, check for any manual penalty, and separate real brand-demand change from a measurement effect. Every finding here currently rests on third-party estimates.
Must-fix Protect and strengthen the campus and locality pages The best-schools-in-[city] campus and city pages held up through the decline and are the pages that drive admissions enquiries. Deepen locality content (catchment areas, boards, reviews, FAQs, clear admissions calls-to-action) and keep internal links pointing to them. This is where the SEO return is concentrated.
Should-fix Audit, consolidate and improve the blog library Merge near-duplicate GK and listicle posts into fewer genuinely helpful guides with real author expertise, refresh the strong survivors, and retire dead weight. Set expectations: much of this traffic is now answered by AI Overviews and may only partly return.
Should-fix Re-check the dropped pages for fixable issues Once Search Console is connected, inspect the 80-plus pages that fell out of results, confirm none are blocked or mis-tagged by accident, then decide for each: keep and improve, consolidate, or retire.
Nice-to-have Adapt surviving content for AI Overviews Add concise, well-structured answers and FAQ markup so EuroSchool is more likely to be cited inside AI Overviews. Treat this as brand visibility in AI answers, not click recovery.
Nice-to-have Investigate branded demand separately Compare branded-search impressions year-on-year in Search Console. If demand genuinely fell, the lever is brand and admissions marketing, not SEO; if it held, the reported drop is a measurement effect and no real traffic was lost.

Important context

How to read this analysis

01

These are estimates

All traffic and keyword figures are Ahrefs estimates, not measured clicks. Treat the shares as ranges, and read the direction of travel rather than exact values.

02

Search Console is the next step

Connecting Google Search Console and Analytics is the top priority. It confirms which pages truly left the index, flags any penalty, and settles the branded-demand question with first-party data.

03

Not everything is recoverable

Some informational traffic is now answered by AI Overviews and may not fully return. The priority is protecting the admissions-driving campus pages and rebuilding quality where it counts.

04

A deeper pass is available

A further analysis of competitor movement, backlinks, live search results and a full technical crawl is available on request to close the remaining questions.

Next steps

Let's protect what is working and rebuild the rest

The immediate priorities are connecting Search Console and strengthening the campus and locality pages. From there we can prioritise the blog consolidation and the re-indexing checks.

Start with the money pages

Deepen the campus and locality pages that drive admissions and held through the decline. This is where recovery effort pays back fastest.

See the locality keyword plan

Confirm with first-party data

Connect Search Console and Analytics so we can verify the diagnosis and track recovery month over month.

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