Traffic on the New York Times homepage has decreased by 15%. How would you identify the cause?

New Your Times:

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper

Users basically come to the website to read the news.

Some basic quesitons:

1. How did we come to know that there is a decrease?
   1. Dashboard
2. So, did we cross-check the dashboard and verify that there is actually a drop and not a malfunction?
   1. Yes, it is checked. There is a drop
3. Was the drop sudden or gradual?
   1. Gradual
4. So, at what time span did we see the drop?
   1. Over the last 6 months
5. Traffic as in, the visitors on the website, right?
   1. Yes
6. Was the dip seen in any specific region or worldwide?
   1. The dip was seen in India

Internal Factors

1. Were there any glitches while opening the website during that period of time?
   1. No glitches
2. Was there any testing or UI changes going on in that period?
   1. No
3. Did you launch any new feature at that period of time that took the traffic to that feature?
   1. No launches were done
4. A follow-up question on the same lines, you have an app too. So did you see any increase in traffic there?
   1. No. There is growth but not a significant spike
5. From all the various backlinks, did you see any drop from them? Like for example if users would come to the website by clicking on organic IG posts.
   1. Yes
6. Also, one more question on the same point. Every backlink might be either an organic/free or paid Ad. So was the drop in any one of these? 
   1. Yes. The paid channel had dropped. 
7. Does the website have any pricing change, for example, the paid user will get to read the news in detail was there any changes in the price?
   1. No
8. You might also be relying on secondary research. So did you find any change in consumer behavior like people are shifting to tangible newspapers or people getting busy and not reading the news at all or people watching news channels have increased?
   1. People prefer to consume news in short bite-sized videos

External Factors

1. Was there any change in govt. regulation which could have hampered?
   1. No
2. Was there any bad press around New Your Times?
   1. No
3. Was there any disaster that might have caused a light out or network issues in a major part of India?
   1. No
4. Is there any new entrant which is offering some good benefits from a user perspective like new features or competitive pricing?
   1. No