It looks like some recent change to the Google Analytics module for Drupal 5 broke my link to the Analytics service. Well, I’m being overbroad there. It really was working, but apparently only tracking when my administration account and users from a certain other user role (think: group) were logged in.
Well, obviously, that could lead to a significant traffic drop — if for no other reason than anonymous users weren’t being tracked — and that’s what I was seeing throughout my Analytics data. I only check Analytics every once in a while, and it’s currently only a curiosity to me, but it was still confusing as to why I saw all the graphs plunge starting March 7.
My best guess is that one of my recent module update binges loaded a new Google Analytics module which changed something, and only two user roles were set up to be tracked. (The Drupal 5 update process leaves something to be desired. Sure, I should have read the “read me” to find out about the change beforehand, but when you have so many modules to update, you just want to get it done. Wish it had warned me that something needed my attention.) Now that I’ve changed that setting and other user roles — including anonymous — will be tracked again, we’ll see what happens.