Dramatic drop after rapid rise for new site
-
just launched a new site edenprairieexperts.com. The site jumped to the first page on yahoo and bing within a couple of days then fell off a cliff and isnt in the top 10 pages. Any reason for this? seems really strange for me. The only think I can think of is I got some really poor quality back links from someone screwing with me. If someone could take a glance at the site or give me some general direction I would appreciate it.
-
There is not any direct actin you can take other then to contact the source of any spammy links and request their removal.
Indirectly, you can earn quality links to dilute the bad ones in your profile. Most sites will have some spammy links to them. It is perfectly natural. The question is what percent of the links to a given site are spammy.
-
There are an infinite number of ideas for link generation. You are in real estate so I'll share a few examples:
-
create a mortgage calculator or other tool which is helpful to clients and agents alike. Take a look at other tools on the market and try to make your tool better, offer more features, have a cleaner interface, etc.
-
write articles people want to read and link to. Some examples would be: Top 5 things to look for in your next home, 10 reasons to find a new real estate agent, How the 2012 tax law changes will affect your next home purchase, etc.
-
write about any scams or issues home buyers want to avoid
-
tie into any recent news items
-
share a success story, or a failure story and how others can avoid the same pitfall
I view SEO as a straight line. Build a solid platform (i.e. website) you can use to share your message. Offer your message (i.e. articles) in the highest quality manner possible, and talk about subjects readers want to learn about. Then let the world know about your site (i.e. link build).
The problem most sites face with link building is the sites are poorly built, or the site doesn't present the company in the best possible view. The next challenge is either the site has great content written about topics which are not of interest to people, or they have average content which is available on a hundred other websites. Be current, be relevant, be exceptional and your results will follow.
-
-
as a follow, how do I remove the backlinks on my own? Is there a way to do that, without waiting for someone at the spammy directory site to respond to me?
-
Thanks a million for the good advice. I appreciate your time, any good recommendations for seo professionals would be appreciated. Also any advice once the content is approved for getting some links other than directories would also be helpful.
-
Dan, I agree with your thought process about the bad links. If a new site grabs a bunch of "bad" links such as low quality directories and such, it can directly damage the site. It's a case that absolutely can show the idea "links can never hurt you" is not correct.
I don't agree it's a problem for the snippet you used showing the article rather then the home page. The text you copied is an article snippet with proper anchor text on the home page linking to the article, telling Google the article itself would be the best result.I tried searching for a bit of text unique to the home page "As Eden Prairie Realtors and Certified Community Experts(sm)". It was returned as the #1 result in Google.com.
Overall the site has a lot of issues. The more I look at the site, the more I see. The article you quoted is titled "Eden Prairie Homes Still in Demad" Mis-spellings on the home page is really bad and a sign of a lower quality site.
In short, there are a variety of issues which need to be resolved. My suggestion would be to fix the site, try to remove as many of the spam backlinks, earn authentic links to offset the spammy links, and then wait 30 days at which point rankings should improve IF the site has good content.
-
Also, this google webmaster tools video is interesting too: what steps can I take to diagnose a drop in rankings?
-
Hi Ryan
Yes, you're absolutely correct to question that, good call. What I saw in Majestic (which I hadn't time to share before) was all of those sitewides were coming from "bestdirectory4you.com" (see screenshot). What do you think? Not a very high value site, including the others from the screenshot. It was all exact match keyword anchor text, on pages with tons of other links etc.
Secondly, check out the next screenshot - text cut and paste from the homepage and put into a search with quotes, but we're only getting two inner pages in the results. Seems like there's something going on with the homepage not showing (although it is in the index).
In fact a site: search doesn't show the homepage first, but it brings up all the inner MLS pages.
It would seem the drop in rankings has something to do with the homepage losing a lot of its juice, in google anyway?
Thoughts?
-Dan
-
Hi Dan.
I have not used the Majestic backlink tool so perhaps I am misreading the graph you provided. It seems on Oct 24th about 50 links were created. According to the 2nd graph, it appears all of those links came from a single domain. I would initially guess it is a site wide link on a smaller website, and not an issue. Would you agree?
-
Your last month of backlink history does look very suspect (see screenshot from Majestic SEO) See the giant spike about a week ago?
I took a quick look at the site of the company who designed your site, and I wouldn't be surprised if this was something that they were involved with, although I can't say that conclusively without further research.
I would HIGHLY suggest doing what Ryan says, especially the part about finding a reputable professional SEO, not a designer who happens to "do SEO" on the side.
-Dan
-
From a SEO perspective your site requires numerous changes. My suggestion would be to start with the Beginner's Guide to SEO and apply what you read to your site. The guide is short and easy to read. If you decide you would prefer someone else to do the work, reach out to others in your industry and locate someone who loves their SEO provider, the same way you might want someone to find a good realtor. You don't want someone who designs sites and does SEO on the side, nor do you want someone who does an "ok" job. Whatever standards you use in your business should apply to those who directly support your business.
A few examples of items which should be addressed:
-
your logo has a link to your home page URL as http://edenprairieexperts.com/index.php. Each time someone uses that link they are redirected to your actual home page link, http://edenprairieexperts.com/. The logo link should match your actual URL and not require a redirect.
-
your footer links also have an issue where they are redirected. For example your anchor text "Eden Prarie Foreclusures" link is to http://edenprairieexperts.com/?page_id=122, but it is redirected to another URL http://edenprairieexperts.com/eden-prairie-foreclosures. Any time a redirect occurs there is a loss of PR within your site. All internal links should be direct links.
-
your site lacks trust symbols. I imagine there are realtor organizations you belong to, certifications you have earned, etc. which provide a value to your clients. Advertise them! The only trust symbol you display is "Certified Community Expert". I have no idea what that means. The badge in your footer is not a link but simply an image which says those words. A trust badge should be a link which confirms the badge is authentic, and explains what it means.
-
every image on your site should use an ALT tag description to explain to search engines and visually impaired visitors what the image represents.
-
there are other issues such as you lack a meta description tag on your home page, and your title is targeting three phrases.
With respect to the question you asked about your site's appearance in search engines, your site is well indexed by Google. Bing/Yahoo both are using the same crawler and they are much more selective about indexing web pages. The only page I see from your site indexed by Bing is your home page. If I search for "Eden Prarie Experts" your home page shows as the 4th result in Bing.com.
If you wish more of your pages indexed with Bing and Yahoo, create a Bing Webmaster Tools account. You can submit up to 10 pages per day, 50 pages per month, to Bing manually. A better method would be to improve the quality of your site and earn authentic links to where they will naturally index your site and rank your pages better.
-
-
May I ask what keywords you are hoping to rank for?
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How can I tell if my site was impacted by the March 2019 Core Update?
I am trying to determine if my website was impacted by the March 2019 Core Update. Based on the various articles I have been reading, I do not believe my niche (software) was impacted. I see a very small tick up on search console and google analytics, but it is well within the normal range. Where else should I be looking to see if we were impacted? Thank you!
Algorithm Updates | | NikCall1 -
Significant Drop In Traffic Early April
I had a downward slide in Google organic traffic at the beginning of April (around 8-10th). It doesn't coincide with any of the algo updates, and I can't figure out what the cause it. Has anyone else experienced such a drop? Any suggestions as to finding the source/cause? TIA
Algorithm Updates | | inhouseseo0 -
Google indexing site content that I did not wish to be indexed
Hi is it pretty standard for Google to index content that you have not specifically asked them to index i.e. provided them notification of a page's existence. I have just been alerted by 'Mention' about some new content that they have discovered, the page is on our site yes and may be I should have set it to NO INDEX but the page only went up a couple of days ago and I was making it live so that someone could look at it and see how the page was going to look in its final iteration. Normally we go through the usual process of notifying Google via GWMT, adding it to our site map.xml file, publishing it via our G+ stream and so on. Reviewing our Analytics it looks like there has been no traffic to this page yet and I know for a fact there are no links to this page. I am surprised at the speed of the indexation, is it a example of brand mention? Where an actual link is now no longer required? Cheers David
Algorithm Updates | | David-E-Carey0 -
New TLDs
Hiya Moz, So the new TLD domains have been out for a little while now but I've yet to see them ranking or even seen them in Google etc. I was wondering if anyone else has or has had any luck with them? I would also welcome thoughts on the new TLDs. if you have no idea what I'm on about please take a look here - http://uk.godaddy.com/tlds/gtld.aspx or http://moz.com/blog/next-domain-gold-rush Thanks Moz
Algorithm Updates | | GPainter0 -
Article & Press releases submission sites
Earlier we used to submit single Article & Press releases to 100+ sites..... Now shall we submit to only one site? Is it the same with Infographics?
Algorithm Updates | | zigmund0 -
What is this new feature on Google?
Hey everyone, I typed "Vancouver Colleges" into Google and this new feature came up which I have never seen. It displays popular schools. Could someone tell me what this is called? And how do I get our college on here? Thank you! 4hnT7bV.png
Algorithm Updates | | jhinchcliffe0 -
Dramatic ranking shifts
I’m starting to notice some interesting behavior in Google rankings. It seems like most days, rankings move around but movements are relatively small. Then, maybe once or twice a month, there are days (like today) where everything seems to shift around in more dramatic fashion. I don’t know if it’s algorithm updates, or maybe they do light crawls every day and heavy crawls a few times a month..?? anybody have any idea what is behind these big waves of ranking changes?
Algorithm Updates | | znotes0 -
Google said that low-quality pages on your site may affect rankings on other parts
One of my sites got hit pretty hard during the latest Google update. It lost about 30-40% of its US traffic and the future does not look bright considering that Google plans a worldwide roll-out. Problem is, my site is a six year old heavy linked, popular Wordpress blog. I do not know why the article believes that it is low quality. The only reason I came up with is the statement that low-quality pages on a site may affect other pages (think it was in the Wired article). If that is so, would you recommend blocking and de-indexing of Wordpress tag, archive and category pages from the Google index? Or would you suggest to wait a bit more before doing something that drastically. Or do you have another idea what I could to do? I invite you to take a look at the site www.ghacks.net
Algorithm Updates | | badabing0