Drop in traffic last 24 hours plus title tag not correct
-
Over the last 24 hours we've seen a drop in traffic to our website from Google. Basically since Satursday 19th Nov the traffic has drop about 50% normal levels.
The strange thing I noticed is that when you search Google for a search phrase the snippet Google is showing as the title is not the same as we have in a meta title tag on the page and this is across many pages, not just 1 or two.
Anyone know why this is and what is happening ?
Thanks
-
How strange that today we check our rankings for the profile pages and they are pretty much back to as they were with regards rankings, including pages that we didn't even modify.
I believe either Google had a problem crawling our site, a DNS problem or a problem with the Panda update they released last Friday.
I was 100% sure before that our content, meta etc was correct and couldn't see why we would of been punished.
-
We currently have a total of 7000 incoming links to our site, of which 3,051 are pointing to the homepage.
Those two domains above that I mentioned are nothing to do with our company and I don't know why they are linking to us. Should we inform Google of this linking to our site, if yes - how do I do it.
-
That is not going to look good to any search engine. Do you have many other external links?
-
Further to the previous posts, our problem is 100% related to the title tags and how Google is interpreting them. For example we have a page with a title
Heathrow Hotels - Cheap Hotels Near Heathrow Airport - Cheap London Hotels
but Google is showing the page title as
"Hotels near Heathrow Airport London ( - Cheap Hotels in London" when we do a cache of the page in Google's system
-
I'll look forward to hearing how you go.
I've thrown together a quick 10 question survey to gather some information about the effect of the algorithm change. If you would like to be included you can go to Google algorithm change survey.
Sha
-
I don't think the issue is because something one of our competitors have done to be honest. It is a collection of profile pages that have been hit.
-
Thanks for your useful response. Will let you know how we get on.
-
Well that is great news Tommo
so then the next thing to look at is the content itself.
There is an explanation of the two stated algorithmic changes that relate most closely to your issue in the 2nd & 3rd dot points in this Google Webmaster Blog post.
Remembering that your problem is a drop in traffic, it seems that what Google is pulling from your page text is not moving searchers to click through to your site. So the challenge is to ensure that the text on the page includes the most useful information possible, written in such a way that it motivates people to want to buy the product. If you can get this right, whatever Google pulls from the page, it will be more likely to result in clicks.
This is not an easy thing to do, but if you can achieve this aim, you are likely to not only improve the current problem, but also improve sales conversions.
Again, I would run a test with a small number of pages and see what works.
Hope that helps,
Sha
-
Hi yes product pages, but the content is freshly written in house with no reference or relevant taken from the source. So we def do not have a dup content issue.
-
Hi again Tommo,
Yes, I would say that it is very likely that what you are seeing is the result of what is loosely referred to as a "panda slap". This is why I suggested that I believe you need to look at the content of your pages.
The clue is that Google does not think your Titles accurately reflect what is on your pages and when it serves what it thinks is accurate, less people are clicking through.
If you want to test this, I would choose a small group of my highest value keywords, roll up my sleeves and work on improving the content. When the improvements are made, if rankings and/or traffic improves for those pages, you have your answer - and a clear strategy for fixing the problem
Also, when you say "product pages" my first thought is "are you using product information that is provided by manufacturers?". If the answer is yes, then you are likely to have a serious problem with duplicate content. Dr Pete talked about duplicate content and panda in his recent blog post Duplicate Content in a Post-Panda World.
Hope that helps,
Sha
-
Maybe the problem is relating to a recent Google tweet http://twitter.com/#!/google/status/137689499198160898
-
The problem appears to relate to all of our product pages. Other location pages are fine (slight drop in positions) as are the generic search phrases.
What should we look to check next ?
-
I believe Rand wrote a blog post about this showing that different title tags were showing up in the SERPs after certain high-authority sites created links to a page with a different Anchor Text than the Title tag. I believe Google was showing the listing in the SERPs with the Anchor Text the other sites had used instead of the page's own Title information.
Check to see if you have suddenly gained a lot of links from somewhere.
-
I wouldn't worry about a reinclusion request just yet. Has one of your competitors done something with their site that caused it to rank above you perhaps? Have you identified if it's just one page that's no longer ranking? What kind of additional information can you find to help pinpoint the traffic decline?
As for Google rewriting title tags, they've been doing that for quite some time now, even to sites like apple.com, depending on your search query.
-
Thanks for your quick response.
These pages have been ranking for very competitive phrases for many years. Just this weekend, we've seen a drop in traffic which in turn made me run through and check the actual search positions for selected phrases.
Looking at Seomoz ranking report for November 17th, 2011, everything was fine at this point. Other pages are ranking OK, just some location/area pages and specific product related pages appear to have been affected somehow
Should we consider a reinclusion request to google as they have reported nothing to us?
-
Hi Tommo,
Without actually looking at your site, it is pure guesswork, but the key here would be that Google thinks what it is serving in the results page provides the searcher with a better insight into the content of your pages than the Titles and descriptions that you have loaded.
This would indicate that perhaps your Titles & descriptions may be misleading or keyword stuffed.
Since the overall result is that serving what Google thinks accurately reflects your page content has lead to a dramatic loss of traffic, I would say it is time to look very closely at the content on your pages and think about improvements that may make them more interesting and useful for users.
Sorry to bring bad news, but I hope it helps,
Sha
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
-
Google Drop Following Negative Article in New York Times
I have two sites that were mentioned in a negative article in The New York Times a couple weeks ago. They saw a good increase in traffic, but on the sixth both of them saw sudden unexplained Google drops. Both seemed on the average position from search console doubling overnight. I run similar websites that have seen no such drops. The only thing these two have in common are being mentioned in the same negative article. Normally I would expect the mention from a major news outlet to make the sites more authoritative in Google's eyes. Is this a coincidence or a possible manual penalty? They still rank number one for their respected brand names, but everything else has suffered. Did Google make any recent algorithm changes or do you think someone at Google may have read the article and decided the sites needed to be demoted?
Algorithm Updates | | PostAlmostAnything0 -
Was there Algorithm update over last weekend (sep 29-30 2018)?
Howdy fellow mozzers, This morning, during our weekly client meeting, I have noticed that pretty much all of our clients' rankings went down a little after a weekend. Nothing major, but noticeable enough on the rankings graph. The MOZcast shows that there was some kinda activity over the weekend with higher than normal temperatures. Anyone has any idea?
Algorithm Updates | | DmitriiK0 -
Do header tags impact the rankings much?
Hi all, I have gone through some posts and comments where it's been mentioned that header tags will be considered as any other content on page. Is that really true? Writing up more relevant header tags as per the page topics doesn't have any impact? I would like to know the updated importance of header tags in today's SEO. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Homepage title tag: "Keywords for robots" vs "Phrases for users"
Hi all, We keep on listening and going through the articles that "Google is all about user" and people suggesting to just think about users but not search engine bots. I have gone through the title tags of all our competitors websites. Almost everybody directly targeted primary and secondary keywords and few more even. We have written a very good phrase as definite title tag for users beginning with keyword. But we are not getting ranked well comparing to the less optimised or backlinked websites. Two things here to mention is our title tag is almost 2 years old. Title tag begins with secondary keyword with primary keyword like "seo google" is secondary keyword and "seo" is primary keyword". Do I need to completely focus on only primary keyword to rank for it? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Google sidebar advertising dropped
Has anyone noticed how the google sidebar advertising has completely disappeared? They only display top 4 adwords and then remaining on the bottom of each search page. I can't find any info on it or when it actually happened?
Algorithm Updates | | Purplesars110 -
Are titles on images still important for SEO?
We're doing research on image optimization and wanted to ask the MOZ community if you think having titles on images are still important for SEO if you have descriptive ALT text.
Algorithm Updates | | EvolveCreative0 -
Google traffic drops (October 24th 2014) - Penguin 3.0?
Hi All My client's site http://www.carismaautodesign.com took a bit of a knock around 24th October 2014. Google organic traffic down by ~32%. I am trying to understand if site has been hit by a Penguin refresh (3.0) - and if so why?
Algorithm Updates | | seowoody
If it was, it would appear to be a false negative as the site and backlink profile is clean. The content is perhaps the only area in question... as it's more of a brochure site, therefore content is relatively thin and promotional rather than in-depth/editorial. For example, the gallery pages are very similar in structure, with the images and specification text being the only variation, click on any of the vehicle interiors to see what I mean - http://www.carismaautodesign.com/gallery/mercedes/viano/ You will see the specification text is unique per vehicle interior, but not hugely; Then how could it be? The interiors all contain the same elements just a variation in seating, leather colour, stiching, wood finish etc. Question: Do you think... a.) This IS NOT a Penguin issue but something else (please ellaborate)
b.) This IS a Penguin issue but a false-negative, so do nothing, this will bounce back with next Penguin refresh
c.) This IS a Penguin issue related to content. Merge all gallery pages into one page per vehicle (i.e. one Mercedes Viano Interior page, with all 19 interior galleries as part of the page - thus building one stronger page with more intro text and simple bulleted specification per gallery)
d.) This IS a Penguin issue related to something else (please ellaborate) Thanks,0 -
How to increase my traffic?
I've performed countless SEO tactics, post tons of unique content. social bookmark tons of it. Facebook, Twitter, etc. Implement new sections to my site all the time in the past month I've implemented a dating site and a discussion forum. Yet my traffic pretty much always stays the same. We are at a level where our site is now the best place on the web to find disability news, and I can't really think of how else to improve it without simply having it more active. Is my niche just too small? http://ablemagazine.co.uk
Algorithm Updates | | craven220