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
-
Our site dropped by April 2018 Google update about content relevance: How to recover?
Hi all, After Google's confirmed core update in April 2018, we dropped globally and couldn't able to recover later. We found the update is about the content relevance as officially stated by Google later. We wonder how we are not related in-terms of content being ranking for same keywords over years. And we are expecting to find a solution to this. Are there any standard ways to measure the content relevancy? Please suggest! Thank you
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Would there be any benefit to creating multiple pages of the same content to target different titles?
Obviously, the duplicated pages would be canonical, but would there be a way of anchoring a page land by search term entry? For example: If you have a site that sells cars you could use this method but have a page that has (brand) cars for sale, finance options, best car for a family, how far will the (brand) car go for on a full tank and so on? Then making all the information blocks h2's but using the same H2s for the duplicated page titles. Then it gets complicated, If someone searches "best car for a family" and the page title for the duplicated page is clicked how would you anchor this user to the section of the page with this information? Could there be a benefit to doing this or would it just not work?
Algorithm Updates | | Evosite10 -
Consistent drop every time after ranking good for few days: Same experience?
Hi all, We been facing this ranking fluctuation issue for over an year. Every time we made some changes for better optimisation. We improve rank but eventually drop after few days. Most of the changes we employed are On-page like page loading, fixing broken links & redirects, page titles optimisation, etc. When can see the ranking improvement for our main keywords and related keywords for a while and we drop with in a week eventually. I wonder if someone face the same issue and any thoughts on this scenario? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Google is simplifying my meta titles. What does it mean?
Hi Guys. I've noticed that google seems to be simplifying my meta titles in their SERP for some keyword searchs. Should I be worried about this? Perhaps a sign of being a little 'spammy' in my meta titles? Or is Google just aiming to bring up the most relevant looking result? Based on that specific search? Isaac.
Algorithm Updates | | isaac6630 -
Traffic, CTR AND AdSense eCPM Down ... Keyword Rankings Unchanged
Since the last week in March, one of our sites with ~ 1 million high quality page-views per month has had a 25% drop in traffic, CTR drop from 4% to 3%, and AdSense eCPM has dropped from $8 to $5 ... however, all of our keyword rankings have remained unchanged. Also, it is an extremely consistent niche with no drop in relevant searches ... The only thing that we KNOW for sure has changed is the removal of the separator and indentation from the Google search ads to our #1 ranking positions. Could such a simple alteration in the Google search results UI have such a significant impact on our numbers? Is anyone else experiencing a similar revenue drop without a rankings drop in the past two weeks? Besides punching up the titles to make our search results more appealing to users, is there really anything that can be done about Googles new paid results placement? Your thoughts and suggestions are invited. Thanks guys and gals 😉
Algorithm Updates | | Humanovation0 -
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 -
Should you include Website Title in all page title tags?
We recently spent analyzing some of the best SEO software companies on the U.S. market fishing for the best practices in SEO and I saw one thing in common : They all had website titles in all the page title tags separated by " | " Is that the best practice for SEO or is it just for Branding? Interestingly enough, the website titles were completely unrelated to the pages' content or keywords. (Here's my personal opinion on what it looked like: "riding on a bicycle" | Ferrari ) But when I looked up the keywords ... ranked #1 or #2 spots, in some serious competition. (So in the example above, "bicycle" would be in the top spot)
Algorithm Updates | | HMCOE0 -
SEPRs drop from 2nd to 4th after Panda, What steps should i take?
Hi, My blog was on the 2nd or 3rd position on Google Search for my 2 word keyword for many countries. But after Panda Update, First i noticed 500-700 visitor drop on my site daily. Then i saw my blog is now on the 4th or on the 5th even 7th position of Google Search. So what step should i take now, i ran the on-page optimization and i have 5 easy fix, i can fix 2-3 out of them, One of them suggesting this: Keyword should be in front of the title, like: Keyword: Elephant Life Blog URL: www.cuteelephantslife.com My blog title is "Cute Elephants Life | Sweet stories of elephants and more" And It should be changed into "Elephants Life | Cute Stories of elephants life and more." So, As i am already on 1st page on Google for the keyword "Elephant Life", If i change the title from "Cute Elephants Life | Sweet stories of elephants and more" to "Elephants Life | Cute Stories of elephants life and more.", Will it help my ranking or it will harmmy position on SERP ? Please, suggest me what should i do to improve my blog and get better rank.
Algorithm Updates | | rimon56930