Our keyword rank fell drastically since our last moz crawl. What gives?
-
Our site was just crawled last night an we had a number of keywords fall 25% or so, from say # 30 to 38. What would cause such a drastic fall? We haven't taken down pages or changed changed page titles, url or content.
One thing we are having trouble with is our meta description and meta keywords for each page. Drupal 7 seems to be giving us trouble and the meta information isn't showing up anymore.
Would that cause the fall? Any other suggestions?
-
Wow, thanks for the great response. Where could I learn more about properly configuring it so my dev can make sure its done properly.
Since you mention that, moz does give me a lot of warnings (about 500) about duplicate page content and titles. Maybe that's part of the issue.
-
Sorry Dru
CDN is a Content Delivery Network.
It helps make your site faster by serving your images, CSS and javascript from a network across the world.
If you misconfigure it or configure it lazily (as I did) then it is possible for the search engines to access your content from the CDN and that can create duplicate content, accidentally, for which you may be penalized.
- and that might be a reason for a ranking drop.
-
Thanks!
-
Meta Keywords is not used by search engines
Meta description is used by search engines part of the time.
-
Sorry, I'm in idiot and have no idea what CDN means. Do you mind explaining Alan? Sorry for my novice-ness.
-
Do you have a CDN?
They started crawling some of my pages through the CDN, which I have never seen before, and they are dropping my real pages and replacing them with CDN pages.
-
I have seen some pretty massive fluctuations in two SERPS I keep track of over the past 24 hours. The changes in rankings haven't just affected my domains, but competitors domains as well (both good and bad for them). I am wondering if it has something to do with the changes Google launched in February.
Like others have said I am going to wait and see if the changes remain for a few days until I panic.
-
So meta description is meaningless for SEO correct? But it is helpful in the search engines to the person who searched so they can get a desc of the link provided right? That would be the main benefit?
-
from say # 30 to 38
This could be normal flux. Hang in there.
One thing we are having trouble with is our meta description and meta keywords for each page.
Meta keywords is meaningless.
If you have concerns about your site maybe a consult with a Drupal Expert would put your mind at ease and correct any real problems.
-
Thanks for the help Jeffrey. I've seen some fall for the last three weeks, but much more gradually than last nights crawl. Maybe 2 or 3 places the last two crawls and then 8 places last night.
-
Has it just been one day? I'd give it at least a day or two more before panicking. Things tend to move around in Google like that.
Meta keywords and description have zero direct impact on SEO rankings.
Don't bother filling in meta keywords at all. It's a waste of time.
Meta descriptions can be important for getting clicks, but they won't help for where you rank in Google if you're trying to optimize the descriptions with keywords.
-
We also had a similar situation the previous week. This week we seem to have stabilized. I'm trying to figure it out myself as we have been steady with our pages, and actually significantly increasing in content and # of pages.
PS. If this response helps, please hit the "thumbs up"!
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
-
Lost ALL my rankings
Dear experts, We have suddenly lost all our positions on our keywords, I’m talking for example from position 2 to 35 in one huge drop ☹ . Even when you search for our name and domain name namely “KV16”, the main page does NOT come up. (We do however still get the local business / map result on the right side!) I have looked in google search console, but nothing to see here – no penalty. However, I need to mention, that we just now, after the issue, setup the google search console – so maybe that is why there is no information about a penalty!? (If the problem is a penalty, btw we have not been doing any link building!) One year ago, we made a permanent redirect from our old site, www.kontoret-gammeltorv.dk, because we moved our coworking office, to a new location, and needed a new name – (because the old name is referring to a location, hence no longer made sense.) This worked flawlessly, and we got all the link juice, and the new site ranked just as good as the old one. Aprox four months ago, we made some changes to the site, where we amongst other things, changed the title description on the frontpage, focusing more on another keyword – and doing this we unknowingly change the permalink to the frontpage (in WordPress). I have read that this can do some real damage, however its so long ago, that it seems unlikely to be the cause!? Please help!? Thanks a million, in advance. Cheers, Christian pJp4Uyx
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Christian_T0 -
Drop in Rankings
UPDATE* I temporarily removed the images from the page to check if rankings would come back and they did. So Google made a recent update in the Netherlands where they look at your page for adult content (pictures). For us it was breast augmentations, before and after pics. END Hey Guys, We have a site for plastic surgery in the Netherlands. We ranked on number 2 if someone searched for breast augmentation. But sinds 31 of januari our ranking dropped outside the top 50. I did not get a warning or an other message in Search Console. We have a lot of pictures on the website displaying before and after pictures. So you see breasts. Does anybody know if google rolled out an update where they look at photo's with audult content? We didnt do any linkbuilding or other black hat stuff. Kind regards, Ruud
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | equipezorgbedrijven0 -
Keyword rank and redirecting
I'm creating a new amazon affiliate site. I've researched other successful sites. I've noticed that they are ranking for 1000s of keywords, but many of these long tail keywords are redirected back to a main page. I can see how this can reduce the overall total amount of content pages on the site. How are you able to rank for the keyword in the first place if the the page is redirected?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lkomontt760 -
How keywords and subfolders connect
I'm working on restructuring my site. We have main topic areas, and any given visitor will ONLY be interested in 1 of those topics. So to consolidate the information into a simpler format, I want to take all the various pieces of content and wrap them under a given topic. [There is a question in here, I promise.] So I want to create www.domain.com/topic/subtopic-1, /topic/subtopic-2, etc. [Yes, I will apply all necessary redirects for any new URL restructuring.] Now here's the question: If I want to rank for "Peanut Butter Sandwiches with Jelly" and "Peanut Butter Sandwiches with Jam," will I be able to structure the URLs as /peanut-butter/sandwiches-with-jelly/, or should I go /peanut-butter/peanut-butter-sandwiches-with-jelly? And please note, /peanut-butter/ will likely redirect to /peanut-butter/subtopic-1/ since it won't make sense to have /peanut-butter/ on its own. [PB&J is just an example.] What's the best way to go about this? Any recommendations? I really appreciate your help.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jheath0 -
Keyword cannibalization
I ran the SEOMoz onpage diagnostic, and i got an alert for keyword cannibalization. My taxonomy is: www.mysite.com www.mysite.com/category (category page) www.mysite.com/category/category-keyword (supporting page) Links will be exact match in the primary navigation. www.mysite.com anchor text "category" => www.mysite.com/category www.mysite.com anchor text "category keyword" => www.mysite.com/category/category-keyword www.mysite.com/category anchor text "category keyword" => www.mysite.com/category/category-keyword and example would be /IT-support linking with anchor text "IT Support Servers" => /IT-Support/IT-Support-Servers I'm not going to have a cannibalization problem, am I?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CsmBill0 -
Why is SEO Moz only crawling my homepage?
When I send the SEO Bot to crawl my website, it only crawls the homepage? Does anyone know why this is happening? Thanks, Andy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ChrisCurdDesign0 -
Optimize short tail keyword by optimizing long tail keyword
Many SEO's said that if i have a keyword suppose 'coat stand' that is very competitive and second keyword is 'cheap coat stand' that is less competitive .If we promote long tail keyword (cheap coat stand) than ranking of 'coat stand' will improve.Is it true?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Alick3000 -
Best way to get the keyword ranking at the top
I am working on site for around six months now.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ray2810
I have done social bookmarking submission, directory submission, blog comments, forum submissions etc. Is there anything else i can do to make the rank go higher. nothing is working correctly.0