Dropping dramatically in keyword rankings
-
One of my clients has always ranked well for this keyword (janitorial services, nh).
Then within a week, they dropped out of the top fifty in Google and now in other major search engines as well.
My first thought of why the drop in rankings is due to duplicate listings within online directories. The previous marketing person on staff was listing the company more than once in these directories, and it wasn't discovered until later in the link building process.
Sometimes the company was listed with "janitorial services" as part of the company name, and then listed again with "carpet cleaning" as part of the company name... sometimes with duplicate address, or using the po box instead - as if two companies.
The odd thing in all this is that while they dropped in ranking for this keyword, they still come in usually 1st in Google Places for this keyword with 12 excellent reviews. And yet when I check their Google Places account, it says that it needs to be reverified, again, it doesn't meet the terms. (company is a family owned business, for over 30 years, they have a lot of potential).
So all this duplication needs to be fixed, but how serious are duplicate listings on places like Manta, YellowPages, SuperPages, also Yahoo Business Local and Bing Business Directory?
And now that "forensics" seems to be my task, any suggestions on how to start? Any processes I should go through with Google WebMaster?
_Cindy
And, too, if I could add, the site ranks very poorly for this keyword and while I have provided recommendations, and they understand the onsite issue, they have yet to go forward with implementation, making this a little more difficult issue.
-
I think basically Mark is right, good be a combination of items. I would need to sort through the first suspicions on the sudden drop and also address some of the suggestions from Mark - competition, and most definitely optimizing the site, I can only hope the client will move forward with implement ion.
thanks again for assistance.
_Cindy
-
Mark,
Thanks so much for your reply, apologize for the delay. I can't add many more details, this client has had a website, for last 5 - 6 years now, family-owned for 35.
The drop in rankings for my client happened suddenly - some gradual fall the first week, 2 - 3 in rank; and then "bam" the next week not even in the top 50. This was 2nd week of March. The client has still not moved forward with my recommendations for offsite or onsite optimization.
About a year ago the client completed a new design - very professional, but lacking in some basic onsite optimization - proper use of keywords, headings, meta-descriptions, etc... some visual and user issues - though the latter minor.
Not a lot of competition online, just very basic info-type, homemade websites, still they were ranking in top 10 (keyword - janitorial services nh). I did notice a new competitor after checking out the most recent top 10 rankings - and this competitor put in a little work to optimize the website- but that's only one of all the top 10.
Was there any new changes in Google around March of this year that could have effected such a sudden drop?
_Cindy
-
Cindy-
Need more info.....when did the drop happen? How dramatic a drop? Over how long a period of time?
Duplicate listings under another category are an issue if they used the exact same address and phone number, Not good......but it doesnt sound like that would be the only reason.
One other thing I would mention is that onpage optimization could be the reason if their competition has done a strong job. remember, Google is generating a relevancy/quality score for the keyword. If the competition isnt doing anything locally with the keyword, then they might have gotten an artificially good result with the keyword. Then if several of their competitors add some basic keyword content, they could get bumped significantly in ranking.
Again, I need the date of when it happened.
Mark
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
-
Keywords for product title
Hi, I am trying set the product title for my product that I sell online, I have more than 300 products, I am now doing keywords research, any suggestion of the monthly search volume I should aim for each keyword? I just started and selling engagement rings
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | up8772910 -
Is it a good idea to optimize for keywords that have no search volume if they're ranked?
Hello Moz Community, I have some questions I hope some of you can help with. We’re doing SEO work for a client that provides outsourced IT and managed IT services in Phoenix, AZ and cities in the Phoenix metro area (i.e. Glendale, Tempe, Scottsdale, etc.) They’re currently ranked for or targeting the following keywords: • consulting phoenix az (1)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | marnipatterson
• outsourced it phoenix (2)
• phoenix it support (3)
• it services Scottsdale (5)
• it consulting firm phoenix (targeting)
• it solutions phoenix (targeting) We have recommended the following keywords based on monthly search totals, competitive level and difficulty ratings in Moz. • IT consulting phoenix
• it consultant company
• outsourced it
• it support services
• it consulting services
• outsourcing it
• outsourced tech support Questions
1. While I know it’s a good idea to optimize for keywords that you're currently ranked for, there’s no search volume for any of these. So, I recommended non-geo versions since Google provides search results based on the user’s location. Will this preserve the company's current rankings?
2. If not optimizing for their current keywords will hurt their rankings, will using the current keywords as secondary keywords suffice? If so, do we need to include them in the content for keyword density?
3. Since search engine algorithms now focus so heavily on user intent, I assume we’re covered for all variations of a keyword (i.e. outsource it, outsourced it, outsourcing it, etc.) Is this correct?
4. They want to rank for “cloud services” and “cloud solutions.” Both are very competitive with high difficulty rankings. So, I recommended “cloud migration” and “cloud strategy” as alternatives since these are the main services they provide. Will including “cloud services” and “cloud solutions” as secondary keywords help them increase their rankings for both? If you’ve dealt with a similar situation, I'd appreciate your insight and advice. Thanks!0 -
User intent and ranking
Hello, I was doing search to see who ranks on the keyword "bike tours" i noticed a lot of website rank without content "text". Is it because they fulfil the user intent with a search box where you can search by date and destination, trip type and price that google ranks those webpages ? It is the same for the keyword Paris bike tours https://www.fattiretours.com/paris How do they rank with so little content (once again is it because the fulfil the user intent ) Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Keep ranking homepage for target keyword, or switch to another page?
Hi Moz Community! I've researched Moz to find the answer to this question but nothing for my situation. I'm hoping some experienced SEOs can help me out. Here's the situation: I'm up against some fairly stiff competition for my main keyword - the front page is dominated by major manufacturers with high brand recognition and loads of money, where as my client is a much smaller manufacturer trying to compete. However, their DA is only 37-53 so not impossible to outrank... just many links and a significant advantage. We've honed in on a keyword that still drives good traffic, that's a great term to drive paying customers, and that we can get competitive with. My strategy was to attempt to rank my client's _homepage _for this term, rather than a specific product page, as I knew that they'd have many more links and social shares of their main site. (I've been successful with this strategy before). We've risen 60+ positions for the keyword in the past 3 months, to position 12, but we seem to have plateaued for the past month. We're ranking in top 5 positions for a number of our other keywords, so I know we're trending well. However, I'm concerned that despite our quick rise to #12, I may have made a seemingly fatal decision to rank their homepage for our target keyword term. After we had plateaued for a while, I did a more thorough side by side comparison and found that 8 out of 10 competitors on the front page have 2 main things we don't (and can't, because we're ranking the homepage)... 1- The keyword in the url (they're ranking for product pages, i.e. homepage.com/keyword-here/) 2- Their keyword comes first, or early in the meta title. Ours is _supposed to _, but as you know- Google can do what it likes with your homepage title as it's your brand, so they've put our company name- _then _the keyword we added in the title. e.g. Our Company | The Term We're Ranking For We've done a lot of work, and gained many reputable, high quality links, and we did see a significant rank increase across all our pages. My question is- did I shoot myself in the foot? Or is ranking the homepage still viable in this situation? If ultimately this is going to be impossible to get in the top #5 spots, what can I do to fix it? We've already gained a PA of 38 on the homepage from our work. Or would you let it go and just keep working at it, expecting that eventually we'll break onto the front page? Thanks in advance! Let me know if you need more info. I tried to be general with terms/site for my client's sake.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TheatreSolutionsInc0 -
Swapping page keyword?
If we have swopped the keyword (leaflet printing) from this page http://www.fastprint.co.uk/leaflet-flyer-printing/ and moved it to http://www.fastprint.co.uk/ But the inner page is still ranking for the keyword is there a way to tell Google?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobAnderson0 -
How to combine 2 pages (same domain) that rank for same keyword?
Hi Mozzers, A quick question. In the last few months I have noticed that for a number of keywords I am having 2 different pages on my domain show up in the SERP. Always right next to each other (for example, position #7 and #8 or #3 and #4). So in the SERP it looks something like: www.mycompetition1.com www.mycompetition2.com www.mywebsite.com/page1.html
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rayvensoft
4) www.mywebsite.com**/page2.html**
5) www.mycompetition3.com Now, I actually need both pages since the content on both pages is different - but on the same topic. Both pages have links to them, but page1.html always tends to have more. So, what is the best practice to tell Google that I only want 1 page to rank? Of course, the idea is that by combining the SEO Juice of both pages, I can push my way up to position 2 or 1. Does anybody have any experience in this? Any advice is much appreciated.0 -
Ranking
Hi All, I have been working on a car insurance site which targets US market. we have been doing all types of links to the site like - good related directory links, related blogpost and reviews. the site is updated daily with a fresh unique content. what more is needed to get it to the first page. we are currently ranking in the range of 40 - 50 on the page 4 or page 5. we have also recently done a redesign with a new cms, done a good press release but not seeing much of changes. please if anyone in the same industry or with some experience can suggest us. we are using all white hat seo & I can understand the amount of competition in this niche. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Markyseo0 -
What is the systematic what of doing keyword research?
What is the systematic what of doing keyword research? I have been optimizing some sites, keeping in mind the completion and relevance. But still I am not happy with the keywords selected. Can you tell me the international Standard why of selecting keywords for any site? A systematic way, which will work for any kind of website. Please give me some list of free tools also which I can use for it. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ShashankGupta0