PA59 DA51 Yet the site hardly ranks
-
Hello All,
I wonder if you'd kind enough to help with your insights...
The site is www.dataclinic.co.uk
It's been up and running since 2002 and is a data recovery related site that for years ranked on page 1 for lots of data recovery search terms.
Now it's hardly ranking at all, despite decent content and updated blogs. Google (via Webmaster tools) says the site hasn't been penalized for bad links... but we are searching for an explanation as to why it's so difficult to get our once good rankings back.... (For example, the main search term we'd like to rank for is "data recovery"... we are currently on page 8... [google.co.uk search]... why???)
Any ideas greatly appreciated... and I'll reply to each of you privately if you wish.
Thanks for your time.
Chris
-
Thanks Rikki - your time and advice are much appreciated.
Best,
Chris
-
Hi Chris,
Things link your robots.txt file, on page optimisation etc aren't screaming out any major issues like you are reporting so I don't think you are going to find a specific, easy to see, reason for your drop and have an overnight answer unfortunately.
There was also a Panda update in March. Given your two drops were around dates with Panda updates that would signal a bit of a warning.
As Matt suggested I would do a full analysis of your link profile and look to lessen the keyword rich nature if that is the case.
Rikki
-
Hi Matt, this clean link building is already underway... although this action should address the poor rankings it still doesn't remove the cause of the rankings loss obviously... Frustrating!!!
Best, Chris
-
I'm not sure if this is the issue but having looked at the link profile of that specific page it looks a little unnatural. There are lots of links pointing to that specific page on your site with anchor text. Granted, the anchor text is mainly long tail but still very keyword rich (hard disk failure).
It could have something to do with the issue. I'd recommend maybe building a few nice clean links to the page using branded anchor text or naked anchor text (www.mydomain.com). Even if anchor text isn't the issue, it should only help your website if the links look natural
I'll try and delve a little deeper later on, I have to jump into a meeting now I'm afraid.
Matt
-
I'm looking at it now.... Thanks!
Chris
-
Hey Matt,
Thanks for replying. I used that tool you recommended and there's a marked drop off from March 2012. Infact the traffic in June 12 is a quarter of what it was before the March 12 drop off. So obviously, this is very significant.
Typical keywords: "hard disk failure", "data recovery", "hard drive data recovery"
We used to rank on page 1 for them all...
Best,
Chris
-
Yeah its pretty cool. Its basic but serves its purpose nicely. Saves having to remember the dates of each algo update (or checking them manually).
-
Never seen that tool before Matt, do you rate is highly?
-
Hi Chris,
There were in fact a couple of Panda updates in November 2012, it may be worth looking into these to see if either could have effected you. More details at: http://www.seomoz.org/google-algorithm-change#2012
-
Sorry to hear of the problems, Chris.
Can you give us an idea of the keywords that have dropped off and their relevant landing pages?
Also, it might be worth checking whether the drops in visitors coincided with any algo update. To check, try this great tool:
Matt
-
Hi Rikki,
Thanks for your reply - the site completely bombed ranking wise mid Nov 2012. We are not aware of any changes at this time.
In Jan 2013 a new site was created to replace the old (and hopefully fix whatever was wrong) and used 301 redirects to map old pages to new.
As of today thou, we are still ranking very poorly..
Thanks
Chris
-
Hello Chris,
Before I have a quick look when did you website stop ranking? Was it sudden or have you lost your rankings slowly over time?
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 to rank for a keyword
Hi guys, I'm looking to rank a new blog for a search term which we currently already rank #1 for. I want to create a blog which provides a better solution to a searchers query and knock our current #1 page for this new one. Is there a way to do this simply without losing the real-estate the currently ranked #1 page has already accumulated? Or is just a matter of working on this new blog to find it's own way to the top? Thanks in advance, James
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jameseacott0 -
Ranking Sub Categories on Ecommerce Site
Hi, I haven't tested this yet, so before I do I wanted to see if anyone had some experience with this. I have lower level categories I want to rank for SEO for example: Say I want to rank 'Standard Metal Lockers' - with the way our site is set up, I have to work within a classification, which isn't always easy. So it would be categorised as follows: Cupboards & Lockers > Lockers > Standard Lockers > Standard Metal Lockers The URL structure would remain /standard-metal-lockers & I would link this from the 'Lockers' page. Is this too deep in the site structure to rank? I think if it's linked properly & promoted it will be fine, but I'd like to see if anyone else has had this issue. Becky
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey0 -
Links to my site still showing in Webmaster Tools from a non-existent site
We owned 2 sites, with the pages on Site A all linking over to similar pages on Site B. We wanted to remove the links from Site A to Site B, so we redirected all the links on Site A to the homepage on Site A, and took Site A down completely. Unfortunately we are still seeing the links from Site A coming through on Google Webmaster Tools for Site B. Does anybody know what else we can do to remove these links?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pedstores0 -
Is my site being penalized?
I've gone through all the points on https://moz.com/blog/technical-site-audit-for-2015 but the site only ranks for its brand name after months. The website is not ranking in the top 100 for any main keywords (2,3,4 word phrases), only for a handful of very long phrases (4+). All of the content is unique, all pages are indexed, the website is fast and doesn't contain any crawl errors and there are a couple of links pointing to it. There is a sitewide follow link in the footer pointing to another domain, its parent company and vice-versa. This is not done for any SEO reasons but the companies are related and also the products are supplementary of each other. Could this be an issue? Or is my site being penalized by something else?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Robbern0 -
Google Signal for Site Speed: PageSpeed ranking, Time To First Byte, or something else?
We were having an internal discussion regarding what specific signal Google is looking for regarding Site Speed. My understanding was that Google primarily used Time To First Byte (TTFB) as its signal of Site Speed. My colleague argued that this is not part of Google's PageSpeed Insights (https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/) and therefore was unlikely to be the primary signal. Who is right? Is TTFB the primary signal or the score on PageSpeed Insights?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DesignHammer1 -
301 entire site
Is there a good 301 code snippet to change just the root domain but keep the ending extensions? I just bid on a domain that I think would be much better for me moving forward, but do not want to have to try going through thousands of pages to do their 301 individually My site is almost 4 yrs old. Well established and has a large fanbase. Several of our social networks are under the name of the new branded domain, hence part of the desire to switch.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Atomicx0 -
Purchased a high ranking domain and want to transfer my site to the new domain
I recently purchased a highly ranked domain. The link profile is very good and I don't want to lose to many links however I want to transfer my site to that domain. What is the best way of doing this without losing the current rank on search engines? Also how much does the transfer of registrar information impact my SEO?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ydop0 -
How to increase rankings?
I know to increase rankings involves link building, but what kind of link building is worth it and what type is not? At the moment most of my link building effort is focused on guest blogging, which has worked well for me, I have seen some good movement on a range of keywords using this tactic but I cant help but think I could get a lot more movement in the serp's if I mixed it up a little. A few other link building techniques I know of are below, but I don't really use them, so my question is what ones should I be using combined with my guest blogging to give my rankings that little extra help. 1. Directory Submissions 2. Article Submissions 3. Press Release Distribution 4. Forum Signatures 5. Blog Comments 6. Social bookmarking 7. Social Sites (Squidoo, Weebly, Wordpress, blogger) If I have missed something please let me know. Cheers
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | activitysuper0