New content cause for drop? Still showing old cache though...
-
About 10 days ago I added about 750 words of new text to a homepage as it was simply a sign up landing page and rather sparse. I presumed that by adding content it would help google understand the content of the site as it is a single page on the root domain (as soon as users sign up they go to a subdomain). Yesterday though the site recieved a huge drop in traffic and now recieves almost no organic traffic at all from google. I've done the obvious like checked WMT for messages but I'm not sure as to what caused the drop. As far as I'm aware there were no confirmed google updates on 7/6/13.
The strange thing is that when I check the google cache its about 3 weeks old so I'm guessing google is using the old cache to reference my site content against search queries. Does that mean the changes I made are not the cause for the drop in rankings? The title tag however has changed when the site is showin in the SERPS. How can that be if google has an old cache?
-
Samuel, I'd like to start over fresh in answering your question because there are too many thoughts going on here at once. Let's start with the obvious: Can you provide a link so we can have a look at the content you wrote? It is possible that you have crossed some sort of content overoptimization threshold if it seems to be keyword-stuffed.
Regarding timing, Google has a lot of databases and they don't all update simultaneously. It isn't uncommon for the title tag to update in the SERPs before the page content updates in the cached snapshot. Furthermore, algorithmic calculations, including whether or not to apply a filter or penalty, do not always happen at the same speed that indexation happens.
All of this is to say that just because a drop in traffic happened after you updated content doesn't mean the content was the cause of that drop. Post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this) is a logical fallacy. But there does seem to be a strong temporal correlation so it is the obvious place to start ---> Can you share a link to the content?
-
Hi Sam, Here is info about this from Matt Cutts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MswMYk05tk&feature=youtu.be
I hope this helps,
use Google Web master tools fech as a google bot then add to index all links
Hope this help,
Tom
-
I only added the subdomain yesterday with a wordpress blog. The main site is html only. The rankings drop were before I added the blog on the subdomain.How I instruct google to recoginise the subdomain as part of the main domain. Is that what you're saying?
Thanks.
-
Please accept my apology I'm doing this on a cell phone and trying to Doug in a couple other things.
It is definitely because you are using a subdomain is your master site like www.
and if you were to change that then you'll will lose Rank Unless you instruct Google to recognize the root domain as part of the same URL as the sub domain the site is subject to being treated as a new URL with out the subdomain for what ever you use as subdomain this case www. Or not maybe? Regardless what you done is tell Google that this URL is not on the fully qualified domain name which could include www. .is no longer your homepage so it gave it what it we give any brand-new website homepage you need to add the subdomain then it should work.
If you use OSE on a subdomain like test. Example.com it is going to be less powerful check using Moz rank, trustUntil google is made to understand that this is part of the fully qualified domain and simply there to be part of the FQDN and put to index and treat it like its part of the Subdomain that was ranking well already it will not rank just like
I would not want to use some of my subdomain that I use for other purposes like video.Example.com domain it gets low rank It's not relative content wise to my primary domain.
There are exceptions with content delivery networks ranking very well
So
Please do not confuse what I said about CDN being bad for ranking at all. CDN's help rank and having a subdomain that is a CDN.Example.com will. Help rank your site very highly depending on the CDN and the cookie configuration it gets much more technical regardless I am not saying anything negative about CDN's and ranking it is simply a popular way of creating a subdomain and will most likely boost your ranking I was just using it as an example as it is a very popular way of adding a subdomain
all the best,
tom
-
Sorry your home page is a sign up only page?
And the news homepage coming up the root domain then you made a change to the structure of it which I'm sure was indexed by Google. Or should be if it's not. It sounds to me as if you should tell Google Webmaster tools that your homepage is a gateway and you do not consider it your actual homepage or to the traditional thing it allows sign-ups along with creating content
-
3 week old cache could be nothing or could be slow server and bad site design java, too many links on pages , PageRank you can do wonders with a site audit and a fast host what type of website EG WordPress , just HTML who do you host with?
-
In google Use site: then whatever your new page is not just your home page to see if its been indexed. If not fetch it in GWT.
Your server sends the changes to your site changes they will show up when the DNS + server say not google.
Google will then index as it likes.
If you took a loos I would look at what you added.
Audit the page then the site.Some change is normal use Moz with
authority tools or SERPS.com to see SERPS changes.Use Moz tools with http://marketing.grader.com
To see what you can do to better your site.
Hope this was of help,
Thomas
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
-
Thin Content pages
I have a couple of pages that are thin content. One is essentially a page with the icons of our customers and a link out to their website. The other is a summary portfolio page that has some images of some of the client work we have done with links to internal pages that have more details about each client situation, approach, etc. These deeper pages are just fine. What is the recommendation for handling these thin content pages? We could add content, but then it wouldn't really help the user very much.
On-Page Optimization | | ExploreConsulting0 -
Sudden Drop in Impressions
Hi all- I'm a bit confused and hope someone may have an idea. In the last few days, traffic to our site has taken a big hit, so much so that I even got an email from webmaster tools that the home page was receiving significantly less traffic. I can't find anything particular that we changed that should have this much of an effect, but then again, I have been shortsighted in the past 🙂 The site is bulkcandystore.com and if anyone has any thoughts, I would appreciate it. Thanks Ken
On-Page Optimization | | CandymanKen0 -
Landing page content and link distribution
Hey there fellow mozers, Need some advice, one of my clients asked us about the best way to distribute their content: number of restaurants per page, links and footer in their Landing pages. Here are 2 examples of what I mean: http://www.just-eat.es/adomicilio/madrid http://www.just-eat.es/adomicilio/pizza Thanks a lot!
On-Page Optimization | | Comunicare0 -
Is this duplicate content okay?
We have a client who wants to rank locally, nationally and internationally for their products. I wrote a line that goes, "We can ship our products to you whether you’re here in Illinois, nationwide, or international." I added that line after a paragraph or two of unique product description on each of their 30-odd product pages. Will this damage their ranking? I tried researching this but only found full page duplicate content topics. Any advice would be great.
On-Page Optimization | | optimalwebinc0 -
Did anyone Rankings drop massively last weekend ...Is this new google update ?
Hi all, My Site rankings took a battering in the past week , From what I have read, I know that google have updated their algorithm and supposedly it only affects less than 1% of queries but I was very surprised to have fallen in that list... Just wondered, am i the only site to have been hammered this past week ? or is it more of a case that maybe the new algorithm means I need to be more savvy with our SEO. Just posting a quick general consensus question ... thanks Sarah
On-Page Optimization | | SarahCollins0 -
Prevent indexing of dynamic content
Hi folks! I discovered bit of an issue with a client's site. Primarily, the site consists of static html pages, however, within one page (a car photo gallery), a line of php coding: dynamically generates a 100 or so pages comprising the photo gallery - all with the same page title and meta description. The photo gallery script resides in the /gallery folder, which I attempted to block via robots.txt - to no avail. My next step will be to include a: within the head section of the html page, but I am wondering if this will stop the bots dead in their tracks or will they still be able to pick-up on the pages generated by the call to the php script residing a bit further down on the page? Dino
On-Page Optimization | | SCW0 -
Major Ranking Drop
My site bestdslrreview dot net was ranking number one for Canon T3i. I was amazed considering my competition. 🙂 Canon T3i was at number 3 to 5 usually for US traffic.. Canon 7d review was ranking number 2 and Canon 7D was on page one. Canon 7D keywords dropped about 10 places but Canon T3i Review dropped about 50. and same for Canon T3i. I worry about a number of things, including thin affiliate site but I don't know, my articles are original. I also worry about to many links with my keywords in anchor text. My on page results from SEOMOZ look great to me. This drop was my main reasons for going ahead and signing up. Hoping I could find out what happened. The site is only about six months old. I waited probably three months before doing any significant link building. The good thing is, I was ranking high from Black Thursday until a few days before Christmas. It can't be someone else just started doing SEO as I fell far too fall. Some kind of penalty. I had Google do this to another of my sites once though and after a couple of months it bounced back for most of my keywords. A site very much like this one. Is this just the Google Dance? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | RustyF0 -
Duplicate Page Content Issue
For one of our campaigns, we have 164 errors for Duplicate Page Content. We have a website where much of the same content lives in two different places on their website. The information needs to be accessible from both areas. What is the best way to tackle this problem? Is there anything that can be done so these pages are not competing against one another? If the only solution is to edit the content on one of the pages, how much of the content has to be different? Is there a certain percentage to go by? Here is an example of what I am referring to: 1.) http://www.valleyorthopedicassociates.com/services/foot-center/preventing-sprains-and-strains 2.) http://www.valleyorthopedicassociates.com/patient-resources/service/foot-and-ankle-center/preventing-sprains-and-strains
On-Page Optimization | | cmaseattle1