Ranking slipped to page 6 from page 1 over the weekend?
-
My site has been on page one for 2 phrases consistently from May onwards this year. The site has fewer than 100 backlinks and the link profile looks fairly even. On Friday we were on page 1, we even had a position 1, however now we are on page 6.
Do you think this is Penguin or some strange Google blip?
We have no webmaster tools messages at all.
Thanks for any help!
-
It's really hard to speak in generalities. If the site had <100 back-links, and some of those links were questionable or they were all targeted to a couple of phrases, then yes, a Penguin update could cause you trouble. The other option is that Google gave you some leeway out the gate and then re-evaluated your link profile and found it to be weak. Given that you ranked back in May, though, that seems unlikely (usually, that would happen in the first 30-60 days, in my experience).
A couple of things to check:
(1) Has anything about your indexed site change (such as duplicates of these pages)?
(2) Were there any technical or design changes to the site?
(3) Have you engaged in any recent link-building that could be questionable?
(4) Are you ranking for exact-match versions of the keywords (in quote)?
The more you can isolate the problem, the better. Penalty diagnosis is tricky.
-
I'd concur with Lesley Paone, that definitely coincides with Penguin 2.1 update. I haven't seen your link profile but you mentioned there's just 100 backlinks. It may be this was enough to rank you before, but not anymore. Just a thought.
-
Google always look for quality content, design for user not for search engine, try to rewrite
-
Hi I've sent you a private message as didn't want to reveal the URL over here
thanks -
From what I understand, no. It is basically an web spam algorithm change. Manual actions are for the sites that get around the changes, but are still spammy. So they manually have to assess a penalty. At least from my understanding.
-
The rankings were fine on Friday afternoon UK time but first thing this morning (Monday) when I have checked they have moved significantly. Considering there are hardly any backlinks I'm shocked at the extreme slip in rankings. None of my other sites have had a problem.
-
I was just going to post a new question, but this is related so I thought I'd join in here. I have seen drops in keyword ranking also which I believe is Penguin 2.1. My question is this, can I rely on the manual action section of webmaster tools to tell me if the site has been hit?
-
It very well could of been because penguin 2.1 was released this weekend. What day did it happen on? https://twitter.com/mattcutts/status/386231794883780609
-
Hi there.
Can you please write your website adress and keyword that you lost ranking so there is a possibility to check it ?
Frutiko Team
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
-
Paginated Pages Page Depth
Hi Everyone, I was wondering how Google counts the page depth on paginated pages. DeepCrawl is showing our primary pages as being 6+ levels deep, but without the blog or with an infinite scroll on the /blog/ page, I believe it would be only 2 or 3 levels deep. Using Moz's blog as an example, is https://moz.com/blog?page=2 treated to be on the same level in terms of page depth as https://moz.com/blog? If so is it the https://site.comcom/blog" /> and https://site.com/blog?page=3" /> code that helps Google recognize this? Or does Google treat the page depth the same way that DeepCrawl is showing it with the blog posts on page 2 being +1 in page depth compared to the ones on page 1, for example? Thanks, Andy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AndyRSB0 -
Would You Redirect a Page if the Parent Page was Redirected?
Hi everyone! Let's use this as an example URL: https://www.example.com/marvel/avengers/hulk/ We have done a 301 redirect for the "Avengers" page to another page on the site. Sibling pages of the "Hulk" page live off "marvel" now (ex: /marvel/thor/ and /marvel/iron-man/). Is there any benefit in doing a 301 for the "Hulk" page to live at /marvel/hulk/ like it's sibling pages? Is there any harm long-term in leaving the "Hulk" page under a permanently redirected page? Thank you! Matt
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | amag0 -
SEO: How to change page content + shift its original content to other page at the same time?
Hello, I want to replace the content of one page of our website (already indexeed) and shift its original content to another page. How can I do this without problems like penalizations etc? Current situation: Page A
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | daimpa
URL: example.com/formula-1
Content: ContentPageA Desired situation: Page A
URL: example.com/formula-1
Content: NEW CONTENT! Page B
URL: example.com/formula-1-news
Content: ContentPageA (The content that was in Page A!) Content of the two pages will be about the same argument (& same keyword) but non-duplicate. The new content in page A is more optimized for search engines. How long will it take for the page to rank better?0 -
Does site size (page count) effect search ranking?
If a company has a handful of large sites that function as collection of unique portals into client-specific content (password protected), will it have any positive effect on search ranking to migrate all of the sites to one URL structure.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | trideagroup0 -
Can a home page penalty cause a drop in rankings for all pages?
All my main keywords have dropped out of the SERPS. Could it be that the home page (the strongest) page has been devalued and therefore 'link juice' that used to spread throughout the site is no longer doing so. Would this cause all other pages to drop? I just can't understand how all my pages have lost rankings. The site is still indexed so there's no problem there.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SamCUK0 -
How to avoid content canibalizm? How do I control which page is the landing page?
Hi All, To clarify my question I will give an example. Let's assume that I have a laptop e-commerce site and that one of my main categories is Samsung Laptops. The category page shows lots of laptops and a small section of text. On the other hand, in my article section I have a HUGE article about Samsung Laptops. If we consider the two word phrases each page is targeting then the answer is the same - Samsung Laptops. On the article i point to the category page using anchor such as "buy samsung laptops" or "samsung laptops" and on the category page (my wishful landing page) I point to the article with "learn about samsung laptops" or "samsung laptops pros and cons". Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet0 -
Does a page on a site with high domain authority build page authority easier? i.e. less inbound links?
Is this also why people build backlinks to their BBB profiles, Yellowpages Profiles, etc. i.e. why do people build backlinks to other pages that link to them? Wouldn't it be more beneficial to just build that backlink directly to your target?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | adriandg0 -
Need help/insights. Site SEO = OK, Authority BLs = OK, Rank page #1\. How to reach pos #1?
Hi there! Some doubts are confusing my head and need some assistence from you to get on the right track. I'll explain my situation and want to hear from you what do you really recommend for med/long term permanent results. 1 - I have a PR2 (.com.br) domain; 2 - I'm talking about little/med competition micro-niche keywords; 3 - I got all pages I want to, indexed (I have a well SEO constructed website with internal link building); 4 - If a keyword has average competition, I'll already start ranking in page #3 on the SERP's; For a few low competition keywords I start on page #1; 5 - I do a little whitehat link building, 1 or 2 backlinks on authority sites and then like 15 days later I came to page #1, generally on position 9/10; And then I got stucked 🙂 No more authority sites where I can get backlinks... I do some posts on the company twitter/facebook page's, but they are no follow, so I don't really now if this can help. (never see a SERP result). I did some "blackhat" stuff to see if it really work: I can say for sure the "profile backlinks" that we can buy from some sites doesn't work (maybe it's just for me). I can't see it on webmaster tool and neither my ranks changed since I bought a pack of 100 links (the links are working, I see it one by one) to test. Maybe the problem is about the domains, cause my site is .com.br and I'm buying .com profile links. I guess google understand backlinks from .com.br more valuable for my sites. Back to whitehat: I wrote some articles and posted it the right way, of course on .com.br articles sites, got it indexed and can see the backlink on webmaster tool, but no change on SERP's. (maybe this can be a long term result and I'm not seeing it yet). I'm really "scratching my hand" to do some blackhat stuff, but I don't want to lose what I already have done... I heard a lot about scrapebox but doesn't fell confortable to spam as hell a lot of blogs. I really want long term permanent results (my sites are totally whitehat/corporate sites). Can you expert guys give me some point to where I need to "walk" now to improve the SERP's? I never reached top #1 and want to try to rank at least one time to understand how this can be made... I'm thinking now to pay someone to rewrite 20 copies of an article and up it on some sites, to see if 20 can improve something. But still no confident, because it will cost like $100 for a good writer do it for me on my language. Maybe I can do better things with 100 bucks. I guess I did the path right: Internal SEO -> got indexed -> backlinking from authorities -> new articles backlinks to me (is it ok at this position or no?) -> (what next ?) I know SEO is a hard/never ending work, but what I'm trying to get cleaned on my head is the path of the work (if a right path really exists). Every word will be apreciated. What do you can suggest to me to try now? (please give me a hint to see SERP's results 🙂 if I feel that something worked, no matter how it can cost to me, but I'll pay for the work happily) Sorry if I'm a little confusing, english isnt' my first language. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | azaiats20
