What happened??
-
Hi all! I just noticed over the last week that directories have taken over the first page of Google for vanity/local searches. My client has shown strong for over a year, and all of a sudden got pushed to the second page and all of these directories have been pushed forward. My client is a law firm, so the directories are findlaw.com, lawyers.com, justia.com, avvo.com, elocallawyers.com, yellowpages.com, primebuyersreport.com, yelp.com. There is only ONE law firm website listed on page 1. It used to be only a couple directories and mostly law firms.
I bet you smart people know what happened!
-
I'm going to guess your client got impacted b the Penguin 2.1 update. It may well not be a case of your client getting penalized however as opposed to the other sites getting rewarded. I've been up against Findlaw, etc ... they have good links.
I have to guess that if we're honest - they have better links that your client and your clients links got devalued in the update. So it's more a case of the client losing weight than directories being increased in value.
-
Looks like Google enacted blended results. So a single site can no longer rank for both an organic keyword and the local 7 pack. At the same time, directory sites such as Yelp, yellowpages etc are dominating local keywords. You can frequently see the top 3-4-5-6 results being Yelp and the local 7 pack afterwards.
SEO your Yelp listing!
-
I had a similar case once and again it was with legal websites, i am not quite sure if it is the same thing but worth checking it.
Legal directories generally have a blog or news page and if they publish a popular subject with unique content , they intent to show up on the first page. For instance, if there is a new update about personal injury or employment law and all these directories publish a well-written unique content on the same day and that effects your ranking depending on the content and keyword you target. However, this is generally temporary issue, they don't stay long on the first page, generally Law firms have stronger position than directories on SERPS.
-
What kinds of keywords are you searching for? A lot of these directories like FindLaw have very high domain authority, so are often able to outrank individual firms for non-localized keywords. Also, for broader searches, returning a site that lists multiple firms may provide a better experience for a searcher than just returning individual firms.
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
-
What happens if we remove all the links to internal pages from our homepage?
Hi Moz community, We wanna give a try by removing all the links from homepage to internal pages and keep just a free trial button. Will this impact our SEO anyway? We have nearly 15 important internal pages at 2nd and 3rd hierarchy level. They may drop in rankings but we want to risk for few days to understand how it works. Your opinion please! Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
What happens when we change redirects to pass linkjuice to different pages from backlinks? Google's stand?
Hi Moz community, We have employed different pages (topics) at same URLs for years. This has brought different backlinks to same page which has led to non relevancy of backlinks. Now we are planning to redirect some URLs which may improve or drop rankings of certain pages. If we roll back the redirects in case of ranking drop, will there be any negative impact from Google? Does Google notice anything about redirect changes beside just passing pagerank from backlinks? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
What happens when we canonical and point to a page which has been redirected to another page? Google response!
Hi all, I would like to know the different scenarios Google going to respond when we use canonical and redirect for duplicate pages. Let's say A to B are duplicate pages with 95% same content and C Doesn't have same content but context wise similar and priority page we expect to rank for. What happens if we canonical from A to B and set redirect from B to C? What if both A and B are pointed to C with canonical? What if A or B deleted and other one is canonical to C? Note: We can noindex or 301 redirect as they have their own visitors. This is more about showing most relevant content to the audience and avoid duplicate content in search results. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
What is your hypothesis why Panda/Penguin recoveries happen over months after an algorithm update rather than over night?
We have experienced many scenarios were ranking recoveries from clear Panda and Penguin penalties on our sites don't necessarily happen with the launch of a Panda/Penguin update but instead trickle back in over weeks and months after a confirmed algo update. A good example is shown in the image which shows a panda recovery for a high volume keyword. What is your theory why these ranking recoveries happen over weeks vs instantly? qCWliLF
Algorithm Updates | | italiansoc0 -
Have you seen what happens when you Google Academy Awards 2014?
Hi All... Just wondering if it is a new feature on Google's side (knowledge Graph)? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | BeytzNet0 -
Our organic search traffic went flat for 2 weeks Oct 2 - Oct 17\. It has since resumed to more normal numbers. Anyone have any idea why this would happen?
Does anyone have any insight as to why our organic search traffic would go to nearly nothing for roughly a 2 week span Oct 2 - Oct 17th? Our regular traffic remained fairly consistent so we were still being indexed. It has now resumed to more normal numbers but I cannot think of anything we did that would make this happen? We did make a 302 switch to be a 301 permanent redirect on our site in early August but that is all I can think of? Any insight or help would be appreciated!
Algorithm Updates | | mwuest0 -
MozCast metrics: Big movement yesterday - what happened?
Hi, As the title says, looked at MozCast metrics and it's showing some pretty big movement for yesterday. Anyone see any SERP movement? Or have an idea what happened?
Algorithm Updates | | activitysuper0 -
Our Rankings are being very inconsistent! Some days we are on the front page, some days we are not in the top 50\. This happens on a weekly and sometimes daily basis... Any thoughts on why this is happening? This newbie appreciates any feedback.
We seem to be having major issues with our rankings. When I came into the company, the company was in the middle of cleaning up some of their past SEO efforts that had caused some issues with some of the latest Google updates. We were able to get the site back up to par, and some of our rankings were improved back to the first page, but then they disappeared. They will head back to the first page and then disappear again on a weekly and sometimes daily basis. Does anyone have any idea on why it will be doing this so inconsistently and so often? This newbie appreciates any feedback!!!!!
Algorithm Updates | | PCMV0