Site with no ads hit by Page Layout update?
-
Hi there!
Can a site that has no ads on it be hit by Google's latest Page Layout update? Can it be hit for just one or two keywords?
My site (www.ink2paper.com) has a decline in Google organic traffic in early Feb so my suspicion is the Page Layout update. However I have no ads on the site.
Digging into GWMT I find that it is only one or 2 keywords that seems to have taken a dive, mainly [photo paper]. I used to get around 80 imps a day for this term. Then on 6 Feb it was down to 50; 7 Feb = 34; 8 Feb just 4 impressions! I got a spike back at usual levels on 10 & 11 Feb, but since then it has been back down to only 5 or so impressions a day.
[photographic paper] took a small hit at the start of February, but has nose dived since the start of April.
The homepage performs well for Google organic traffic - low bounce (22%) and good ecom conversion rate (14%) - although this is likely to be largely branded traffic. I feel my site is a 'good' result for the search term [photo paper], although there is always room for improvement of course!
Any suggestions as to why Google has stopped showing my site for these keywords? All help is greatly appreciated.
Cheers,
Simon -
No problem Simon - hope it all gets sorted
-Andy
-
Thanks William! Thanks Andy!
It is very easy to look to a Google update whenever something happens with traffic. On this occasion the Page Layout update times with a drop in ranking for these keywords - I've slipped off the bottom of page 1. Thanks for reminding me to look closer to home in the first instance - indeed it looks like the drop in rank is the more likely cause of the drop in traffic.
Andy - thanks for the point about the login link as well. Alas I inherited the site when I bought the company and it is not something that the makers of the platform want to change. I will drop them another line about it though.
Thanks for helping!
Cheers,
Simon -
Unrelated to rankings, I would not be wanting the login URL to the site so easily accessible Simon. I would look to change this - it will be much better hidden from view.
As for what has happened, I would be very surprised if this was anything to do with page layout, but looking away from analytics, how are your positions in the SERPs? Are you seeing a drop of just a few places, or a number of pages?
-Andy
-
I wouldn't attribute this to a page layout penalty.
Make sure to keep track of your rankings, so you can check to see if there was a dip in ranks that correlates with the dip in traffic. Keep in mind the ranks do fluctuate, especially if someone else is actively focuses on the terms.
This could very well be other people gaining ranks above you, or search volume being a little low for a bit. The data isn't large enough to determine trends. A few dozen impressions here and there could be anything. Take larger time-spans of data to determine trends to figure out why things are happening, but this isn't a display penalty in my opinion.
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
-
We added hundreds of pages to our website & restructured the layout to include 3 additional locations within the sub-pages, same brand/domain name. How long could Google take to crawl/index the new pages and rank the keywords used within those pages?
We added hundreds of pages to our website & restructured the layout to include 3 additional locations within the sub-pages, same brand/domain name. The 3 locations old domains were redirected to their sites within our main brand domain. How long could Google take to crawl/index the new pages and rank the keywords used within those pages? And possibly increase our domain authority hopefully? We didn't want our brand spread out over multiple websites/domains on the internet. This also allowed for more content to be written on pages, per each of our locations service's, as well.
Web Design | | BurgSimpson0 -
WordPress Category page title h1 or h2
Hi friends, I know this is a minor technical change, but we are in an extremely competitive market and I don't want to have any points against us. On our WordPress Category pages i.e. http://www.domain.com/category/�tegory-title%/ I looked at the code behind the the Title of the category page, which is "Browsing: %Category Title%" The code is an h2. I look at the posts in the category archive below, and those are also h2's. The theme preview is here and you can click on Entertainment - Reviews to see exactly what I'm referring to - http://themeforest.net/item/smartmag-responsive-retina-wordpress-magazine/full_screen_preview/6652608 I changed the code for the "Browsing: %Category Title%" to h1, which I believe is more consistent and standard formatting. 1. Is this a correct technical on-page optimization? 2. Would it be beneficial to remove "Browsing"?
Web Design | | JustinMurray0 -
Do Google Fonts Slow Down Your Site?
Hi Guys,
Web Design | | jeeyer
I just did a webpage speed test on http://www.webpagetest.org to see how our site is performing.
I noticed that an exteral URL called fonts.gstatic.com has a "huge" impact on our sites loading time. See a screen here: http://monosnap.com/image/z6drzC2ELoJ48d1rM0Tmtuszl3pFpH#
An overview can be seen here: http://monosnap.com/image/9hofUpr5Ld8D7mi7zyaJmGFIGhpBsY# All our scores are green and A (finally!) but I was a bit concerned when I saw the outcome of the pagespeedtest regarding the fonts.
When I load a page on my pc I indeed notice that the text content is usally quite slow in showing up, pops up afer a few seconds. Is this a know problem and Is this something I need to fix? If so what is the best approach? Looking forward on your thoughts!
Joost1 -
Mobile tab for page speed insight
I am getting mobile error occurred problem.Can somebody help me about this issue? https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?hl=en&utm_source=wmx&utm_campaign=wmx_otherlinks&url=www.printez.com&tab=mobile Morris
Web Design | | PrintEZ0 -
Does Using Magento With Multi Sites Affect SEO
We have a client who has 3 separate websites targeting the US, Australia, and the UK. Each of them has relevant ccTLD's such as: .com .com.au and .co.uk. Our client wants to use the Magento multi-site function so it combines all the stores (which are the exact same products) and merge it into one through Magento. These sites are all hosted in the US and had nothing to do with me haha! I understand Rand has mentioned on a video it would be best having the websites with ccTLD's hosted in that country (if budget permits), however in this case the budget doesn't permit us to go down that road. Has anyone any advice on this matter, has anyone did this before and had a lot of success with the SEO? At present there doesn't seem to be a lot of information about it and opinions are varied and sometimes divided. Any help would be very much appreciated guys Thanks, Matt
Web Design | | HigherthanSEO0 -
Site redesign and links?
I have a real estate website. On my sidebar I have about 16 links to pages on various neighborhoods. I templated my site using dream weaver so the same sidebar and links are on every page. I'm thinking of redesigning the sidebar and having one link that will take visitors to a page where all the neighborhood links will be and then from there visitors can choose whichever link to go to a specific neighborhood info page. I am doing this to clear space on my side bar for other content and links. What impact would this have on my home page? The website is bronxpad.com if anyone wants to check it out and provide feedback.
Web Design | | bronxpad0 -
My personal search page
www.myname.com I watched the "White Board Friday" video on creating your own website based on your name. Can anyone explain why this would be a good concept for me? I'm currently involved in 1. Marketing for the company I work for 2. Sales for the company I work for 3. Affiliate Marketing/ Site Creation as side projects 4. SEO as a free-lance part-time offering 5. PPC & Web-marketing as a free-lance part-time offering Would my personal page be to showcase all of this? why is it beneficial for SEO?
Web Design | | AndySolo0 -
Effects of HTML layout on Arabic websites and SEO
Hi all, I was hoping someone may be able to help. We are putting together an Arabic website and due to reading right to left as opposed to left to right, the site HTML layout is mirrored compared to normal with everything flipped over. What we are wondering is, will this effect SEO and what are the SEO implications of this? Do the search engine bots automaticlaly know to read the content etc differently and understand that everything is purposely mirrored / the HTML is in a different location compared to a site in the UK / US etc? Any help on this would be most appreciated. Cheers!
Web Design | | marcelo-2753980