Ranking drop
-
Hello there,
Based on Moz's rank tracker our keywords ranking have been dropping in ranking.
Does anyone know what might be the cause?
We have been building quality "white hat" links which are very relevant to our niche
Thanks,
Robert
-
Keep it easy man. If it is a one position drop, monitor your CTR and whether there are new competitors in your SERPs that have maybe just pushed you down.
-
Hi Robert,
I recommend this all the time, but one thing that may shed some light is the Full SERP Report in the Keyword Difficulty Tool in Moz Pro. It can give you a sense of what your competitors on the SERPs are doing that's helping them pull ahead.
Cyrus Shepard made a quick video on it here.
-
Hi Robert,
It sounds to me like you might just be getting out-competed. Gradual declines in rankings in the absence of content changes or penalties are typically the result of competition. If it had something to do with your link profile, you would expect to see large-scale drops - ditto for Panda-related issues.
I can't see any problem with your anchors, so my guess is that you just have to get back on the link-building grind and perhaps add some new content to freshen up the site itself.
Sucks, but that's the game!
Best of luck moving forward,
Rob
-
If unable to see a sharp drop - unfortunately it is back to basics. SImply have to work through the below. Make differential diagnosis's along the way. Do not discount anything until you are 100% certain.
1. https://moz.com/google-algorithm-change
2. https://moz.com/blog/how-to-perform-the-worlds-greatest-seo-audit
3. https://moz.com/blog/technical-site-audit-for-2015
4. http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2207168/how-to-conduct-a-link-audit
5. https://moz.com/blog/content-audit-tutorial
Hope that assists. Though it is the long way home.
-
Robert
Panda 4.2 rolled out on the weekend of 19 July. It is going to be very difficult to track Panda 4.2 the way google is rolling it out.
Can you go to your WMT's and in search analytics and run a comparison on all 4, but the result I am after is page position from 20 july to date and pre 19 july as far back as you can go. ie run a comparison on page position. The green line.
Is there a difference in page position?
If that is not clear ask and can clarify.
-
It has happened in the last few months. Nothing major but most keywords appear to drop one position down regularly.
-
Hi Robert
When did you start to see the ranking drop and was it for all your terms?
Thanks
-
Yes I have run the site through OSE. Our spam score is 0 out of 17.
Anchor text for our root domain is as follow:
|
wallpapered
|
61
|
258
|
52
|
137
[no anchor text]
|
10
|
92
world map wallpaper
|
9
|
13
|
8
|
15
here
|
8
|
25
|
7
|
38
http://www.wallpapered.com/custom-map-wallpaper
|
6
|
19
wall murals
|
5
|
388
wallpapered
|
4
|
25
[no anchor text]
|
4
|
5
custom map wallpaper
|
4
|
10
www.wallpapered.com/custom-map-wallpaper
|
3
|
4
executive world map
|
3
|
3
source
|
2
|
2
2
|
2
|
8
standard world map
|
2
|
2
i sell on wallpapered
|
2
|
4
old map wallpaper
|
2
|
2
bryant park wallpaper
|
2
|
2
1
|
2
|
8
custom area map wallpaper
|
2
|
3
921653 wallpapered com
|
2
|
4
black white world map
|
2
|
2
classic spring wallpaper
|
2
|
2
vintage map wallpapers
|
2
|
5
|
2
|
5
design blog
|
2
|
6
|
2
|
3
wallpaper maps
|
2
|
2
|
2
|
5
elizabetholwen rootsandpods
|
1
|
5
find out more at the wallpapered com website
|
1
|
1
|
-
Hi Robert,
It is hard to help you with this without having more details on your site itself. There are many things that could cause a ranking drop. Have you run your links through Opensite explorer to gauge their spam score? What sort of anchor text do these links have? What changes did you make around the time of noticing the ranking drop? How long has it been going on?
Sorry to answer your question with more questions but there are so many factors that can cause a ranking drop, so establishing more detail will help the community help you further.
Best
Matt
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
-
My Domain authority dropped 9 points... Does anyone have any suggestions to fix this significant drop.
My domain authority dropped by 9 points and I haven't done anything differently since the last scan. What is going on?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | infotrust20 -
Traffic and keyword drop
Hello, On one of the sites that I manage - http://www.zalikihotel.gr/ , there was a significant decrease in keyword positions over the last 10-15 days. Sample screenshot is attached. Some of the keywords even dropped for 17-18 positions. From the end of April, organic traffic dropped by 30 percent. Website is mobile optimized, so that shouldn't be a problem. In the last 3-4 months, we had traffic increase. Domain authority went up by 3 points after the last index. On-site SEO was completed, and currently I'm focusing on link-building and working on bringing back to life forgotten social media. Does anybody knows what might be the case for this negative affects on our site? Do you think it's a temporary fluctuation or not? Thanks in advance. 8dSBELm.png?1
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | socrateskirtsios0 -
How to improve my rankings?
Hi guys, I'm targeting a specific country NZ to start off with as my site is only new 3months old - whilst I'm trying to rank for various keywords such as - psychic readings, online psychic readings, love psychics, clairvoyant, astrology, tarot card readings etc I can see I'm slowly ranking around 18, 20,30,40 through my blog page, but nothing from the site. I know the site is content thin and were currently working on improving this, is there anything else you can suggest that perhaps I might need to be aware of? Or any tools I could use to go about getting information that could help put me ahead lol Thanks all!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | edward-may0 -
A question of rankings (with actual domains)
Working with the main site featured in this Open Site Explorer comparison (you'll need a pro account to view this), and have been for quite some time. Recently we've slid behind Ebay (huge brand, I get it), but the other competitors don't really make sense to me. Main phrase is pontoon boats, and maybe I'm too close to this, but we seem to be in the best shape overall in terms of the domain, the page itself, and even our social media is pretty successful (we're closing in on 5,000 likes and have a pretty engaged audience). More internal linking is an opportunity, but I'd like another set of eyes (or several for that matter) to weigh in on opinions. I'm a bit stumped. Thanks Mozzers!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NetvantageMarketing0 -
Google Places Drop
Hi everyone! I have a client that was ranking very nicely for a number of keywords. In the 5 pack for most of the keywords we were targeting. His account went under review for some unknown reason about 2 months ago. It disappeared from the listing... Then a few weeks ago it became approved again. He is now no longer ranking for any of those keywords. He is ranking for some obscure ones but the money words are gone. Do you think this was due to the review? Some sort of GP update over the last 60 days? All of my other clients are still ranking strong in Google Places. Any ideas?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SeattleJoe0 -
Widespread Ranking Drops for Strong, White Hat sites
Hi Moz, A few of our sites experienced widespread ranking drops across all keywords this morning. Both of these are very strong sites with a high DA (56), moz rank and moz trust above 5. We haven't been doing any black hat SEO, creating spammy links, or paying for links. Is anyone else seeing anything similar or have any ideas as to what type of Algorithm update this might be? We currently rank 67th for our name.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | OneClickVentures0 -
Drop in rankings, next step
So based on a question asked yesterday, I am wondering what my next step is. Yesterday's question was, I have made updates to Title and Meta Descriptions for my client's site and suddenly they are not showing up in the top 50 for numerous keywords that they used to. The only words in the page source that were edited were "fluff" words that were replaced with relevant keywords reflected in much of the on-page copy yet now the client is not showing up. Ideas? From responses and research, it seems there's a lag time in Google to pick up the updated titles/info and these changes can cause a drop in rankings for a short time - however, I can't very well turn to my client and say sorry your website isn't showing up for a few weeks...wondering what my next step should be, or is there a greater issue I'm missing.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | laidlawseo0