A specific keyword has dropped from #1 in Google to nowhere at all...
-
Hi guys,
I hope you can help.
We have a large ecommerce website which has different domains for each language - GB, USA, DE, AU & CA.
I've been working my way through the errors that have been flagged in Moz and today I noticed something quite worrying.
One of our strong keywords has dropped from 1st place to nowhere at all. However, the Canadian version is ranking in the UK desktop search and our mobile site is appearing in the desktop search too.
The keyword is 'personalised macbook cover' and the page in question is https://www.mrnutcase.com/en-GB/personalised-macbook-cover/
I'm confused as this page was ranking brilliantly a couple of weeks ago and now it's nowhere to be seen. We've added alternate and canonical tags to distinguish which site is mobile and which site is desktop. We've also submitted a sitemap so that it takes into account all of the languages.
There are no harmful links and we've changed the content of the page across each language.
I've attached what appears in the SERP's in the UK. (there is the mobile version ranking at the top and the Canadian version further down the page)
Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Danny
webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=personalised%20macbook%20covers
-
Hi guys,
Thank you so much for your responses. That makes perfect sense.
I've forwarded your answers on to our developer.
Thanks again,
Danny
-
The way you implemented the link to the mobile site is wrong: you have just put a plain
rel="alternate" href="http://mrnutcase.mobi/en-GB/personalised-macbook-cover/"/
It should be like the example here https://developers.google.com/webmasters/mobile-sites/mobile-seo/separate-urls
On your desktop site put:
href="http://mrnutcase.mobi/en-GB/personalised-macbook-cover/">
On your mobile site put:
Additional issue is that for the page you put as alternate (the mobile version http://mrnutcase.mobi/en-GB/personalised-macbook-cover/) gives a 404 - so you should correct that. This is probably the main reason why the page is no longer ranked.
Dirk
-
Hi Danny,
Are you using a tool to measure your rank/search volume or are you relying on Google search result to determine where you are ranking? As I'm sure you are aware your results are skewed by various factors, geographical location, search history, etc. When I look up that page, I see you ranking on the first page for 3 terms:
- custom macbook pro case
- mac book covers
- personalised macbook case
Each with a search volume of 90. The term "personalised macbook cover" only has a search volume of 10. If I were you I would explore higher search volume terms that you current rank on the second page for, like:
- macbook case (SV=2,400)
- macbook cases (SV=1,300)
- macbook covers (SV=880)
- macbook cover (SV=590)
- macbook pro covers (SV=390)
- custom cases (SV=260)
- mac book cases (SV=210)
I only really dug around the UK search results. But a similar approach could be applied to the other languages.
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
-
Proximity of keywords in text
In content, does the proximity of semantically related keyword matter ? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics1 -
How does google decide who to rank 1 st ?
Let take a medical example. Flu symptoms How does google know who has the best answer ? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Silly Question still - Because I am paying high to google adwords is it possible google can't rank me high in organic?
Hello All, My ecommerce site gone in penalty more than 3 years before and within 3 months I got message from google penalty removed. Since then till date my organic ranking is very worst. In this 3 years I improved my site onpage very great. If I compare my site with all other competitors who are ranking in top 10 then my onpage that includes all schema, reviews, sitemap, header tags, meta's etc, social media, site structure, most imp speed, google page speed insight score, pingdom, w3c errors, alexa rank, global rank, UI, offers, design, content, code to text raito, engagement rate, page views, time on site etc all my sites always good compare to competitors. They also have few backlinks I do have few backlinks only. I am doing very high google adwords and my conversion rate is very very good. But do you think because I am paying since last 3 year high to google because of that google have some setting or strategy that those who perform well in adwords so not to bring up in organic? Is it possible I can talk with google on this? If yes then what will be the medium of conversation? Pls give some valuable inputs I am performing very much in paid so user end site is very very well. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pragnesh96390 -
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 -
Keyword not ranking but keyword within a phrase is?
Hi Guys, Google is not indexing the keyword ‘e liquid’ for www.cloudstix.com/e-liquid and it's driving me insane. I cannot understand why, can anyone please shed any light! -On page we have used variations e liquid, e-liquid, eliquid. -The e-liquid product pages are canonicaled to www.cloudstix.com/e-liquid. -3 other pages regarding e liquid were 301 redirected to the page passing good authority. I did this as I believed these pages conflicted as they seemed to target e-liquid. -‘e-liquid’ is being used as an anchor throughout the website pointing to www.cloudstix.com/e-liquid. -The ‘e liquid’ page has generally good authority PA 22, DA26. -The website has good anchor text linking to the site, all relative and e liquid related, along with brand links. Currently the keyword ‘e liquid’ brings up the home page www.cloudstix.com ranked 100+. What’s strange is the other terms relating to 'e liquid' bring up www.cloudstix.com/e-liquid for example: ‘e liquid uk’ ‘the best e liquid’ and ‘e liquid cloudstix’. Any ideas on what the problem may be. Would appreciate any advice on this. Thanks guys! Liam
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | One2OneDigital0 -
Why is this site not indexed by Google?
Hi all and thanks for your help in advance. I've been asked to take a look at a site, http://www.yourdairygold.ie as it currently does not appear for its brand name, Your Dairygold on Google Ireland even though it's been live for a few months now. I've checked all the usual issues such as robots.txt (doesn't have one) and the robots meta tag (doesn't have them). The even stranger thing is that the site does rank on Yahoo! and Bing. Google Webmaster Tools shows that Googlebot is crawling around 150 pages a day but the total number of pages indexed is zero. It does appear if you carry out a site: search on Google however. The site is very poorly optimised in terms of title tags, unnecessary redirects etc which I'm working on now but I wondered if you guys had any further insights. Thanks again for your help.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | iProspect-Ireland0 -
My site dropped 10 spot on Google last week... why ?
Hello I have launched my site in April last year. http://www.hobartphotographertasmania.com.au/ It took a while but I finally got to rank 2 on Google for "Hobart photographer" and rank 1 for "photographer Hobart Tasmania". Suddenly last week my site dropped to page 2 and I don't understand why. Was there a Google update ? If not, what can be the reason for such a sudden drop ? Thanks Loic
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | loiclg0 -
How to Target Keyword Variations?
I have a list of keywords I'm trying to target and they are essentially different variations of each other: Example: blue yankees baseball hat yankees blue baseball hat yankees baseball hat in blue Should I be targeting all these on the same page, or should I be making a new page for each one? Thanks Mozzers!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ATMOSMarketing560