Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Dates appear before home page description in the SERPs- HUGE drop in rankings
-
We have been on the first page of Google for a number of years for search terms including 'SEO Agency', 'SEO Agency London' etc.
A few months ago we made some changes to the design of the home page (added a blog feed), and made changes to the website sitemap.
Two days ago (two months after last site changes were made) we dropped subsantially in the SERPs for all home page keywords. Where we are found, a date appears before the description in the SERPs, dating February 2012 (which is when we launched the original website). The site has been through a revamp since then, yet it still shows 2012.
This has been followed by a few additional strange things, including the sitelinks that Google is choosing to show (which including author bio pages showing in homepage site links), and googling our brand name no longer brings up sitelinks in the SERPs.
The problem only affects the home page. All other pages are performing as standard.
When Penguin 4.0 came out we saw a noted improvement in our SERP performance, and our backlinks are good and quality, largely from PR efforts. Of course, I would be interested in additional pairs of eyes on the back links to see if anyone thinks that I have missed anything!
We have 3 of our senior SEOs working on trying to figure out what is going on and how to resolve it, but I would be very interested if anyone has any thoughts?
-
I'm seeing this same issue on a client site I consult for. The pages have images added through the WYSIWYG as a workaround to add more info. We're using ASP.net which I realize is a legacy platform. I'm betting those dates are coming from the image creation date. Any updates on this issue appreciated.
-
Did anyone find a workaround for this? Just realized all my pages are also being affected by it. I really don't want to remove the videos, but looks like I don't have a choice.
-
If it is an algo update, it means Google is deliberately sinking articles with old datestamps, or conversely favouring articles with new/no datestamps.
Otherwise there's no way to explain why changing the embedded video to a link would instantly* restore rankings.
That does not seem like sensible behaviour. I agree with QDF for new content, but an old, regularly updated page with content that meets searchers' needs should never be penalised because of its publish date.
I'm leaning towards glitch on this one.
I hope I'm correct, because I don't want to serve a terrible user experience (linked videos instead of embeds) just to maintain our rankings.
- after a Fetch and Submit in Search Console
-
Unfortunately, they're being pretty tight-lipped on this one. Seems like a glitch, but they don't seem to think it's related to the rankings drop. Possible two events co-occurred, and there was an algo update at the same time as the glitch. Honestly, though, it's not clear at all.
-
Hi Peter,
Thanks for your reply. Its great to know Google is aware of this. Upon deleting the YouTube videos of my pages, I am seeing them slowly change back to normal dates as well as no dates even showing at all.
Rankings are also slowly going back up. My theory is the old dates taken from the videos affected CTR (many searchers are probably turned off by a post from 2010), which after a few days of decreasing probably affected rankings as well.
-
We're definitely seeing similar reports about the bad dates, and it has been brought to Google's attention at reasonably high levels (i.e. I'm confident they know about it, but it's hard to say what they're doing about it).
Unfortunately, it's unclear whether this was connected to a ranking drop in some cases or was a coincidence. We did see substantial movement in the algorithm right around November 10th (the date you posted this question), but, unfortunately, we have no confirmation.
Sorry, wish I had better info right now, but I'll try to find out more.
-
Hi all,
Over here from my question about this exact problem (https://moz.com/community/q/serps-started-showing-the-incorrect-date-next-to-my-pages).
Can confirm that it is the YouTube embed date. We were going crazy as well trying to figure out where these random dates were coming from (some dated before our domain was even registered).
We've removed all YouTube videos for now (unfortunately) and are currently waiting for a recrawl as well as fetching some in the back-end of Search Console. Will report back once it's completely fixed.
-
Edward - thanks for posting this. Sitetechie - great detective work!
We are seeing the same issue:
- big drop in page 1 rankings
- old dates appearing in SERPs
- dates match exacty with YouTube vieos embedded on articles
I have changed our YouTube embeds (Wordpress site using oEmbed) to just plain links until Google resolves this issue.
If anyone else has any more information on this bug, please keep posting here.
-
Hi yes that does seem as though it is probably it. I have checked a few sites that appear to have the same issue, and they have videos on home page too. We will remove and check.
Very annoying as the substantial decline in rankings coincides direct with this, and it does appear to be a bug. Let's give Rand and the Moz comm the heads up on this. If he points it out you can bet that it will be noticed by the powers up top!
Thanks very much for your help!
Ed
-
We experienced something similar starting yesterday and after tons of digging, finally figured it out. Now, let's spread the word and get Google to fix this ASAP! Does anyone know how to get this bug in front of the right people at Google? Please help as it is causing issues with countless sites. See below for what is happening:
The issue that is causing this seems to be a Google bug. That Google bug is taking the original upload date of a YouTube video you have embedded on the page and then is placing that date in front of your meta description in SERPs for that page. We were going crazy trying to figure this out and eventually figured it out because it was only on our sites/pages with embedded YouTube videos and all of the dates inserted ahead of the description matched up perfectly with the original upload dates of the YouTube videos. I found this to be the case with your agency website date showing in the meta description matching up with the original upload date of the YouTube video embedded on your page.
Let's all work together to put the word out on this so it gets fixed ASAP. It seems to have started in the past 24-48 hours.
-
Additionally, we have already removed the blog feed from the home page to see if this would change things, and have requested a recrawl, which has happened. It did not solve the issue, and the dates still appear before the description in the SERPs for the home page, the substantial decline in ranking is still there.
Furthermore, the core pages of the site (home and services) are built in raw html, css etc, with no CMS (no Wordpress).
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
-
75% Overnight Drop in Organic Search Traffic
On April 10th my organic search clicks dropped 75% overnight. I have never seen anything like it. What Google algorithm change could have caused this? I have no manual actions and my indexed page count is about the same. I have noticed that several queries that I was number one for including my brand have dropped by anywhere from two to ten spots. The brand dropping out of the first spot is what really gets me. There is nothing similar to it at all. My speed score is moderate, so I don't think that is it. My site was down most of the day on the 9th or 10th, but that has never caused a drop in search clicks and the next day they were about the same. I noticed that the CDC now occupies the number one spot for my brand. Even though the exact brand name is nowhere in the text of the CDC page. I think this might be due to Google trying to help official health organizations do better due to COVID19, but the queries I have dropped on have nothing to do with Coronavirus. Also, none of my other sites have seen this type of problem. Only the health site seems affected. I recently did a press release campaign and my link counts are up, so I don't that is it either. The brand page is https://stdcarriers.com and an example of an effected query is Celebrities with STDs.
Algorithm Updates | | STDCarriers0 -
How often should I update the content on my pages?
I have started dropping on my rankings - due to lack of time after having a baby. I'm still managing to blog but I'm wondering if I update the content on my pages will that help? All my Meta tags and page descriptions were updated over a year ago - do I need to update these too? We were ranking in the top spots for a good few years, but we're slowly falling 😞 Please give me any advice to keep us from falling even further. I have claimed all my listings, and try to add new links once a month. I share my blog to all social sites and work hard to get Google reviews, we have 53 which is higher than any of our competitors. Any other ideas? Have I missed something that Google is looking for nowadays? Many thanks 🙂
Algorithm Updates | | Lauren16890 -
Safari and IE killing our mobile ranking
My client's website does fairly well on mobile in a Google Search. So one day, my client is in a staff meeting and everyone does on search on their phones. The client’s website is nowhere on the 1st three pages. I get a call asking why. I tell the client that Google has maybe as high as 90% market share on mobile. Of course, their phones have the factory installed Safari and IE. Client says lots of people don’t change the factory settings on mobile . Question: How do we rate higher on lesser search engines?
Algorithm Updates | | jgodwin0 -
Does Google ignores page title suffix?
Hi all, It's a common practice giving the "brand name" or "brand name & primary keyword" as suffix on EVERY page title. Well then it's just we are giving "primary keyword" across all pages and we expect "homepage" to rank better for that "primary keyword". Still Google ranks the pages accordingly? How Google handles it? The default suffix with primary keyword across all pages will be ignored or devalued by Google for ranking certain pages? Or by the ranking of website improves for "primary keyword" just because it has been added to all page titles?
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Dramatic drop in SEO rankings after recovering from hacking
A few months ago my client's website was hacked which created over 20,000+ spammy links on the site. I dealt with removing the malware and got google to remove the malware warning shortly within a week of the hacking. Then started the long process to do 301 redirects and disavowing links under Webmaster tools over these few months. The hacking only caused a slight drop in rankings at the time. Now just as of last week the site had a dramatic drop in rankings. When doing a keyword search I noticed the homepage doesn't even get listed on Google Maps and for Google Search instead the inner pages like the Contact Us page show up instead of the homepage. Does anyone have any insight to the sudden drop happening now and why the inner pages are ranking higher than the homepage now?
Algorithm Updates | | FPK0 -
How much link juice does a sites homepage pass to inner pages and influence inner page rankings?
Hi, I have a question regarding the power of internal links and how much link juice they pass, and how they influence search engine ranking positions. If we take the example of an ecommerce store that sells kites. Scenario 1 It can be assumed that it is easier for the kite ecommerce store to earn links to its homepage from writing great content on its blog, as any blogger that will link to the content will likely use the site name, and homepage as anchor text. So if we follow this through, then it can be assumed that there will eventually be a large number of high quality backlinks pointing to the sites homepage from various high authority blogs that love the content being posted on the sites blog. The question is how much link juice does this homepage pass to the category pages, and from the category pages then to the product pages, and what influence does this have on rankings? I ask because I have seen strong ecommerce sites with very strong DA or domain PR but with no backlinks to the product page/category page that are being ranked in the top 10 of search results often, for the respective category and product pages. It therefore leads me to assume that internal links must have a strong determiner on search rankings... Could it therefore also be assumed that a site with a PR of 5 and no links to a specific product page, would rank higher than a site with a PR of 1 but with 100 links pointing to the specific product page? Assuming they were both trying to rank for the same product keyword, and all other factors were equal. Ie. neither of them built spammy links or over optimised anchor text? Scenario 2 Does internal linking work both ways? Whereas in my above example I spoke about the homepage carrying link juice downward to the inner category and product pages. Can a powerful inner page carry link juice upward to category pages and then the homepage. For example, say the blogger who liked the kite stores blog content piece linked directly to the blog content piece from his site and the kite store blog content piece was hosted on www.xxxxxxx.com/blog/blogcontentpiece As authority links are being built to this blog content piece page from other bloggers linking to it, will it then pass link juice up to the main blog category page, and then the kite sites main homepage? And if there is a link with relevant anchor text as part of the blog content piece will this cause the link juice flowing upwards to be stronger? I know the above is quite winded, but I couldn't find anywhere that explains the power of internal linking on SERP's... Look forward to your replies on this....
Algorithm Updates | | sanj50500 -
Is there a way to pull historical rankings for a keyword?
I have someone who's come to me and said that they have lost all of their organic keyword rankings. They did launch a site redesign a few months back so that could be a reason as to why. But after looking at the site, link profile, etc. It doesn't look like they could have been ranking for the terms they say they were. They have never implemented any SEO on their sites btw. I did not build this site and have not done any SEO, they are coming to me to solve the problem. I did notice in SEM rush that a couple months ago they were ranking organically for more terms (20 in July vs. 5 now), so they did lose some. Is there any way to see what terms they WERE ranking for?
Algorithm Updates | | MichaelWeisbaum0 -
Using Brand Name in Page titles
Is it a good practice to append our brand name at the end of every page title? We have a very strong brand name but it is also long. Right now what we are doing is saying: Product Name | Long brand name here Product Category | Long brand name here Is this the right way to do it or should we just be going with ONLY the product and category names in our page titles? Right now we often exceed the 70 character recommendation limit.
Algorithm Updates | | mlentner1