HomePage Stopped Ranking For Brand on Aged Site
-
I've got an odd issue (that I've never encountered in 27 years in SEO). Our home page stopped ranking for our brand "BlowFish SEO" and is no place to be seen when searching our brand. I do get the knowledge panel on the right-hand side of the page. and our about page now comes up number #1. Technically the on-page SEO is correct This page has ranked for many years for our Brand. If I search blowfish SEO west palm beach I get the home page and all the nice site links. And other various variations of branded search. Our company has lots of mentions across the web and branded backlinks. No manual penalty has been placed on us. Im starting to think some type of negative SEO attack but I can't find it. I do know someone is using my name and brand along with many other companies in cloaked doorway redirected pages to gain SEO leads.. Yeah I know I've complained about it to Google they do nothing about it..
Other things I've checked:
- No one else seems to be using my brand
- Home page canonical tag points to itself
- Title tag contains brand name at the front (rest of site it's at the end)
- No manual penalty
- XML sitemap contains home page (and accurate for other pages)
To make this even more confusing, if you search the brand name the physical location appears on the right rail with an accurate URL.
Ive added an image of the search result when I search BlowFish SEO
Please note the top result is PPC the about page is 1st organc
Any other ideas that I may be missing?
-
I think Google might actually have a problem with my site title.. I just googled BlowFish SEO west palm Beach and this is the result I got.
-
Thank you so very much for taking all that time out to help me. From what I'm seeing here it's looking like a combo 2, 3 and 4 and I am annoyed I'm going to have to go through all these links and add to the disavow file I guess. Once again I thank you. Besides handling the Day to Day here sometimes makes it difficult to get to the technical stuff lately personally. I guess its time to get this ship under control myself.
-
I get you at position #6 on Google. You are there but admittedly it's not great:
- https://d.pr/i/XS14Cn.png (screenshot)
The site is ranking, just very badly which makes me think it's NOT technical SEO related
Let's look at that first though:
- https://d.pr/i/5a7y8D.png (screenshot)
By the way you can grab that Chrome extension here, it's quite handy. DeepCrawl is actually a very powerful SEO crawling suite (they make their own crawler, and also this handy Chrome extension); many find it superior to Screaming Frog - the main reason it's not that talked about is the pricing which is pretty steep (IMO)
To confirm, there's nothing majorly wrong with your robots.txt file either:
- https://d.pr/i/7ZuIlf.png (screenshot)
On simple and relatively trustworthy one-page scanners, the site doesn't seem to have any massive technical SEO issues (at least at the homepage level): https://seositecheckup.com/seo-audit/blowfishseo.com
So let's look at links I guess?
https://ahrefs.com/site-explorer/overview/v2/subdomains/recent?target=blowfishseo.com
- https://d.pr/i/eH0GKc.png (screenshot)
That looks like it could be doing some damage. Massive spike in linking URLs May 2018, followed by a massive spike in referring domains July 2019. Doesn't look natural AT ALL
So what about anchor texts?
- https://d.pr/i/GagQUI.png (screenshot)
- https://d.pr/f/jPWNPr.csv (data)
In green you have partially branded or branded anchor texts, Google usually has no problem with these. In blue you have part keyword part geo terms, Google can have a problem with these if they begin to feel your backlink profile looks unnatural. In red you have exact-match anchor keywords, Google doesn't really like people link-building in this way any-more (most SEO firms would say EMA links are a no-no)
That spike in referring domains which we saw earlier really interests me. It seems to be concentrated... mostly between... 28th June 2019 and ... 6th August 2019
Let's take a look at new links specifically from within that time period (remember it's actually the time when Ahrefs discovered them, they may have gone live slightly earlier - but Ahrefs are pretty supreme for any kind of proper backlink research)
https://d.pr/i/Wi7p8S.png (screenshot)
https://d.pr/f/RhbuDv.csv (data)
... highlighted some stuff there that looks odd. Links from unrelated markets (languages) or locked regions (CN / Chinese firewall) and links from weird looking subdomain sites that look spam-made and mass produced
Yup, I'd say it's the backlink profile being too oldschool and full of crap, with recent spikes and anchor-text balancing problems. You unfortunately 'just' tipped the scales in a bad way and now you're suffering
Four possibilities:
1) You have been doing some bad backlink work, or had previously done so and never took the time to do a big disavow / link removals project when standards changed. Legacy is hitting you now, because of recent spiking link movements, which tipped you over the scales (has happened to many people, doesn't mean you're a terrible SEO or anything of the sort - was actually quite impressed with your on-site architecture and stuff)
2) One of your subordinates has gotten slack and done some bad backlink work (you'd need to find out who is playing you for a mug ASAP and sack them). If it's someone extremely junior show leniency I guess. But if you looked at the data I had supplied and found a bad network of shallow content links from no-name sites, and then found a paper-trail saying you had actively paid for those... I'd personally be pretty annoyed
3) Some scraper site has started scraping your posts onto their sh*tty network of sites, in the hopes of making their sites less terrible, but actually now it's hurting you as well
4) Deliberate negative-SEO intervention (we have seen a few of these lately on here, it seems to be a very 2019 thing IMO)
... hope that helps!
-
Its been doing that sporadically playing hide and seek. I'm surprised it showed. I'm more than surprised the about page is coming above the home page since the About has an anchored link for the term pointing at the home page. It should tank the about page under the home page for the term. I'm using an Incognito window not logged in when i search.
-
Over the last two and a half months in GSC, I have watched the branded search for the home page slip nationally from #1 to number three and then not show locally at all for the branded term. This started before the major core update.
-
We just searched "blowfish seo" and see your twitter profile at #1, your about page at #2, and your home page at #3.
How long ago did you notice the change in which page ranks for your branded search? And has the about page consistently been showing up since you first noticed it or does Google switch back and forth between the two from what you have seen?
-
I did a Google search and found the homepage listed. Strange as I checked if you were logged in and displaying something becuase of personalized results. So not sure
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
-
Multiple service area pages that rank well. However the primary keyword page tends to bounce around between the pages. How can I stabalise the ranking to the primary page
We have multiple service area pages attached to the primary keyword for the site which arent in the navigation and we have the primary page which is in the navigation. Currently Google is choosing different service area pages to rank for the primary keyword so the rankings bounce around a lot for the keyword when it doesn't have a service area target in it. Eg work shirts vs work shirts brisbane.
Local Website Optimization | | jonathan.k0 -
Sudden drop across all rankings
Hi There, I have experienced a strange and sudden drop in rankings for main keywords for a website that has not been penalized (that I am aware of), has a great site speed, does not contain duplicate content and has not had a sudden drop in links. I can't explain this sudden drop in rankings. The site was ranked between #1 - #6 across: Custom Mouthguards Brisbane, Dentures Brisbane, Denture Implants Brisbane, and Brisbane Denture Clinic to name a few. https://denturehaus.com.au/ Not only was this a drop in regular SERPs but also local Google Map listings, where the website was previously #1 - #3, and now never comes up. I can't figure out what has gone wrong with the website to completely lose all rankings. Any troubleshooting or help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks,
Local Website Optimization | | Kim_Lazaro
Kim0 -
How can my categories rank for my different branches? Tidied site up but now local rankings are worse
Dear Mozzers , I am wondering if someone could please help with some advice and assistance on the following for our Tool hire site: Basically I like to know how we can rank for our categories for our different branch locations ?. We have a branch finder page and separate branch pages but I do not know if I should have an internal link from all our branch pages to all my different categories or not or is google clever enough to know that I have x locations and x categories and I should rank all the categories in all the locations. I think my site structure is fairly straightforward and on the face of it similar to what others do who have multiple branches . For example I enclose a link to 2 of our categories - carpet cleaner hire category and a floor sander hire category carpet cleaner category - http://goo.gl/cMyS4i floor sander category - http://goo.gl/4ipUyA Heres a link to our Branch Finder - http://goo.gl/UyTQdK Heres a link to one of our Branches for example - Bristol Branch - http://goo.gl/9TXHTK And heres our link to our google plus Bristol page - google plus bristol branch page - https://goo.gl/h0IwAK . We have link from our bristol page going to the bristol google plus page and visa versa. Currently within our internal linking structure there is No direct link on the branch pages to the categories ?. Is this something we need to do or not necessary ?. - If we do it , then it may mess up or confuse the page as I someone need to get all the category links on the branch pages ? We have lots of good unique content , lots of citations for our branches and categories etc but we just don't seem to rank at all well for any of our categories in local search. For example if somene was to search for - Carpet cleaner hire "City Name " or Floor sander hire "City Name" (City name being where our branches are). We dont rank very well for most of our cities. Even without putting the city name in we dont rank to well in local search. We used to have individual pages for our categories in each of the cities we have branches with unique content on all and these did rank quite well in a few cities but never top 3 in most and we got rid of these last month (start of Oct) as I was told that google may see this as quite spammy or doorway pages if I have a carpet cleaner hire Bristol page or a floor sander hire Bristol page etc ?.. All my location landing pages now just 301 back to the appropriate category. I am wondering if getting rid of these landing pages was a good idea as by tidying things up , I've seemed to have lost my local rankings for my cities. Can someone please advise if what I did was right and what else I should look at doing ?> Could it be an internal linking issue I need to sort ? Any assistance much appreciated.
Local Website Optimization | | PeteC12
thanks
Pete0 -
Does anyone have a good program they use for full site audits?
I'm looking to find a program that will do the following: Scan for page errors including code issues, hosting issues, redirect issues, etc. Pages missing Google Analytics Google + Local audit to identify issues with NAP, citations, category selection etc. Find pages with title issues including missing page titles, duplicates or titles that are too short or too long, header tag issues such as missing H1 tags Meta description issues including missing meta descriptions, duplicate meta descriptions or meta descriptions that are too short or too long Link issues including broken internal or external links or missing anchor or ALT text Identify internal or external links using rel=”nofollow” Image issues, such as missing ALT or title text and broken images Identify pages using Schema.org microdata I know there are probably a couple programs that will do little bits here and there so I'm open to suggestions. Thank you.
Local Website Optimization | | SimonWorsfold0 -
Omitted Results city-queries for the same brand on different subdomains?
I've noticed on a few occasions where two subdomains share the same brand and are also attempting to rank for phrases specific to one city - the stronger subdomain tends to send the other subdomain to the "omitted search results" for those city specific queries. The subdomains do tend to have some duplicate content that they share but if the two pages on the different subdomains are unique for the search phrase in question wouldn't Google choose to surface both results? Or is this a question of domain diversity in the SERPs where the 2 results would just be too similar since they share the same root domain and have topically similar content? I've seen cases where they can share the first page of results but more often than not it seems that one is sent to the "omitted results". Any thoughts on strategy in this situation? The companies being described end up wanting to rank for the same city because they both serve a portion of the city in case anyone is wondering.
Local Website Optimization | | GSO0 -
Drastic changes in keyword rankings on a daily basis
Anybody ever seen keyword rankings for a site change drastically from day to day? I've got a client, a local furniture store, whose local keywords (furniture + city) rank consistently well without much change, but when it comes to broader keyword rankings (like "furniture" or "furniture store") in their zip code, they'll go from ranking at the top of Google one day to not being ranked at all the next (at least according to Raven Tools). My best guess is that it's just a reflection of personalized results from Google, but such a dramatic change day in and day out makes me wonder.
Local Website Optimization | | ChaseMG0 -
Can to many 301 redirects damage my Ecommerce Site - SEO Issue
Hello All, I have an eCommerce website doing online hire. We operate from a large number of locations (100 approx) and my 100 or so categories have individual locations pages against them example - Carpet Cleaners (category) www.mysite/hire-carpetcleaners
Local Website Optimization | | PeteC12
carpet cleaner hire Manchester www.mysite/hire-carpetcleaners/Manchester
carpet cleaner hire london
carpet cleaner hire Liverpool patio heater (category)
patio heater hire Manchester
patio heater hire London
patio heater hire Liverpool And so on..... I have unique content for some of these pages but given that my site had 40,000 odd urls, I do have a large amount of thin/duplicate content and it's financially not possible to get unique
content written for every single page for all my locations and categories. Historically, I used to rank very well for these location pages although this year, things have dropped off and recently , I was hit with the Panda 4.0 update which i understand targets thin content. Therefore what I am int he process of doing is reducing the number of locations I want to rank for and have pages for thus allowing me to achieve both a higher percentage of unique content over duplicate/thin content on the whole site and only concerntrate on a handful of locations which I can realistically get unique content written for. My questions are as follows. By reducing the number of locations, my website will currently 301 redirect these location page i have been dropping back to it's parent category.
e.g carpet cleaner hire Liverpool page - Will redirect back to the parent Carpet cleaner hire Page. Given that I have nearly 100 categories to do , this will mean site will generate thousands of 301 redirects when I reduce down to a handful of locations per category. The alternative Is that I can 404 those pages ?... What do yout think I should do ?.. Will it harm me by having so many 301's . It's essentially the same page with a location name in it redirecting back to the parent. Some of these do have unqiue content but most dont ?. My other question is - On a some of these categories with location pages, I currently rank very well for locally although there is no real traffic for these location based keywords (using keyword planner). Shall I bin them or keep them? Lastly , Once I have reduced the number of location pages , I will still have thin content until , I can get the unique content written for them. Should I remove these pages until that point of leave them as it is? It will take a few months
to get all the site with unique content. Once complete, I should be able to reduce my site down from 40,000 odd pages to say 5,000 pages Any advice would be greatly appreciated thanks
Pete0 -
Bing ranking a weak local branch office site of our 200-unit franchise higher than the brand page - throughout the USA!?
We have a brand with a major website at ourbrand.com. I'm using stand-ins for the actual brandname. The brand is a unique term, has 200 local offices with sites at ourbrand.com/locations/locationname, and is structured with best practices, and has a well built sitemap.xml. The link profile is diverse and solid. There are very few crawl errors and no warnings in Google Webmaster central. Each location has schema.org markup that has been checked with markup validation tools. No matter what tool you use, and how you look at it t's obvious this is the brand site. DA 51/100, PA 59/100. A rouge franchisee has broken their agreement and made their own site in a city on a different domain name, ourbrandseattle.com. The site is clearly optimized for that city, and has a weak inbound link profile. DA 18/100, PA 21/100. The link profile has low diversity and generally weak. They have no social media activity. They have not linked to ourbrand.com <- my leading theory. **The problem is that this rogue site is OUT RANKING the brand site all over the USA on Bing. **Even where it makes no sense at all. We are using whitespark.ca to check our ranking remotely in other cities and try to remove the effects of local personalization. What should we do? What have I missed?
Local Website Optimization | | scottclark0