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.
Ranking dropped after change single page url, should I change it back?
-
I was making updates to the content on the following page, and a few days later dropped from #2 SERP ranking to 50+.
Things I checked:
Yes, 301 redirect was implemented right away.
After publishing, I manually requested indexing in search console.
Right after publishing I re-submitted the sitemap manually and Google said they had not crawled it in 9 days.
My question: should I change the URL back to the old one, or give it a little more time (especially since I re-submitted sitemap)
Original URL: https://www.travelinsurancereview.net/plans/travel-medical/
New URL: https://www.travelinsurancereview.net/plans/travel-medical-insurance/
-
Thanks Boyd for such a detailed reply. This is all very helpful information!
-
Well essentially there were 3 major changes that happened at the same time (in Google's eyes): the url change, overhauling your content, and getting rid of the site-wide link from your navigation.
I know you said that the navigation link drop happened a month ago, but you have to remember that no change on your website affects your rankings for good or bad until Google comes back and crawls your page(s) and sees the change.
Some of your main pages probably were crawled within a few days of the navigation change but the majority of pages weren't re-crawled for a few weeks after that change. I can still find some of your pages that haven't been crawled since before the navigation change.
Now, I don't think that the content change is what's hurting you because you added more useful content. Although maybe you have over optimized it a bit for "travel medical insurance" since that exact phrase shows up 48 times.
URL changes with proper 301 redirect implementation can drop your rankings temporarily but my experience has always been to gain back the temporary loss soonish afterwards.
If it were my site, I'd do the following:
- Immediately put back the link pointing to that page in the navigation with the same anchor text it had before
- Wait about two to three weeks after that to see if any ranking recovery has happened
- If no change, I'd drop that exact match phrase several times from the article (then wait for it to be recrawled to assess if it helped or not)
- Then if no change still, I'd test changing the content back to the old page keeping the new URL
- Then if no change still, I'd change the redirect back
My hope is that you'll recover the rankings after just putting the navigation link back.
Good luck
-
There are many factors that affect on dropping in ranking. It happened with me also once upon a time, Here is strategy applied by me:
Left new url for 7 days.
Did not update or replace url in those 7 days.
I saw improvement in ranking and yes, my new ranking was better than previous one. SEO is game of patience. Have that with you
-
Thanks Boyd, below are thee clarifications:
- For the ranking drop, are you talking about the phrase "travel medical insurance"
Yes
- How many content changes did you make? From looking at the wayback machine, it appears that you added a lot of content. But the most recent date the wayback machine shows is from March 14th, 2019 so I need clarification on what changes you made in addition to changing the URL.
Significant content changes including adding clarifying topics (header and content), added images, added a FAQ section, added outbound link to authority sources.
- Did you change the title tag?
No
- Did you make a change to your navigation? The wayback version shows you had a sitewide navigation link to link in the navigation to the Travel Medical page under the "Plans" drop down but I didn't see that on the current site. Was that change just made along with the 301 redirect?
No, the main navigation change (removing the Plans dropdown) happened about 1 month ago (end of Jan)
- Did you get rid of any other internal links to this page around this time?
No
Thanks very much for whatever insight you can provide, much appreciated and let me know if you need anything else.
-
Some clarifying questions:
- For the ranking drop, are you talking about the phrase "travel medical insurance"
- How many content changes did you make? From looking at the wayback machine, it appears that you added a lot of content. But the most recent date the wayback machine shows is from March 14th, 2019 so I need clarification on what changes you made in addition to changing the URL.
- Did you change the title tag?
- Did you make a change to your navigation? The wayback version shows you had a sitewide navigation link pointing to the Travel Medical page under the "Plans" drop down but I don't see that on the current site. Was that change just made along with the 301 redirect?
- Did you get rid of any other internal links to this page around this time?
Right now I am seeing that Google has recrawled the new page and has recognized the 301 redirect because when you do a "site:https://www.travelinsurancereview.net/plans/travel-medical/" search, Google lists the new URL in the results and the cached version's most recent date is 2/24/20 at 21:21:18 GMT.
I wouldn't change the redirect back just yet. But I need answers to the above questions before giving you my final 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
-
Google ranking content for phrases that don't exist on-page
I am experiencing an issue with negative keywords, but the “negative” keyword in question isn’t truly negative and is required within the content – the problem is that Google is ranking pages for inaccurate phrases that don’t exist on the page. To explain, this product page (as one of many examples) - https://www.scamblermusic.com/albums/royalty-free-rock-music/ - is optimised for “Royalty free rock music” and it gets a Moz grade of 100. “Royalty free” is the most accurate description of the music (I optimised for “royalty free” instead of “royalty-free” (including a hyphen) because of improved search volume), and there is just one reference to the term “copyrighted” towards the foot of the page – this term is relevant because I need to make the point that the music is licensed, not sold, and the licensee pays for the right to use the music but does not own it (as it remains copyrighted). It turns out however that I appear to need to treat “copyrighted” almost as a negative term because Google isn’t accurately ranking the content. Despite excellent optimisation for “Royalty free rock music” and only one single reference of “copyrighted” within the copy, I am seeing this page (and other album genres) wrongly rank for the following search terms: “free rock music”
On-Page Optimization | | JCN-SBWD
“Copyright free rock music"
“Uncopyrighted rock music”
“Non copyrighted rock music” I understand that pages might rank for “free rock music” because it is part of the “Royalty free rock music” optimisation, what I can’t get my head around is why the page (and similar product pages) are ranking for “Copyright free”, “Uncopyrighted music” and “Non copyrighted music”. “Uncopyrighted” and “Non copyrighted” don’t exist anywhere within the copy or source code – why would Google consider it helpful to rank a page for a search term that doesn’t exist as a complete phrase within the content? By the same logic the page should also wrongly rank for “Skylark rock music” or “Pretzel rock music” as the words “Skylark” and “Pretzel” also feature just once within the content and therefore should generate completely inaccurate results too. To me this demonstrates just how poor Google is when it comes to understanding relevant content and optimization - it's taking part of an optimized term and combining it with just one other single-use word and then inappropriately ranking the page for that completely made up phrase. It’s one thing to misinterpret one reference of the term “copyrighted” and something else entirely to rank a page for completely made up terms such as “Uncopyrighted” and “Non copyrighted”. It almost makes me think that I’ve got a better chance of accurately ranking content if I buy a goat, shove a cigar up its backside, and sacrifice it in the name of the great god Google! Any advice (about wrongly attributed negative keywords, not goat sacrifice ) would be most welcome.0 -
Should we rename and update a page or create a new page entirely?
Hi Moz Peoples! We have a small site with a simple site navigation, with only a few links on the nav bar. We have been doing some work to create a new page, which will eventually replace one of the links on the nav bar. The question we are having is, is it better to rename the existing page and replace its content and then wait for the great indexer to do its thing, or perm delete the page and replace it with the new page and content? Or is this a case where it really makes no difference as long as the redirects are set up correctly?
On-Page Optimization | | Parker8180 -
Home page keyword in url
I have been looking into SEO for a few weeks now trying to perfect a homepage. Going through various sources on MOZ, and other examples out there on the internet, I keep seeing that you should have your keyword in the URL of the page. The homepage is the page most people want to rank the highest in google searches, however, you cannot put the keyword in the URL as most home page URLs are simply /. Should I actually make the home like this: www.example.com/key-word-example? I would imagine this would not be the normal for many users and would seem like it's not the home page.
On-Page Optimization | | Matthew_smart0 -
Are there any SEO benefits changing the default home page filename (index.htm) to a keyword rich filename
II'm a newbie. I have a website using the default home page filename: index.htm. I have total control over the web server. I was wondering whether I can get any SEO improvements for my main keyword if I change the default filename with a filename that contains the main keyword, like our-main-product.htm (doing the 301 redirect and changing the server search order, of course)?
On-Page Optimization | | Grafimart0 -
Does having a "+" in a URL hurt SEO? Would much value be gained changing it to a hyphen?
There's a site that contains "+" signs in the URL in order to call different information for the content on the page. Would it be better to change those to hyphens (-), or not that much value will be gained, so leave them as is? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | MitchellStoker0 -
How to Define Best URL Structure for Product Pages?
I am working on my website to edit structure with help of Google's search engine optimization starter guide. There is really good instruction to define URL structure which help us to perform well over Google's organic search. I have resolved issues regarding category pages but, I have confusion to define best URL structure for product pages. My website's product page URL structure is as follow. http://www.vistastores.com/marketumbrellas-californiaumbrella-slpt758-f13-red.html http://www.vistastores.com/homefurniture-winsomewood-93630.html URL structure is constructed with following terms. 1. Root Category Name (Market Umbrellas or Home Furniture or ....) 2. Brand Name 3. Manufacturer Part Number I am not happy with this structure and also not performing well over Google's organic search. I am thinking to include product name or title tag in URL after root domain. But, it may create very long URL and create issues in organic search display. Does it really matter to perform well over Google's organic search? How can I define best URL structure for product pages?
On-Page Optimization | | CommercePundit0 -
Google Page Rank of my site has dropped from 4/10 to 3/10
Google Page rank of my website has been dropped after Panda Update. Can anyone help me out to tell me the possible reasons about the same. We have tried to make our website more lively and user friendly. We have indulged some graphics to make it more attractive. But it seems it backfired us. my site is http://www.myrealdata.com as well as Google page ranking of my Quickbooks hosting page has been dropped as well. It would be great if someone can help me out with expert suggestions.
On-Page Optimization | | SangeetaC1 -
Changing page titles and google penalties?
I just recently learned that changing your page title earns you a google penalty. Unfortunately i learned this after playing around with my page titles a bit to get the most optimal page titles. Does anybody know how long this google penalty lasts? is it forever? or just temporary?
On-Page Optimization | | adriandg0
