Sudden Large Traffic and SERP Drop
-
Hi
This site www.militaryplaques.com
We have had steady traffic over a number of years with the site both on terms of impressions, click through rates, bounce rates, time on site and most importantly sales.
The site has remained fairly static over the last 6 months with no significant changes to content or structuire.
However, on July 11 our traffic and impressions crashed by over 90% and remain at this low level.
We have never been hit by Panda but this looks like such a case?!
Any insight or suggestions as to why the sudden "de-listing" may have happened?
R/
John J Morgan
-
I looked at some of your main keywords. Looks like they are back to decent ranking. So did you fix the issue already? If so, can you share what you did? I had a similar issue around the same date with my site. Ranking has not been returned yet. This is the details of my specific issue http://moz.com/community/q/is-this-site-hit-with-penguin-or-something-else . If we can compare notes, it would be great
-
Thanks for the responses.
We're still examining the change in traffic volume, source and search terms.
We have a couple of theories on what's going on and will revert back after the next Mozscape index update.
-
I saw two major problems in your link profile... I won’t call the link profile too bad but there is no way I can call it a good link profile!
Your link profile got links from mediocre sources but very few links that are coming from high authority relevant sources and the other problem is that your link profile is not diversified and links are coming mostly from forums, blog comments and PR websites....
Rankings in the month of July in my personally opinion has shifted a lot so my advice would be to get good quality links from diversified sources and you will see a positive bump in rankings!
Hope this helps!
-
HI Tom
Thanks for this. I looked at the suspicious links and they seem to be false positives. Mostly revolving around our brand name "military plaques"
Noted on the low quality /dead links - will have these removed.
-
Hi John,
Your back links are not great I did a quick check
http://www.linkpartners.com/lparts53_23.html
http://blpdirectory.info/Business/Products/
http://freedirectorysubmission.in/Military-Plaque.html?cid=28338
http://blpdirectory.info/submit_article.php?c=709
Even dead or 404 URLs
http://free-listing.org/Military-Plaque.html?cid=157597
This stuff must go
Use tools link OSE & then http://www.removeem.com/ to get rid of the links.
FAQ
http://www.removeem.com/faq.php#suspicious
So you did actually received a notice of the problem from Google?
Using http://www.removeem.com/
Via only 1 data source, we estimate about 51 links with suspicious anchor text ignoring 373 safe links automatically. Some of these may need to be removed!
Check your MozCast every day it is a SEO weather map
Weather for Saturday, July 13
MozCast is a weather report showing turbulence in the Google algorithm over the previous day (or see the 5-day history on the left). The hotter and stormier the weather, the more Google's rankings changed.
Use one of the SEO listed here to fix your site if needed
http://moz.com/community/recommended
Hope this was of some help,
Tom
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
-
Search ranking for a term dropped from 1st/2nd to 106th in 3 months
Hello all, Just a couple notes first. I have been advised to be vague on the search term we've dropped on (in case this page ranks higher than our homepage for it). If you search for my name in Google though you should be able to figure out where I work (I'm not the soccer player). While I am looking for an answer, I've also posted this question on a couple other forums (see https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4934323.htm and https://productforums.google.com/forum/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer#!msg/webmasters/AQLD7lywuvo/2zfFRD6oGAAJ) which have thrown up more questions than answers. So I have posted this as a discussion. We've also been told we may have been under a negative SEO attack. We saw in SEMRush a large number of backlinks in October/November/December - at about the same time we disavowed around 1m backlinks (more on this below) but we can't see this reflected in Moz. We just got off a call with someone at Moz to try and work this out and he suggested we post here - so here goes... On 4th October for the search term 'example-term' we dropped from number 2 to number 9 on Google searches (this was confirmed in Google Search Console). We also paid an external SEO consultant to review our site and see why we are dropping on the term 'example-term'. We've implemented everything and we're still dropping, the consultant thinks we may have been penalised in error (as we are a legitimate business and we're not trying to do anything untoward). In search console you could see from the graphs on the term we used to rank 1st and 2nd (you could go back 2 or 3 years and still see this). The thing we do find confusing is that we still rank very highly (if not 1st) for 'example-term + uk' and our brand name - which is very similar to 'example-term'. Timeline of events of changes: 2nd October 2018 midday: Added a CTA using something called Wisepops over the homepage - this was a full screen CTA for people to pledge on a project on our site helping with the tsunami in Indonesia (which may have had render blocking elements on). 4th October: we added a Google MyBusiness page showing our corporate headquarters as being in the UK (we did flag this on the Google MyBusiness forums and both people who responded said adding a MyBusiness page would not affect our drop in rankings). 4th October: dropped from number 2 to number 9 on Google searches (this was confirmed in Google Search Console) 4th October: Removed the Wisepops popup 5th November: Server redirect so anything coming in on / was redirected to a page without a / 12th November: Removed around 200 junk pages (so old pages, test cms pages etc that were live and still indexed). Redirects from any 404s resolved 19th November: Updated site maps and video site maps to reflect new content and remove old content. Reviewed the whole site for duplicate meta tags and titles and updated accordingly with unique ones. Fixed issues in Google Search Console for Google search console for 404 and Mobile usability. Removed embedded YouTube video from homepage. 11th December: Removed old content and content seen as not useful from indexing; 'honey pot' pages, old blog, map pages, user profile pages, project page ‘junk pages which have little SEO value’ (comments, contact project owner, backers, report project) from indexing, added ‘no-follow’ to widgets linking back to us 3rd January 2019: Changed the meta title from to remove 'example-term' (we were concerned it may have been seen as keyword stuffing) 7th January: Disavow file updated to refuse a set of external sites powered by API linking to us (these were sites like example-term.externalsite.co.uk which used to link to us showing projects in local areas - our SEO expert felt may be seen as a ‘link farm’) 11th January: Updated our ‘About us’ page with more relevant content 15th January: Changed homepage title to include 'example-term' again, footer links updated to point to internal pages rather than linking off to Intercom, homepage ordering of link elements on homepage changed (so moving external rating site link further down the page, removing underlines on one item that was not a link, fixed and instance where two h1 tags were used), removed another set of external Subdomains (i.e. https://externalsite.sitename.co.uk) from our system (these were old sites we used to run for different clients which has projects in geographical areas displayed) 18th January: Added the word 'example-term' to key content pages We're at a loss as to why we are still dropping. Please note that the above changes were implemented after we'd been ranking fine for a couple years on the 'example-term' - the changes were to try and address the drop in ranking. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Nobody15554510997900 -
Mobile SERP Thumbnail Image Control
Is there any way we can control the image that is selected next to the mobile serps? What google selects for the mobile serp thumbnail on a few of our serps is not conducive to high CTR.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | gray_jedi1 -
Removing duplicated content using only the NOINDEX in large scale (80% of the website).
Hi everyone, I am taking care of the large "news" website (500k pages), which got massive hit from Panda because of the duplicated content (70% was syndicated content). I recommended that all syndicated content should be removed and the website should focus on original, high quallity content. However, this was implemented only partially. All syndicated content is set to NOINDEX (they thing that it is good for user to see standard news + original HQ content). Of course it didn't help at all. No change after months. If I would be Google, I would definitely penalize website that has 80% of the content set to NOINDEX a it is duplicated. I would consider this site "cheating" and not worthy for the user. What do you think about this "theory"? What would you do? Thank you for your help!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Lukas_TheCurious0 -
Massive rank drop on one particular keyword
As all other marketeers do I follow closely my keywords, one particular keyword has ranked continually at #2 and has suddenly dropped to +#60, but all others remain the same. We are a fairly large site in terms of numbers 9m views annually, could it be possible that someone has black hatted that particular keyword, and if so how do I find out how and more importantly who?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | sususu0 -
Server down - What will happen to the SERP?
Hi everybody, we have a lot of websites (about 100) on one Server in Italy. This Server crashed 5 days ago and now it should go online (I hope!). What will happen to the SERP? What shall I do to recover the rank of every key? New links, new content, just wait...what? Tnks 😉
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Sognando0 -
Main keyword decline in SERPs ranking :-(
Hi Moz, My very humble attempts at SEO has been doing very well for over a year with the keyword phrase 'vintage chanel bags'. Recently, about 3-4 months ago I noticed it dropped from rank 1 to rank 5. I've slowly but steadily been building up more social marketing interaction (Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram mostly), brand awareness in company is increasing more searches for 'Vintage Heirloom', great in-links from reputable companies & bloggers. What I'm confused about is that one of our competitors Rewindvintage now appears as no.1 for this keyword but tracking with Moz every metric we outperform them on, namely domain authority & Page Authority. I have noticed they have 4 anchor text links (dubious quality wordpress comments), with the anchor term vintage chanel bags and we have none despite ranking no. 1 for so long?? I'm trying to use the Moz science here, just a bit confused. Any help, insights, similar experience would be much appreciated. I engage only in white hat and look for slow & honest SEO growth (as far as I'm aware ! ). Thanks for looking Kevin
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | well-its-1-louder0 -
Google rankings dropped like a stone
I've heard of this happening many times, but never to me. My client was Page 1 or 2 for 20 phrases, and they ALL dropped like a rock overnight. The site hasn't been banned by Google, as it's still indexed and the company name is returning results.There were no major changes done to tags or the code, and nothing black hat has been done. The only phrases that didn't drop contain the company name, and the results in Bing and Yahoo either stayed the same or moved up slightly since last week for all the terms. There's also no threat of spam, and it's very search engine friendly. The URL is http://www.universalaccounting.com. Help!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | JamesBSEO0 -
Beaten in SERP's by a site going 'all in' on 2 keywords in their anchor text profile.
I would like to get peoples thoughts on putting 80% of your anchor text links in just 2 keywords vs a nice spread of branded and longtail keywords.. like I am. recently fell off the first page for a key SERP.. and the site in P10 has gone nuts on just that two keyword's.. I know we have a good site onpage/ conversion / low bounce rate page views etc.. Pretty sure we get more traffic than them. Seems that this obvious bloated anchor text profiling has worked for them though.. What do you guys think/know?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | robertrRSwalters0