Vanish from google after choosing preferred domain and fixing 40 duplicate meta descriptions?
-
I recently followed 2 Google webmaster suggestions to clean up the on page SEO for our site. I chose a preferred domain 2 weeks ago(to www.website.com) and fixed the duplicate meta descriptions that our CMS was setting to unique and more natural descriptions for each page. I did that 3 days ago. Webmaster tools still says they are duplicates because it hasn't crawled the whole site yet.
We have been fortunate enough to have some of our blog posts be covered by yahoo.com, cnet.com, huffingtonpost.com, gizmodo.com, etc. That is some major backlink juice and, as recently as 2 weeks ago, our website would be the #1 result when searching Google for "ourwebsite.com exact title of very popular blog post". Now it is on the 3rd page, and the top results are the websites that linked to our blog post.
So....what gives? Is there a specific area I should look at? Our should I wait for Google to fully index our whole site now that changes have been made?
It should be noted that our rankings have stayed the same in yahoo and bing.
Any thoughts would be much appreciated.
-
This could change in traffic be soooo many things without knowing your site's entire background.
There could be a Panda/Penguin penalty in play (I have no way of knowing) so read up on those and make sure you're not a victim of duplicate/thin content and/or shady link building practices (even if they occurred in the past, use OSE to take a look).
I'm not seeing the redirect from non www to www as an issue in terms of ranking but double check that you implemented that correctly. I haven't heard of losing rankings over this tweak before but I suppose it's possible that it takes Google a some time to figure that out (though I dont see why it would hurt rankings in the interim).
Other sites outranking you for your own article is actually quite common if you're not on a strong domain otherwise. 3rd page sounds rather harsh though. Are you engaging in any questionable link building practices?
Without knowing more it's really tough to say what your site's problem might be. I think I can rule out the 301 redirect from www to non-www if implimented correctly. Sean is correct in checking your robots.txt file as well.
Hope I answered your question if not solving your greater problem for you!
-
We've had sites drop out off the top 50 as google reevaluated such small changes as you listed in your post. I'd say give it some time and after a month start worrying. In the mean time look at webmaster tools and see if the search impressions have changed/dropped.
-
If you're using WordPress, make sure you don't have the site blocked in "General". If not, check your robots.txt file. Does the site come up when you hit the URL? If so, make sure you Google ".htaccess force www" and put a rule in your .htaccess file that 301 redirects non-www pages to their www brethren. All those links were to your non-www URL so depending on your system, the non-www may be throwing a 404 which would certainly get you pushed down the SERPs.
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 Acquisition & Audience Segmentation
Hi. I'm trying to figure out a solution to two questions one of my current clients has asked me in regards to Google Analytics tagging, and I'm unsure how to respond. Can anyone help? See below the questions, 1. In Google Acquisition > Overview, their paid media is reporting as "Other". They do not run any Google paid ads. They only run Facebook paid ads. Is there a way to update the source so that it says "Paid" versus "Other" within the default channel? The current solution was advised to create a channel group that the client has to then tick on overtime they want to see this data with the correct labeling. They would prefer to see it in the default. Is it just a matter of going into the *default channel, choosing the "Paid" option, and then specifying the source/medium that contains Facebook, CPC, or referral to be categorized under this channel? Or is it something else? *Aware that changes to the Default Channel are permanent changes and will change how new traffic is classified. 2. Audience segmentation > The client wants to be able to define it's audience by shopping intent and informational intent. Is there a clear way to do this, for example, by keywords used, e.g. buy, product name, entry (shopping intent), versus e.g. non-purchase intent, entry to the blog, length of time on site (info intent). Would be happy to have a conversation about the last question, since I'm conscious that there are probably multiple ways to define this - thanks. To the group, thank you for readying my questions and helping me with these solutions - your time is appreciated and valued. Sincerely, Amanda
Search Behavior | | AmandaValle.Digital0 -
Google web master tool - stats
Hello everyone! I have 2 questions : 1. does anyone come across this behavior ? (image 1). In the last week Page crawled per day behavior was quite wild and it wasn't affect directly on Time spent downloading a page. 2. I'm getting site map warning for high response time (image 2) i have 29M pages so I aware that 4 warning for 4 pages is almost negligible but still ? Thanks to all helpers 8OkgXp7 q3txRAb q3txRAb
Search Behavior | | Roi_Bar1 -
HUGE spike in Google Analytics Traffic
Hi there, I am witnessing a giant spike in my Google Analytics data (website: www.exchangecapital.com ) and I am completely stumped. My website usually gains roughly 15-20 visitors a day at most--and as of 11:10 am today my sessions for the day are up to 150. The traffic spike started on Friday at 132 sessions, Saturday at 261, Sunday at 247, etc. It's common that our sessions don't even hit the double digits over the weekends, so you can imagine my confusion. After trying to pin down some irregularities in geography, browser, and behavior, I'm still at a loss. I'm seeing a big spike in organic traffic (all not provided), as well as direct page visits, and I'm gaining traffic from US, Brazil, United Kingdom, Mexico, Spain, Malaysia, etc. etc--so not just one specific area. Is anyone else witnessing this in their data? Does anyone have any insight or ideas as to how I can look further into this? I am at a loss and any information would be appreciated. Thanks in advance! Lauren McLaughlin
Search Behavior | | LMcLaughlin0 -
Personalised Geo-targeted results - How does Google pass link juice?
Hello, Many websites now serve specific home page offers based on the location of the customer, my question is, how does link juice flow around a site when the links (this case from the homepage) are served up based on a visitors location? Internal links from your homepage are valuable for ranking that product well in the SERPs so how does Google deal with this? So, for example, a car hire website based in the UK. If you arrive on the care hire website sat in Manchester (Northern UK city), on the homepage the website serves offers of car hire deals in Manchester, Leeds, London and international destinations. If you arrived on this website from London (Southern UK City), you would not see the Manchester link at all but London, and other cities in the South. In this case, when Google crawls the car hire website, it will see internal links but a)which version and b) is there any way of sharing this link value around? Basically, we want to understand if Manchester in this case will get the benefit of an internal homepage link from Google even though we only show Manchester to people FROM Manchester, OR, do Google only give juice based on one version of the website, a generic UK version? Or to put it another way, is there any way of cashing in on both geo-targetting the customer based on their location AND getting link juice from those geo-specific home page links? Perhaps there is some code or way of telling Google that people from Manchester (a certain % of our visitors) will see a homepage internal link for Manchester that will pass some small % link value?
Search Behavior | | xoffie0 -
Product Descriptions for eCommerce - Paragraphs or Bullet Points (or both)?
Hey all, We've seen quite a large recent increase in traffic on our site (we sell travel experiences such as tours, tickets to theme parks etc.) but not much in the way of increased conversions as a result, so we are looking into further ways to optimise conversions. I'd like to know what thoughts people have on making product descriptions either bullet points or paragraphs, or some combination of both. We currently have paragraphs of information not just to explain the product but for on-page SEO purposes as well which seems to work well for drawing people to the site, and we have information further down the page on inclusions/exclusions etc. but it is well "below the fold". Do you think it's worth moving at least the "highlights" of the product up to the top of the page so that customers can instantly see what's on offer "at a glance"? Any answers or research people can direct me to would be greatly appreciated, cheers.
Search Behavior | | ExperienceOz0 -
Google Local
I am new to Google Local and just bagged a project. Can somebody guide me how to go about it. Is Google Local all about listing the business in Directory and Classified sites with complete address and profile? Any help will be highly appreciated.
Search Behavior | | KS__0 -
New EU Laws governing cookies; will Google Analytics still be usable after May 25th?
Hi, first time I've posted a question, New EU Laws governing cookies; will Google Analytics still be usable after May 25th? - apologies in advance if its already been covered, but I couldn't find any answers when I searched - google search showed someone else ask the question already, but no straight answers were given:- From May 25th the Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive will come in to force which prohibits the use of cookies without informed, prior consent from web users. I've been trying to research to see whether or not this will affect Google Analytics.The Directive seems to be designed to prevent behavioural tracking, rather than web stats, but after reading the directive (with no law experience) I'm fairly confused by what will be prohibited. If anyone has any thoughts on the matter, I'd be very grateful! 🙂
Search Behavior | | bendyman1 -
Googles 'freshness' update and how it may affect Estate Agents.
We have some clients who have raised concerns over how this new update will affect them. They are an Estate Agents who regularly update their property portfolio, blogs and news section etc. Can you advise how they may or may not be directly affected? Thank you.
Search Behavior | | SoundinTheory0