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.
Why is my client's site not ranking anymore? Like big time!
-
Ok, I'm reaching out to all of you Moz'rs for some help with this one.
My client's site has dropped off the face of google in a real short period of time. It went from page 1 (avg rank 3 to page 6 (avg rank 50) and below in the matter of 2 weeks.
Here's some facts:
1. DA is a 22 and homepage PA is a 31. It outranks all other sites in its competitive set.
2. The homepage used to be the page that displays for keyword searches, now its the FAQ page, which has a lower PA of 23.
Why has the home page seemingly vaporized? And, why is the FAQ showing as the first result?
What should I start checking. I feel paralyzed, not sure where to start.
More info:
a. There are no alerts present in Webmaster Tools.
b. For some reason the homepage (domain.com) was 301'd to domain.com/home.html. Domain.com is indexed by Google, however, domain.com/home.html is not. If this is the issue, what is the best way to handle it?
Thanks in advance for your help!
-
A lot of sites saw a drop in mid November but there was no announced update. You can read a good discussion of what some site owners saw in the comments on this post:
http://www.seroundtable.com/google-update-nov15-17689.html
My gut instinct is that this was a refresh of the Panda algorithm, but Google no longer announces these refreshes so no one can know for sure.
But, there really isn't an easy answer to your question as there isn't an obvious solution.
-
Unfortunately, my analytics doesn't go back to October 3rd. However, the sharp drop in rankings occurred between November 19th and November 26th, then again in the beginning of December.
Checkout the attached image.
I'm at a complete loss on what happened during those time periods.
Nothing in WMT for manual spam actions. And, I have been cautiously building links to the site.
-
Does your analytics data go back as October 3? If the drop happened October 4, then I would indeed be worried about Penguin.
Have you been building links to this page? More specifically, have you built keyword rich anchors to this page?
Do you see any manual spam actions in webmaster tools? (WMT --> Search Traffic --> Manual Actions)
-
Many thanks for the timely responses. I didn't want to overload the detail in the first post.
*To be more specific with my issue, there's 1 particular keyword (a very important one), that the homepage has dropped out of the rankings for. There are many sites with much lower DA and PA above this site. It went from 1st page to almost non-existent in the matter of 2 weeks.
Other keyword queries are still showing the homepage on 1st page results. So I guess this probably answers a few questions. I should have specified that in my original post. Can you tell I'm freaking out?
1. The site is not new. It's been up for a few years now. I've only just begun to take over SEO/Web Marketing duties.
2. It is not blocked by robots.txt, nor does it have a canonical tag
3. The title tag hasn't been touched since I got involved with the site.
4. I'm still unsure why domain.com was 301'd to domain.com/home.html. I didn't do it and the clients were clueless when I asked the question.
5. I'm using Google Analytics, but the data only goes back to the beginning of October, because I setup Analytics when I got started. I came onboard after they saw a swift drop in rankings for that important keyword.
6. The site does have some questionable linkage from an "SEO" service they paid for that lasted about 2 years. But I'm hesitant to start disavowing links.
-
I totally agree with Marie. First and foremost, be calm. Don't freak out and start changing a whole bunch of things. Make sure your client knows what's going on. Far better for them to hear it from you than discover it on their own. Make a plan. First, document everything that has recently changed. Hopefully you've done that already. Start with that 301 redirect. You already know it's a problem, whether it's caused this or not.
Has anything else changed? Meta tags, specifically title tags? I have seen a site drop from a #1 branded search position and disappear for up to a day because the title tags were updated. Then it reappeared back in it's original spot. It's possible that your clients site is in a Google dance, but my gut says that's not it. Start with the 301...and while you're at it, check and make sure that the non.www version of the homepage is properly redirecting via 301 as well as any other potential URL versions that also produce the homepage and that may have inbound links.
Good luck and please let us know what happens. Hang in there!
-
I definitely agree that Penguin is a huge possibility. But, I think it could be dangerous advice to send a site owner on a link removal/disavow mission when we don't know for sure. There are many other possibilities. It could be a Panda issue. It could be that it was a new site and the previous high rankings were a honeymoon effect. It could be that the /home.html page is blocked by robots.txt or has a canonical tag that is confusing Google. It could be that they changed the title tag on the page so that it is no longer appropriate. It could be that the site was hit with malware and users are clicking away because of virus warnings.
(btw...the thumb down was not from me. I respect that you are trying to help but just wanted to comment to make sure that the site owner (or someone else reading this post) doesn't go off disavowing links without getting to the cause of the problem first.)
-
While it could be Penguin, I don't think we can make that call on the data given to us in the question.
-
Take a look at your organic traffic only. If you use Google analytics, go to Aquisition --> All Traffic, then choose google/organic. Can you tell what date the drop happened on or started on?
Now go to Behavior --> Site Content --> Landing pages and click on each of the top pages. Is there an obvious drop for each page or just the home page?
How old is the site?
Can I ask why you did the 301 from domain.com to domain.com/home.html? Is there any chance that the /home.html page has either a noindex tag or is blocked by robots.txt? Is there a canonical tag on the /home.html page? If so, what does it say?
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
-
Does Google Read URL's if they include a # tag? Re: SEO Value of Clean Url's
An ECWID rep stated in regards to an inquiry about how the ECWID url's are not customizable, that "an important thing is that it doesn't matter what these URLs look like, because search engines don't read anything after that # in URLs. " Example http://www.runningboards4less.com/general-motors#!/Classic-Pro-Series-Extruded-2/p/28043025/category=6593891 Basically all of this: #!/Classic-Pro-Series-Extruded-2/p/28043025/category=6593891 That is a snippet out of a conversation where ECWID said that dirty urls don't matter beyond a hashtag... Is that true? I haven't found any rule that Google or other search engines (Google is really the most important) don't index, read, or place value on the part of the url after a # tag.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Atlanta-SMO0 -
Chinese Sites Linking With Bizarre Keywords Creating 404's
Just ran a link profile, and have noticed for the first time many spammy Chinese sites linking to my site with spammy keywords such as "Buy Nike" or "Get Viagra". Making matters worse, they're linking to pages that are creating 404's. Can anybody explain what's going on, and what I can do?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | alrockn0 -
How can I get a list of every url of a site in Google's index?
I work on a site that has almost 20,000 urls in its site map. Google WMT claims 28,000 indexed and a search on Google shows 33,000. I'd like to find what the difference is. Is there a way to get an excel sheet with every url Google has indexed for a site? Thanks... Mike
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 945010 -
Should I 'nofollow' links between my own sites?
We have five sites which are largely unrelated but for cross-promotional purpose our company wishes to cross link between all our sites, possibly in the footer. I have warned about potential consequences of cross-linking in this way and certainly don't want our sites to be viewed as some sort of 'link ring' if they all link to one another. Just wondering if linking between sites you own really is that much of an issue and whether we should 'nofollow' the links in order to prevent being slapped with any sort of penalty for cross-linking.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | simon_realbuzz0 -
Should I use both Google and Bing's Webmaster Tools at the same time?
Hi All, Up till now I've been registered only to Google WMT. Do you recommend using at the same time Bing's WMT? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet0 -
Adding index.php at the end of the url effect it's rankings
I have just had my site updated and we have put index.php at the end of all the urls. Not long after the sites rankings dropped. Checking the backlinks, they all go to (example) http://www.website.com and not http://www.website.com/index.php. So could this change have effected rankings even though it redirects to the new url?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | authoritysitebuilder0 -
Backlinks from Chinese Big sites
Hello, I wish I know your position regarding backlinks from chinese websites. I am able to get a text link(from homepage) from a very big site in chinese. It has PR8 and over 10M users monthly. My site is in english. Will it help me ? Will I be penalised (my site is 5 years old, PR4) and some decent traffic(6-7k daily) Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | adresanet0 -
Is 404'ing a page enough to remove it from Google's index?
We set some pages to 404 status about 7 months ago, but they are still showing in Google's index (as 404's). Is there anything else I need to do to remove these?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0