Can't figure why ranking dropped after SEO improved.
-
I took a website that never had any keyword research performed, meta data filled in or anything strategic regarding getting ranked on the search engines. We rebuilt the website from an old Dreamweaver install using Wordpress, did keyword research, optimized one page per keyword term, filled in all the appropriate meta data and alt tags. The site has dropped in rankings and I've been working for the past 3 months to attempt to raise it up. Can you see what I am doing wrong? (This is the client site: http://www.atozqualityfencing.com).
-
Under the performance tab and general settings check to see if debug mode is checked. Not that I am expert on this plugin! It is very complex.
Best!
-
Awesome catch, Chris!! I will look into this issue. Had no idea it was there!
-
I also noticed there appears to be a W3TC debug file on the home page that is pretty big. Is it possible this plugin is misconfigured and causing issues?
-
All in all, I'm sure there's a lot of things that can be done on-page. Though the main thing I'm seeing is that the server is pretty slow. I've managed to get response times from five to nine seconds. That's way too long and more than likely the main thing holding back the site.
Then there are a lot of requests on the home page, ~120. When you're dealing with a slow server, a lot of requests makes for a bad situation. It looks like the Facebook widget makes up about half of them. If you could find a lighter weight replacement, that would help. Plus you could enable server side compression.
Take a look at tools.pingdom.com and Google Page Speed Insights for a little more insight.
Basically, it looks like there's a lot of foundation work that needs to be done. Once that's done, you'll probably see some improvement. Then you can fuss over the paint/siding.
-
Did you 301 redirect all the old pages to the new pages (assuming URL structure was changed)?
What were they ranking for previously? And what page was ranking?
I may would advise having a more specific keyword for the home page considering it probably has a higher Domain Authority.
Thanks,
Cole
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
-
'Results pages'
Hey there, I have a website that my client is update it every day with some 'results' for example - see attached image.
On-Page Optimization | | JohnPalmer
What is the best way to avoid 7 duplicate content pages every day? MgYlqFW.png0 -
An apparent ranking mystery...
I built the site https://www.sylvaniachurch.com about 5 years ago, but the site has been live for more than a decade. Tyler has hundreds of churches and Sylvania Church currently site ranks second for most variations of "churches in tyler tx." Sylvania has a well-optimized homepage, several well-optimized subpages, a consistent sermon audio feed, and an increasingly used blog. In addition to what's on the site, there are a few other relevant sites that link to the Sylvania site and I have completed profiles on virtually every business listing site known to man. Here's the oddity. The website that ranks third and even displaces Sylvania for the second place spot from time to time (http://www.crosspointecc.com/) has only been a live URL for a few years, has no readable text on the homepage other than the nav menu, has very little content on the subpages, no blog that I can find, and fewer links from less authoritative sites. What's even odder to me is that Sylvania Church has the following numbers according to the MozBar: PA: 26 mR: 3.64 mT: 3.28 DA: 14 DmR: 3.27 DmT: 2.74 The numbers for CrossPointe: PA: 24 (2 less than Sylvania) mR: 4.68 (1.04 higher than Sylvania) mT: 5.30 (2.02 higher than Sylvania) DA: 13 (1 less than Sylvania) DmR: 2.98 (.28 less than Sylvania) DmT: 3.49 (.75 higher than Sylvania) The obvious question is, "Why does Moz like this site better than mine? What am I missing?" Thanks for any help you guys can give!
On-Page Optimization | | cbizzle0 -
How i can make this page more valuable from SEO perspective ???? any suggestion ?
Hi experts , how i can improve following page . please share your thoughts. https://www.protoexpress.com/content/quicklinks.jsp Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | SierraPCB0 -
.co.uk ranking in serps and .com ranking on local
Hi im not sure what the best course of action is my client has one site but it has 2 TLD the .co.uk and the .com they wanted all .co.uk redirected to the .com but the .co.uk is ranking in the serps postion 2 and the .com is ranking in local, but is way back in the serps. So i have a bit of a dilemma, by the way it is a local business based in the uk. what should i do?
On-Page Optimization | | juun0 -
Category pages - SEO or deindex?
What is the best thing to do with category pages? Should I deindex them or use SEO on them? I use the Thesis theme and the Wordpress SEO plugin. I am just not sure what to do with category pages. Also will they create duplicate content?
On-Page Optimization | | dealblogger0 -
Why isn't our site being shown on the first page of Google for a query using the exact domain, when its pages are indeed indexed by Google
When I type our domain.com as a query into Google, I only see one of our pages on the homepage, and it's in 4th position. It seems though, that all pages of the site are indexed by google when I type in the query "site:domain.com". There was an issue at the site launch, where the robots.txt file was left active for around two weeks. Would this have been responsible for the fact that another domain ranks #1 when we type in our own domain? It has been around a couple of months now since the site was launched. Thanks in advance.
On-Page Optimization | | featherseo0 -
Client has 2 websites... won't do away with old site.
Ok my situation is: We have built a new site for a client and they would like to keep both sites working. Should I just attempt to optimize both sites to rank well in their area? Or should I be suggesting a 301 redirect from the old domain to the new? Other options? Thanks in advance
On-Page Optimization | | IntermarkGroup0 -
What is the most SEO friendly Shopping Cart?
What is the most SEO friendly shopping cart? I have been using zen-cart for 6 years. Seems Google doesn't like it as much as other carts. I started a new site about 6 months ago using Magento. When I build links to this site the terms move. The terms are very similar. So I would imagine the competition is the same. I am curious if anybody has tried with different carts and found anyone to be better than the others. Also the new site has about one tenth the amount of products but has a lot more pages indexed.
On-Page Optimization | | kicksetc0