Ranking all but lost after new content pushed
-
Okay, I thought I was following best practices. In our industry, electronic hardware, we were ranking well for a particular product line (/spacers) but we wanted to do better. We addressed several concerns that Moz found first; duplicate page titles, lack of meta-descriptions and overall lack of targeted keywords. We also took a new approach to add a better structure to our site. Instead of being presented with a list of part numbers we wanted the user to learn more about our products with content. So we added a /products page with content and a product specific page (/spacers) that is almost a definitive buyers guide.
We are attempting to answer the questions that we think our customers find most relevant. Well our customers might find it relevant but Google sure didn't. After our deployment of new content our rankings for targeted keywords in Google fell from 10-15 to 80-95
As an open ended question, could somebody explain to me why our ranks fell off a cliff?
Homepage: https://www.lyntron.com
New catalog summary page: https://www.lyntron.com/products
New content with focus to rank high: https://www.lyntron.com/spacers -
- Let's talk you can call me here?
- https://moz.com/community/users/383525
- On the right side under "Additional Contact Info"
-
Thomas,
Thank you so much for taking the time to evaluate our current situation. Let me see if I can address some things that you brought up.
Have we moved to Shopify?
No. The stakeholders wanted a look and feel that of Amazon.com and McMasterCarr.com
Fix your robots.txt & make a sitemap index.
Robots.txt - I'm not sure what I need to fix in the file given your statement.
Sitemap Index - I made an index file and submitted that to google. But over time I found that single file more difficult to correct crawl errors. By creating individual sitemaps for the relevant part types I felt that was easier to manage. Is there a direct benefit from Google to have a single sitemap index covering the whole site? Am I getting penalized for doing sitemaps the way I am?Rel="canonical"
You are correct that /spacer is being canonicalized by /spacers. That was my intent. I was under the impression that if multiple pages, of similar content, was serving the same purpose I should pick one and tell the engines to focus on that. When /spacers was created we thought that page really answered the questions that people tend to ask about our product. Thus the creation of /spacers and pointing heavily to it.
Meta Descriptions too long
Agreed. I'll have to figure out how to deal with that working along side the content writer. Programmatically it's fun because every page is template driven.
301 /spacer to /spacers
I'm not sure why that is. Could you explain to me the benefit of that? I don't want /spacer to go away and it hasn't moved. We haven't rebranded the site nor changed URLs.
I'm also up for a phone conversation if you'd like to continue that way.
-
Hi I am happy to cover this with you here is the crawl of https://www.lyntron.com_
| 25,908 | Pages with Duplicate Body |
| 27,326 | Pages with Duplicate Titles |
| 13,117 | Max Fetch Time |
| 24,160 | Thin Pages |
| 6,044 | Failed URLs |
| 1,410 | Duplicate Body Sets |This will work for 30 days:
Photo (big): https://imgur.com/FmVJbAU.png
Please let me know you see this I will be happy to help.
Sincerely,
Thomas Zickell
-
**I am going to be done by Tomorrow **
Fix you robots.txt & make a sitemap index
- https://www.lyntron.com/robots.txt
- https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/75712?hl=en
- https://moz.com/blog/xml-sitemaps
** I want to get the full crawl don't want to drop the conclusions but**
https://www.lyntron.com/spacer** is no index Because**
https://www.lyntron.com/spacers
Address https://www.lyntron.com/spacer
URL Encoded Address https://www.lyntron.com/spacer
Content text/html; charset=UTF-8
Status Code 200
Status
Indelibility Non-Indexable
Indelibility Status Canonicalized
Size 992.8 KB
Title 1 Spacers & Unthreaded Standoffs | Lyn-Tron
Title 1 Length 41
Meta Description 1 Spacers are used to create space between 2 objects in an assembly. In the world of Electronic Hardware and Electronic Components, spacers are most often found spacing circuit boards, motherboards, panels and doors. Lyn-Tron Spacers are unthreaded and come in Steel, Stainless Steel, Aluminum, Brass and Nylon. All Lyn-Tron Electronic Hardware is made in the USA and held to the highest quality standards.
Meta Description 1 Length **404 (is way to long) **
Meta Description 1 Pixel Width 2408Tomany H1's https://youtu.be/i_xnKznRNCc
"How Many Headings Should You Use? Does the Order of Heading Tags Matter?"
Question: “Can the H1 Tag appear below the h2 tag in the code does the spider still know what’s going on?”
Answer: “yeah I wouldn’t worry about it we handle h1s and h2s very well but don’t make your entire page h1 or h2” Matt Cutts, GoogleH1-1 Spacers
H1-1 length 7
H2-1 1/8" Spacers
H2-1 length 12
H2-2 3/16" Spacers
H2-2 length 13
Canonical Link Element 1 https://www.lyntron.com/spacers
Canonical Link Element 1 Indexability Non-Indexable
Canonical Link Status 1 Indexability Status Not crawled
Word Count 4745
Text Ratio 3.63
Crawl Depth 2
Link Score
Inlinks 4
Unique Inlinks 4
% of Total 0.13
Outlinks 242
Unique Outlinks 230
External Outlinks 4
Unique External Outlinks 4
Hash 4411485c90296d40616747de3f7f40ae
Response Time 0.42
Last ModifiedYou should use a 301 from https://www.lyntron.com/spacer to https://www.lyntron.com/spacers
https://www.lyntron.com/spacers
drop the link below & site: in Google search
site:https://www.lyntron.com/spacer
- https://i.imgur.com/7lyO4JG.png Running two crawls now
- https://i.imgur.com/QdtuT8E.png Faceted navigation needs noindex is some urls
- https://search.google.com/structured-data/testing-tool/u/0/#url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lyntron.com%2F1-4in-aluminum-round-spacer-unplated%2Fpn%2FAA6341-04-0.187-00
- This might not open on your computer use The preview from URLAbove to see what I'm showing below:
- https://www.google.com/search?prvw=AHHjJUNRLFS9wnmyla4BGJzI4EXHUc3Y4w&q=previewid%3Afaf9a71c-5d30-401f-b3e6-f7eacfd09dd1&useragent=Mozilla%2F5.0+%28Linux%3B+Android+7.1.1%3B+Nexus+6+Build%2FN6F27M%29+AppleWebKit%2F537.36+%28KHTML%2C+like+Gecko%29+Chrome%2F66.0.3359.106+Mobile+Safari%2F537.36&filter=0&gws_rd=cr&newwindow=1&igu=1
Sincerely,
Thomas Zickell
-
running deep crawl now
-
Thomas,
Have you had a moment to review our situation?
-
Happy to help!
When you answer a question for Google, you should make each page the answer to the question asked by the audience.
I am guessing you moved to Shopify?
I have not really had the opportunity to look at the site yet about to jump on a flight.
But I do find what you mean by spacer
https://www.lyntron.com/spacer
Or
https://www.lyntron.com/swage-spacer
I Will get you a lot more information by tomorrow night
Sincerely,
Thomas Zickell
-
@ThomasZickell -
Thanks for hopping on this thread and taking a peek at our site. The site structure wasn't changed from my perspective. So I'm not sure that 301s are the primary culprit. We added a main "catalog" page (/products) and a product type page of (/spacers). The original pages and URL mapping stayed the same.
I'm interested in what your test shows.
One theory in the office is that the term 'spacers' is to broad for what we actually sell. Things like 'wheel spacers', 'dental spacers', 'tile spacers', 'inhaler spacers', etc... are more popular in searches. Our niche is very specific. So.... Perhaps our content change now informed Google what we are and they're correctly weeding us out from a search term like 'spacer'
-
I am guessing you did not make page to page 301 redirects to the have you updated site structure and left the old URLs with out a without the redirect ?
I am guessing that is what happened
I can tell you what happened when I test domain just give me 48 hours.
Sincerely,
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
-
Migrating Subfolder content to New domain Safely
Hello everyone, I'm currently facing a challenging situation and would greatly appreciate your expertise and guidance. I own a website, maniflexa.com, primarily focused on the digital agency niche. About 3 months ago, I created a subfolder, maniflexa.com/emploi/, dedicated to job listings which is a completely different niche. The subfolder has around 120 posts and pages. Unfortunately, since I created the subfolder, the rankings of my main site have been negatively impacted. I was previously ranking #1 for all local digital services keywords, but now, only 2 out of 16 keywords have maintained their positions. Other pages have dropped to positions 30 and beyond. I'm considering a solution and would like your advice: I'm planning to purchase a new domain and migrate the content from maniflexa.com/emploi/ to newdomain.com. However, I want to ensure a smooth migration without affecting the main domain maniflexa.com rankings and losing backlinks from maniflexa.com/emploi/ pages. Is moving the subfolder content to a new domain a viable solution? And how can I effectively redirect all pages from the subfolder to the new domain while preserving page ranks and backlinks?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | davidifaso
I wish they did, but GSC doesn't offer a solution to migration content from subfolder to a new domain. 😢 Help a fellow Mozer. Thanks for giving a hand.0 -
Old content with trailing `/` - What should be my new approach?
Dear team Moz, I'm investigating SEO issues for the site that dropped rankings over a period of 4-6 months; after conversion from old platform (xenForo) to new custom developed platform. The old version of the site was a simple xenForo based forum; with threads having standard url structure as like www.domain.com/threads/thread-title.{thread_id}/. Notice the trailing slash. We chose to keep the URLs intact during conversion to new platform; however the site still lost rankings. I'm sure there could be multiple reasons for it - but I wish to know if I should adjust the URLs - 1. By 301 redirecting all the URLs with trailing / to the URLs without /. 2. Leave the URLs as they were. I must also mention that the new site has several new sections; and the old forum is just one part of it. The rest of the site follows URLs without trailing / - as it's the recommended URL structure by Google. I'd really appreciate your suggestions on this.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KaustubhKatdare0 -
Delay to rank for authority website versus new website
Hello, I have a website that has been existing for years. How long does it take if I have a good content on a page for it to rank ? I read here and that that it can take 4 to 6 months but it never says if it is for a brand new website or a old website that has an authority and some links. I also read that some people publish content and rank within a week on competitive keywords. So who is right, what is there to read in between the lines ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Migrating to a new domain
Hi The company I work for are planing to re-brand & come under our parent company name. This means the whole site will be moved to a new domain. Does anyone have any experience with this and can give me some useful docs to read/any advice? Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey1 -
Putting my content under domain.com/content, or under related categories: domain.com/bikes/content ?
Hello This questions plays on what Joe Hall talked about during this years' MozCon: Rethinking Information Architecture for SEO and Content Marketing. My Case:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Inevo
So.. we're working out guidelines and templates for a costumer (sporting goods store) on how to publish content (articles, videos, guides) on their category pages, product pages, and other pages. At this moment I have 2 choices:
1. Use a url-structure/information architecture where all the content is placed in one subfolder, for example domain.com/content. Although it's placed here, there's gonna be extensive internal linking from /content to the related category pages, so the content about bikes (even if it's placed under domain.com/bikes) will be just as visible on the pages related to bikes. 2. Place the content about bikes on a subdirectory under the bike category, **for example domain.com/bikes/content. ** The UX/interface for these two scenarios will be identical, but the directories/folder-hierarchy/url structure will be different. According to Joe Hall, the latter scenario will build up more topical authority and relevance towards the category/topic, and should be the overall most ideal setup. Any thoughts on which of the two solutions is the most ideal? PS: There is one critical caveat her: my costumer uses many url-slugs subdirectories for their categories, for example domain.com/activity/summer/bikes/, which means the content in the first scenario will be 4 steps away from the home page. Is this gonna be a problem? Looking forward to your thoughts 🙂 Sigurd, INEVO0 -
Does it make sense to create new pages with friendlier URLs then redirect old pages to new?
Hi Moz! My client has messy URLs. does it make sense to write new clean URLs, then 301 redirect all old URLs to the new ones? Thanks for reading!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DA20130 -
Remove content that is indexed?
Hi guys, I want to delete a entire folder with content indexed, how i can explain to google that content no longer exists?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Valarlf0 -
Duplicate page Content
There has been over 300 pages on our clients site with duplicate page content. Before we embark on a programming solution to this with canonical tags, our developers are requesting the list of originating sites/links/sources for these odd URLs. How can we find a list of the originating URLs? If you we can provide a list of originating sources, that would be helpful. For example, our the following pages are showing (as a sample) as duplicate content: www.crittenton.com/Video/View.aspx?id=87&VideoID=11 www.crittenton.com/Video/View.aspx?id=87&VideoID=12 www.crittenton.com/Video/View.aspx?id=87&VideoID=15 www.crittenton.com/Video/View.aspx?id=87&VideoID=2 "How did you get all those duplicate urls? I have tried to google the "contact us", "news", "video" pages. I didn't get all those duplicate pages. The page id=87 on the most of the duplicate pages are not supposed to be there. I was wondering how the visitors got to all those duplicate pages. Please advise." Note, the CMS does not create this type of hybrid URLs. We are as curious as you as to where/why/how these are being created. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dlemieux0