Google place 7 -> 40, why??
-
Hi,
my new site http://www.ie-mac.com/ just dropped 33 places from place 7 to place 40 on goolge.com , for the two word combo: ie mac
Did I screw up? How?
Background Info:
1 Two weeks ago I moved my whole site from my old domain http://ie4mac.com/ to http://www.ie-mac.com/ with the goal of obtaining a good ranking for the keyword combo: ie mac. Apparantly tis worked- The site showed up on place 7.
2. I changed the design of the site and put the video on the front page. Good so far, still place 7, but: The text that google was showing was half the ALT-Tag of the Video first-slide image and the other half was our trademark disclaimer.
3. I changed the ALT tag and the disclaimer to give users a more inviting text on google. THis worked, google now shows the text as intended, but: For the desired combo: ie mac the site dropped to palce 40!!
My best guesses at this point:
1. I'm using wordpress as a CMS and the all-in-one-seo-pack plugin to set custom titles etc., and the google XML sitemap plugin to buid an XML sitemap and notify google. During the couple of days, I made a lot of chnages to the site. Could be that the plugin pinged google a lot of times. Could this be part of the problem?
2. The site is hosted at http://www.ixwebhosting.com/ , because they give users dedicated IPs and a good price. However, the loadlevel on the server I'm on is always very high (10 - 20). I'm using a CDN for images and a caching plugin so the site loads in less than 2 seconds according to http://tools.pingdom.com/ . Unless the cache is empty, then it's 9 seconds. This is not great, but it's also no new, so:
What could have caused the sudden drop from 7 to 40??
Thank you and kind regards
-
Hi Keri,
that's an interesting idea. I thought about it: Right now, I don't feel ready to write a post like that. I'll keep it in mind though: If I have to move a site again I will prepare it better, do more detailed monitoring and if that works, I'll have material to write a post that's worth reading
Thank you!
Timon
-
If you have some lessons learned that would make for an interesting blog post, feel free to write it up and submit it to YOUmoz!
Glad to be able to help, and sorry I didn't get in here sooner with the GWT link [my avatar doesn't readily show it, but I am an associate for SEOmoz and I try to help provide timely help].
-
Hi Keri,
now that was a helpful answer! No, the old site wasn't verified. The new one will be. During this move I learned a lot ... Next time I have to move a site I will follow the procedure outlined on the page you posted.
Thank you!
Timon
-
Or quickly in some aspects at least. I'm glad for your site it's working well. A thought -- have you done a change of address in Google Webmaster Tools (if the old domain was verified)? Wouldn't hurt. http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=83106
-
Hey Keri,
thank you for asking!
Yes, it did recover. For a couple of days it was on place 8, i.e. almost as good as before.
Then, after some minor changes on site, it dropped slightly (place 13 now). I'm sure it will recover from that, too. What I learned form this whole experiences is that google reacts quickly, either way. Therefore I'll be much more patient during future drops following onsite changes
Cheers,
Timon
-
Timon, how is your site doing now? Has it recovered, or are there still issues?
-
Hi Damien,
thank you! I hope what you wrote applies in this case, too. I do not yet have the experience to find this normal. If there is, in fact, no big screw up to be found and it just takes time to recover, I'll give it time.Knowing it's normal definetly makes me feel better.
Thank you!
Timon
-
Timon,
I would give it a bit more time - rankings usually drop with a site change like this. I even have it with pages that are ranking and then I change them when they're not moving domain.
DD
-
Hi Lewis,
I have the site crawled by seomoz and checked out the results. There a a few minor things to sort out (i.e. too long urls in old blog postings etc.), but non of them are new.
I would have expected a dip during the transition, as you wrote. But first the opposite happened (good placement, place 7, first page), followed by a huge dro (place 40, i.e. last spot on 4th page).
Is such a big drop normal? Should I just wait? Or am I still missing some big mistake here??
Thank you!
Timon
-
Hi Damien,
yes I did. In fact, I kept the URL structre and 301 redirected all pages. Checked that redirections work, too.
-
Assuming everything else being equal it is often the case that when a site is moved to a new URL and 301 redirected (which I see you have done) that there is a short term dip in rankings and traffic.
If you have access to the Campaign tools here I would set up a campaign for that site and the crawl diagnostics may point you in the right direction of any problems you may have introduced during the switch.
-
Hey,
Did you identify all of your most authoritative pages and 301 them to the new URLs? or have you simply 'switched one off and turned the other on'?
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
-
How can you activate the 'Results From' internal search bar on Google SERP?
Hi There, I am hoping someone can advise me on getting the 'Results From' sitelink to display for my site on the Google SERP? I have searched far and wide for the answer with no luck. I'd really appreciate your advice. Thanks! Internal_Search_Google_SERP_zps75a5383e.jpg
On-Page Optimization | | tmg.seo0 -
Any idea how Google is doing this? Is it schematic? http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/28/google-adds-full-restaurant-menus-to-its-search-results-pages/
Google is now showing menus on select searches. Any idea how they are getting this information? I would like to make sure my clients get visibility this way.
On-Page Optimization | | Ron_McCabe0 -
Google pulling in wrong title tag!
Has anyone else seen their title tag different in the SERPS to what you have called it in the <title>?? </p> <p>I work for MITIE and when you type in "facilities management" it shows our title tag as "<a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.mitie.com/services/strategic-outsourcing/integrated-facilities-management">Integrated <em>facilities management</em> - Mitie</a>" and it should be "<span>MITIE | Facilities management - Facilities management companies - Facility management UK" </span></p> <p><span>The only thing I can think of is that it's picking it from the H1 on the page but why it'd do that! The page is here www.mitie.com/services/strategic-outsourcing/integrated-facilities-management</span></p> <p><span>Any ideas?</span></p></title>
On-Page Optimization | | KarlBantleman0 -
How Google differentiates web sites like directories?
Hi, I want to ask how google differentiates web sites like directories or company listing websites? How it understands that is a normal thing to have many links in a directory site? Are there some guides links about what to do and avoid and how to make SEO optimization for a directory web site.
On-Page Optimization | | vladokan0 -
Can't canonical, but need pages to show in Google News
We are a news media site in which much of our content is third-party, and already published by several other sources. Our current version of our CMS doesn't expose head tags, so I can't canonical to the original and avoid a duplicate content penalty. Is it ok for news sites NOT to use canonical, or do I have to NOINDEX until our CMS is fixed?
On-Page Optimization | | Aggie0 -
Why has my site gone from 3rd to 21st in Google...HELP
Hi there, Web Address: www.websitedesign-miltonkeynes.com Okay I stared my own web development business about 8 - 9 months ago and decided that I was going to target a small number of local keywords that were relevant to my business and geographical area. So I decided to target the keywords below and and started to get good traffic, I never have bought links and have not copied any content although I know i should try and add more content to my website. mk web design, software Milton Keynes, web design Milton Keynes, web design mk, web designer Milton Keynes, web designers Milton Keynes & website design milton Keynes However recently my website has dropped massively in the SERP's and wanted to know what has caused this (i know Penguin) and what I can do to improve. I have listed below my rankings to show you the drop: 24th April 2012 15th May 2012 mk web design 3 11 software milton keynes 1 8 web design milton Keynes 12 50 web design mk 5 53 web designer milton keynes 10 0 web designers milton keynes 6 37 website design milton keynes 3 21 I decided to change my homepage Page Title a week ago to make sound less spammy but this has made no difference and wanted some help on what has happened so i do not do this again and what I can do to improve. Thanks in advance. Darren Bowden
On-Page Optimization | | Tarqs0 -
SERP - Hi How come I get different results on page one of Google with the same query from my colleague who sits next to me? We are both logged out of Google and it’s on google.co.uk thanks in advance Daniel
Hi How come I get different results on page one of Google with the same query from my colleague who sits next to me? We are both logged out of Google and it’s on google.co.uk thanks in advance Daniel
On-Page Optimization | | ds80 -
Strange Keywords Google Webmaster Tools
Hey, I have a website about "coffee machines". Since a few months I added a vBulletin forum with vbSEO installed. The keywords Google found before I added the forum where highly related to the topic of my website (e.g. "coffee", "machine" etc), which I checked through the webmaster tools. However, I recently checked again and noticed that Google finds mostly keywords like "post", "forum", "thread", "share" etc. with high significance. Those "keywords" only appear on the forum. Now I'm a bit worried since Google states "These should reflect the subject matter of your site." Any advice how to solve that issue? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | netminds0