Lost ranking once optimised a page
-
Hello, we're a new member of SEOMOZ and love it but have a problem. Obviously the reason for joining is to learn more about SEO and hopefully get our website ranked a lot better than it currently is.
However, one particular page we've chosen to optimise (based on your tips) has since lost ranking and we can no longer find it in the searches. Is there a reason for this? We've only made the on page changes you suggested and also added more external and internal links so I can't understand why it would no longer be listed in the searches?
I look forward to your reply/feedback.
Many thanks
Peter
-
Hi Ryan,
Looks like you're using Wordpress. To take care of those redirect issue, try the following in your .htaccess file. Test thoroughly on a demo site before going live with this. Wordpress plugins that you're using might have options that reach the same effect, so look into that as well.
RewriteEngine on
Options +FollowSymLinks#Force trailing slash
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^(www.)?mybabyradio.com/$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(.)/$
RewriteRule ^(.)$ http://www.mybabyradio.com/$1/ [R=301,L]
#Redirect non-www to www
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^mybabyradio.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.mybabyradio.com/$1 [R=301,L] -
Hi Peter.
I am not clear what you mean by "swapped around". If the position of the href and rel properties were reversed, that is fine.
As far as which version of your link is used, with or without a trailing slash, that is up to your preference. I tend to think that a trailing slash represents a folder while a lack of a trailing slash represents a page. My preference for the conjunctivitis would be without the trailing slash.
The canonical tag, like most tools, can be used correctly to help your results. If used incorrectly, your results can worsen. It is a very important piece of code along with 301 redirects. I highly recommend taking a bit of time learning about both. My best advice is google "Matt Cutts canonical" and reviewing some of the results, along with "Matt Cutts 301".
-
I had a very similar problem with my own site disappearing from the SERPS, but showing as it should on any other PCs (that I hadn't previously used.)
The problem then related to Google's personalised search. Essentially, I had accidentally deleted my site and prevented it showing up in personalised search - though it still worked in any other browser that wasn't displaying my personalised results. ( See this article: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-test-lets-users-vote-add-and-delete-sites-in-serps/6031/ )
To remove personalised search take a look at: http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer.py?answer=54048
This sounds to be a likely suspect for the issue you are having.
Personalised Search can also provide false results as you are seeing personalised results, based on your search history, activity and preferences, rather than the non-personalised results as they actually appear without personalised bias in the SERPS.
You can see your web history settings here: https://www.google.com/history/
Hope that helps!
-
Any unsafe sites will be removed from the pages. So if you are 15 and there are 2 unsafe sites between 1 and 15 your rank will move up 2 spots to replace the pages that cannot be shown and so your rank will show 13.
-
The canonical do help as they funnel the links to provide rank for the http://www.mybabyradio.com/experts-faq/conjunctivitis page. If you leave it out and follow Google webmaster tools you will see duplicate content errors showing up with the 4 urls Ryan mentioned highlighted.
-
Hi Ryan, for now, I'm gonna take the canonical tag off as I'm not sure it's right or if they're even helping sites. Just read some horror stories about these tags. Look forward to your reply in due course.
Many thanks
Peter
-
I agree, strange but more testing is required me thinks. In regards to the canonical tag this is what it looks like in our source:- Thinking on shouldn't it look like this
-
Hi Ryan, I've added the canonical tag, but when I've saved it it's swapped around the the way you've listed it. Check it out in the source and let me know what you think? Also, all the URLS should be like this http://www.mybabyradio.com/experts-faq/conjunctivitis/ How do I do a 301 redirect?
-
You used to see the search result at #13, I see it at 13, and your iphone sees it there as well. I am going to go with the ranking of 13.
The other search results can be affected by numerous factors. Search Safe, your location, which Google search engine is used (uk vs .com vs others), past browsing history, and numerous other factors can be used to adjust the search results. These changes can happen even if you are not logged into Google.
With the above noted, the results are jumping around too much for my taste. I would suggest you perform additional tests, try clearing cache, try other browsers ( ie / chrome ) on the same pc and see what you come up with.
Good luck.
-
Your htags look good to me.
The code for a canonical tag looks like:
The canonical tag can go anywhere within the tag of your page.
Once you decide upon a URL style, be consistent throughout your site. You can decide on www vs non-www, and whether pages should end with a trailing slash.
-
Oh, and as another slant. I've just done a Google search on my iPhone and it appears at number 13. Obviously there's a discrepancy somewhere?
-
Also, just been downstairs and done a search for the term on two separate PC's on a variety of browsers with different IP's than what we use upstairs and our searched term didn't appear in google's searches. Now I'm baffled.
-
Hey Ryan, thanks for the on page assessment above I will narrow down the keyword to 6 in the article. I take it I'm ok with it in the htags. Not sure how to do these canonical tags though. Where do you put them and how do they look?
Now, just gone into IE and seen our listing ranked at number 4. This is getting a bit weird now.
-
Peter, I am using FF and tried private browsing. The result is the same.
Rather then troubleshoot FF, can you try opening up a IE or chrome browser and checking your result?
You can also try FF or any browser from another pc.
-
An additional note. You did a good job of optimizing the page for your keyword. There are a few opportunities for improvement.
1. Add a canonical tag to your page. There are at least 4 URLs which lead to the same page:
http://mybabyradio.com/experts-faq/conjunctivitis
http://mybabyradio.com/experts-faq/conjunctivitis/
http://www.mybabyradio.com/experts-faq/conjunctivitis
http://www.mybabyradio.com/experts-faq/conjunctivitis/
Those are considered 4 separate URLs, each of which can be linked to and divide your page's ranking. Adding a canonical tag will ensure all of your link juice flows to the correct page.
2. Decide which version of your URL is preferred for your site, www or the non-www. Once you decide, add a 301 redirect to enforce your decision, then take a look at your site and ensure all your links use the correct URL.
3. Optimizing is a great idea, but using "conjunctivitis" 24 times on a page goes far past anything needed for a search engine. There is not any exact number but I would say using the term four times should be sufficient, and six times is very safe. I would advise adjusting the content for the best readability and resist the urge to use the keyword at every opportunity.
-
Hi Ryan, very odd. I've just clikced your link and I still can't see it. I use firefox and whenever I want to get a clean search I go into > tools > private browsing. Is there something else that I need to do or plugin I need to use?
Cheers
-
I went to google.co.uk and searched for conjunctivitis and found you at...spot 13 just as you suggested.
If you are not seeing yourself there, perhaps you are using google.com, not google.co.uk? Or perhaps your browser is customizing your results based on other factors?
-
Hi Ryan, this is the URL it currently sits on:- http://www.mybabyradio.com/experts-faq/conjunctivitis/ look forward to your reply.
Oh, the term is "conjunctivitis". Last time I checked it was appearing at number 13 in Google searches in the UK. Now, it's gone, where I haven't a clue. Or even why?
-
If you are willing to offer the URL of this particular page, along with the terms you optimized the page for, I am very willing to help.
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
-
What I am Doing Wrong with My Rank
Hi, I am doing something wrong but I don't understand what is the issue. The rank of my website for a particular keyword is by far lower than one of my competitors (they are in top 20 while I am not even in top 50 in google). I did all fixes recommended by MOZ, I have higher number of backlinks (natural built), relatively similar social media activities, bigger content but still I'm far away. Do you have any idea what is wrong? Best, Tony
Technical SEO | | Threeding.com0 -
Too Many Page Links
I have 8 niche websites for golf clubs. This was done to carve out tight niches for specific types of clubs then only broadens each club by type - i.e. better player, game improvement, max game improvement. So far, for fairly young sites, <1 year, they are doing fairly well as I build content. Running campaigns has alerted me to one problem - too many on-page links. And because I use Wordpress those links are on each page in the right sidebar and lead to the other sites. Even though visitors arrive via organic search in most cases they tend to eventually exit to one of the other sites or they click on a product (Ebay) and venture off to hopefully make a purchase. Ex: Drivers site will have a picture link for each of the other 7 sites. Question: If I have one stie (like a splash page) used as one link to that page listing all the sites with a brief explanation of each site will this cause visitors to bounce off because they will have one click, than the list and other clicks depending on what other club/site they would like to go to. The links all open in new windows. This would cut down on the number of links per page of each site but will it cause too much work for visitors and cause them to leave?
Technical SEO | | NicheGuy0 -
Auto generated pages
Hi, I have two sites showing (crawl report from SEOMoz.org) extremely high numbers of duplicate titles and descriptions (e.g., 33,000). These sites have CMSs behind them and so the duplicate titles, etc., are a result of auto-generated pages. What is the best way to address these problems? Thanks! David
Technical SEO | | DWill0 -
Translating Page Titles & Page Descriptions
I am working on a site that will be published in the original English, with localized versions in French, Spanish, Japanese and Chinese. All the versions will use the English information architecture. As part of the process, we will be translating the page the titles and page descriptions. Translation quality will be outstanding. The client is a translation company. Each version will get at least four pairs of eyes including expert translators, editors, QA experts and proofreaders. My question is what special SEO instructions should be issued to translators re: the page titles and page descriptions. (We have to presume the translators know nothing about SEO.) I was thinking of: stick to the character counts for titles and descriptions make sure the title and description work together avoid over repetition of keywords page titles (over-optimization peril) think of the descriptions as marketing copy try to repeat some title phrases in the description (to get the bolding and promote click though) That's the micro stuff. The macro stuff: We haven't done extensive keyword research for the other languages. Most of the clients are in the US. The other language versions are more a demo of translation ability than looking for clients elsewhere. Are we missing something big here?
Technical SEO | | DanielFreedman0 -
Ranking Implications due to Altering Page Names
I'm working on a very large (over 2500 pages), very old website (with pages created in the late 90s). The structure of the site is a mess (it still shows subtle sings of Frontpage!). We are trying to move to a more uniform, dynamic solution. My question is: what sort of implication will there be on search rankings if we implement 301 redirects from the very old pages (that are poorly named) to new pages which follow a uniform pattern. Some of these pages have external links pointing to them and others (most) just have internal links pointing to them which will be adjusted to the new urls. Does the age of the page have a significant implication on rankings? Is there a better way to this than 301 redirects? Thanks for the help
Technical SEO | | Bartell0 -
Page not being indexed
Hi all, On our site we have a lot of bookmaker reviews, and we are ranking pretty good for most bookmaker names as keywords, however a single bookmaker seems to have been shunned by Google. For a search "betsafe" in Denmark, this page does not appear among the top 50: http://www.betxpert.com/bookmakere/betsafe All of our other review pages rank in top 10-20 for the bookmaker name as keyword. What to do if Google has "banned" a page? Best regards, Rasmus
Technical SEO | | rasmusbang0 -
Duplicate Page Title
The crawl of my website http://www.aboutaburningfire.com revealed an error showing a duplicate page title. Can someone please explain to me how to fix this? I'm not sure what it means or how to fix it. | House Church Chicago, Organic Church, Illinois http://www.aboutaburningfire.com/ 1 Pending Pending House Church Chicago, Organic Church, Illinois http://www.aboutaburningfire.com/index.html |
Technical SEO | | severity0 -
Ranking are not correct
Hi, Just a question, On one campaign for example - Vegas Hotel (vegashotel.com.au) Google ranking for **Clubs King Cross **is ZERO on Google AU when really its result 2 on google AU There are tones of other keywords the same 😞 Please let me know why Thanks MOZ Kiddies 😄 Ray
Technical SEO | | kayweb20