No longer to be found for "certain" keywords.
-
I'd like to see if anyone could potentially shade a light on this rather strange scenario:
Basically yesterday I noticed that we are no longer to be found for 'certain' keywords that we had page 2-3 ranking. Yet, for other keywords we still appear on page 2-3. These keywords are very competitive and our rankings has constantly improved in the course of 5-6 months.
Now my question is that what could or may have contributed to the fact that for only some keywords we are no longer to be found? Another question is, can Google remove you from their SERPs for certain keywords 'only'? Thank you,
Maximilian. -
Thank you once again. I will get in touch with you. Please PM your contact details. We are located in downtown Manhattan.
-
Strategies for dealing with external duplicate content are overviewed here.
A much bigger concern is duplicating your OWN content. I know it sounds kind of silly, but it is a very real issue, especially since Google's most recent update (Panda). Is there more than one URL for any page on your website? Does http://website.com direct to http://www.website.com? Do you have canonicalization problems related to pagination or something similar?
These issues are discussed in-depth here.
If you think that your issues may be related to on-site or site architecture factors, the best thing you can do is hire a qualified SEO consultant that can assess these issues and make actionable recommendations for correcting them.
-
Anthony, our website has been online since 2002 and we have been getting organic quality backlinks for a very long time. Directory submission was just added literally 4 weeks in an effort to 'add more value'. It was never intended to use it as the only source, but just was an effort to increase the rankings. Who knew it would or could potentially backfire.
On another note, you mentioned that duplicate content may cause this issue. Our content is very reach and well-written and there are a number of sites who have copied/pasted our content. Despite all of our efforts and having had contacted their hosting companies to shut down their website, no changes have been made. Now my question is, do we get affected if "others" have copied our content on their website? Does Google have any algorithmic to define which site has copied which sites data?
Thank you once again for your insightful information.
-
Maximilian -
If Google has devalued some of your links, there's no way to "recover" these links. That's the bad news.
The good news is that this happens to websites every day, and it's not by any means a permanent penalization or anything of that sort. All it means is that the time and effort spent to build these links was squandered.
What can you do to speed up your recovery? Switch the way you think about link building. Directory submissions are useful, but they shouldn't by any means comprise the majority of your link building strategy.
I would suggest reading this article cover to cover. It will teach you the proper mindset you should have when approaching linkbuilding, and it will give you dozens and dozens of ideas to get started with building high quality links from relevant, authoritative domains.
Replace directory submissions with strategies like writing guest blog posts, creating amazing content (linkbait) and subsequently promoting it on social media and social bookmarking websites, and/or creating a widget that would be an invaluable addition to any website in your industry. All of these are covered under the "Content-Based Link Building Strategies" section of the SEOmoz Professional Guide to Linkbuilding that is linked to above.
-
"You have been building low quality links and they have been devalued by Google, causing you to lose hundreds (thousands?) of keyword-rich backlinks."
Anthony, thank you for your response. The above statement could potentially be the source of issue, considering one of our staff members been doing directory submissions (30 per day).
Now you mentioned that Google may have devalued the high-quality banklinks that have had due to gaining low quality backlinks. In your experience, what can be done to resolve this issue? Is this devaluation something permanent or a temporary? What can be done to speed up the recovery?
Thank you in advance.
-
There are tons of reasons why your website might see a drop in rankings for certain keywords. Here are a few:
-
Increased competition in your niche pushed your website down as new websites started to rank above you.
-
You have been building low quality links and they have been devalued by Google, causing you to lose hundreds (thousands?) of keyword-rich backlinks.
-
Your website has been affected by a Google algorithm update. For one reason or another (duplicate content? shallow or nonexistent content on some pages? too many ads / too big of a "footprint"?), your website is being seen as less trustworthy, and this has affected rankings sitewide. (Note, some rankings would be maintained, particularly for keywords with low competition.)
-
You were logged into your Google account when you saw these rankings, and your website was appearing higher than it typically does because of your personalized search data. When you logged out and checked your rankings, you noticed a "drop" in ranking that was not actually real. (Okay, this one is unlikely, but we've all seen it before.)
-
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 important is a good "follow" / "no-follow" link ratio for SEO?
Is it very important to make sure most of the links pointing at your site are "follow" links? Is it problematic to post legitimate comments on blogs that include a link back to relevant content or posts on your site?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BlueLinkERP0 -
Our quilting site was hit by Panda/Penguin...should we start a second "traffic" site?
I built a website for my wife who is a quilter called LearnHowToMakeQuilts.com. However, it has been hit by Panda or Penguin (I’m not quite sure) and am scared to tell her to go ahead and keep building the site up. She really wants to post on her blog on Learnhowtomakequilts.com, but I’m afraid it will be in vain for Google’s search engine. Yahoo and Bing still rank well. I don’t want her to produce good content that will never rank well if the whole site is penalized in some way. I’ve overly optimized in linking strongly to the keywords “how to make a quilt” for our main keyword, mainly to the home page and I think that is one of the main reasons we are incurring some kind of penalty. First main question: From looking at the attached Google Analytics image, does anyone know if it was Panda or Penguin that we were “hit” by? And, what can be done about it? (We originally wanted to build a nice content website, but were lured in by a get rich quick personality to rather make a “squeeze page” for the Home page and force all your people through that page to get to the really good content. Thus, our avenge time on site per person is terrible and Pages per Visit is low at: 1.2. We really want to try to improve it some day. She has a local business website, Customcarequilts.com that did not get hit. Second question: Should we start a second site rather than invest the time in trying to repair the damage from my bad link building and article marketing? We do need to keep the site up and running because it has her online quilting course for beginner quilters to learn how to quilt their first quilt. We host the videos through Amazon S3 and were selling at least one course every other day. But now that the Google drop has hit, we are lucky to sell one quilting course per month. So, if we start a second site we can use that to build as a big content site that we can use to introduce people to learnhowtomakequilts.com that has Martha’s quilting course. So, should we go ahead and start a new fresh site rather than to repair the damage done by my bad over optimizing? (We’ve already picked out a great website name that would work really well with her personal facebook page.) Or, here’s a second option, which is to use her local business website: customcarequilts.com. She created it in 2003 and has had it ever since. It is only PR 1. Would this be an option? Anyway I’m looking for guidance on whether we should pursue repairing the damage and whether we should start a second fresh site or use an existing site to create new content (for getting new quilters to eventually purchase her course). Brad & Martha Novacek rnUXcWd
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BradNovi0 -
SEO Ecommerce Keywords
Hi guys got a question regarding ecommerce seo do you think its a better idea to target more long tail terms and try get links directly to product pages, brand pages and categories. Rather than focus on short keywords that do bring in good traffic but are very broad, i will prob do both, but i would like a second opinion please about other users strategies thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Will_Craig0 -
Keyword density for a website
I wanna make landing pages for my web site .going to write 500 words article but how about keyword density .i wanna insert 4 keywords into that article.looking for expert advices .
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | innofidelity0 -
What's the "most valuable indirectly related skill" to SEO worth learning?
Hi, All! I have a little time on my hands that's not taken up by client work or our own marketing. What would you say is a skill worth learning during that time? My background is not techie, so while I've picked up a teeny bit of knowledge about code, etc. on the way, I still don't really know how to code, use APIs, etc. So I was thinking something along those lines, but anyone have specific suggestions? And resources for whatever you suggest? Thanks! Aviva
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | debi_zyx0 -
Keyword Self-Cannibalization Concern
Right now I have an E-Commerce website that has layered menu properties. I have one page trying to rank for "NextGen Digital Ballast" that is the main category page. However, on that category page I link out to three product pages which would be "NextGen 400W Digital Ballast", "NextGen 600W Digital Ballast" and "NextGen 1000W Digital Ballast". The on page ranking factors tools is saying I may need to consider making adjustments because of the potential self-cannibalization, but I wanted to get some feedback to see what others thought about that. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JerDoggMckoy2 -
How do you rank in the "brands for:" section in Google's search results ?
There's a "brands for:" section that appears above the first organic listing for certain search queries. For example, if you search for "dedicated servers" in Google, you will see that a "brands for:" appears. How do you get listed there? Thanks, Brian
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | InMotionHosting0