Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How to Resolve Rankings Drop from a DDOS Attack?
-
Our rankings just plummeted on Tuesday across the board. There was a DDOS attack on Tuesday and since then the rankings went down and have stayed down, even though the DDOS attack has been resolved. Also, this is the 3rd or 4th attack they've encountered this year.
How long could this last? How can we deal with this?
Thanks
-
UPDATE - Rankings and Traffic restored beginning this very morning for us. If something like this has happened to you...
**I got a very authoritative link yesterday afternoon. Not 24 hours passed before rankings and org. traffic was restored. **
This was after 2 weeks of "penalty".
What a relief!!
-
Well, you say "back in the index", but we are being indexed and in fact are in the SERPs still, but the rankings have dramatically decreased across the board. Are you saying the give them time to fix this penalty that's been placed?
Earlier in the year when we had a couple of DDOS attacks, our rankings never dropped.
-
This shouldn't last long at all. Give it a few days to recover. If the site has been down for a few days it will take a little time for Google to put it back in the index.
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
-
Can an external firewall affect rankings?
For security reasons we are now routing traffic through an external firewall cum CDN. Our server and domain IPs remain the same, but any request is routed through an external IP, which then forwards the traffic. Would our rankings be affected because of IP changes? Thanks Sam
Technical SEO | | samgold0 -
Company name ranking
Hi all, I hope somebody can share their thoughts on the below. A web designer launched my client's new website and I have been tasked with the SEO. I was approached with an immediate problem, www.clientswebsite.co.uk was ranking 9th for their company name after being indexed by Google. The search results above www.clientswebsite.co.uk were related to my client but not all, for example a direct competitor was also ranking. I have been working on the SEO for 2-3 weeks and I just managed to get to 3rd position for the company name, and then www.clientswebsite.co.uk disappeared from page 1! And now instead, an irelevant sub page is now ranking for the company name on page 2 (a contact page). I have checked and the home page is still indexed (did a site: check). The only problem software picks up is a redirect chain (http://homepage -> http://www.homepage -> https://homepage) the web developers said it wouldn't impact rankings (when I asked them to edit the htaccess file to fix it) I've listed below the SEO tasks I completed whilst attempting to rank the company name: I set up analytics and webmaster tools, in which I set up preferred domain (www) Added a sitemap Edited meta data making sure company name was included I contacted the websites above www.clientswebsite.co.uk that were relevant and asked them to place a link linking to their new website, I was successful with a couple of these. I placed www.clientswebsite.co.uk on all of their social media profiles I reformatted headers on their home page, making sure the H1 included my client's company name I found 2 extra versions of my client's home page (not exact copies, but very similar content) that had been published, so I decided to 301 redirect these to the correct home page Activated SSL and forced to HTTPS I would really appreciate it if anyone could share their thoughts here, whether it be explanations or possible solutions Adam
Technical SEO | | SO_UK0 -
How long does it take to rank easy keywords?
I have an established site with low keyword ranking and the keyword I am wanting to rank for it rated below 10 on Moz. It has been a few days since I published the article.
Technical SEO | | Begbie20060 -
Wordpress versus html and google ranking
My current SEO has always recommended that I take my site to wordpress. I really don't want to move to wordpress. I don't like it... I just like writing code in raw html, css, and script. I feel like I have more control that way. Wordpress just seems like a platform for blogs (I have my blog in wordpress). My question is, do wordpress websites typically rank better? Is there benefit to moving to it?
Technical SEO | | CalicoKitty20000 -
Sitemap indexed pages dropping
About a month ago I noticed my pages indexed from my sitemap are dropping.There are 134 pages in my sitemap and only 11 are indexed. It used to be 117 pages and just died off quickly. I still seem to be getting consistant search traffic but I'm just not sure whats causing this. There are no warnings or manual actions required in GWT that I can find.
Technical SEO | | zenstorageunits0 -
Drop Down Menu - Link Juice Depletion
Hi, We have a site with 7 top level sections all of which contain a large number of subsections which may then contain further sub sections. To try and ensure the best user experience we have a top navigation with the 7 top level sections and when hovered a selection of the key sub sections. Although I like this format for the user as it makes it easier for them to find the most important sections / sub sections it does lead to a lot of links within every page on the site. In general each top section has a drop down with approx 10 - 15 subsections. This has therefore lead to SeoMoz's tools issuing its too many internal links warning. Then alongside this I am left wondering if I shouldn’t have to many links to my subsections and whether I would be better off being more selective of when I link to them. For instance I could choose the top 5 sub sections and place a link to them from our homepage and by doing so I would be passing a greater amount of link juice down the line. So I guess my dilemma is between ensuring the user has as easy a time traversing the site as possible whilst I try to keep a close watch on where, and how, our link juice is distributed. One solution I am considering is whether no-follow links could be utilised within the drop down menus? This way I could then have the desired user navigation and I would be in greater control of what pages link to which sub sections. Would that even work? Any advice would be greatly appreciated, Regards, Guy
Technical SEO | | guycampbell1 -
Does a CDN affect search rankings?
I feel kind of stupid asking this, but if i use one it would speed things up quite a bit. It is for a ecommerce website, any guidance on this would be awesome!
Technical SEO | | Hyrule0 -
Impact of 401s on Site Rankings
Will having 401s on a site negatively impact rankings? (e.g. 401s thrown from a social media sharing icon)
Technical SEO | | Christy-Correll0