My own brand searches stopped appearing in google

[petecorsaro]

Hi everyone,

I've never asked a question here before, so go easy on me

I've noticed recently that my site is not showing up for my own brand searches anymore, and that my organic google results are way down. For example, it used to be if you would search for "grouvee kings quest 6" you would either see http://www.grouvee.com/news/kings-quest-6-retro-rerun-playthrough-part-1/63/ or http://www.grouvee.com/games/kings-quest-vi-heir-today-gone-tomorrow/69/ show up first in google. Now they're nowhere to be found.

Here's another example. If you would search for "grouvee mass effect 3" you'd either see http://www.grouvee.com/games/mass-effect-3/75/ or http://www.grouvee.com/news/mass-effect-3-lets-take-the-earth-back/136/ show up first in google. Once again, nowhere to be found.

I could go on with several other examples, but I don't really know what I've done. I 301 redirected 2 pages a few weeks ago because I added a /reviews/ structure to my site and needed to move a couple of pages that used to be under /news/ over to the new section, but those shouldn't have had anything to do with the pages I referenced above. I haven't done any link building really. I submit some of my articles occasionally to places like reddit or n4g, but that's about it.

Anyone have any tips or things I should be looking at?

[RobertFisher]

Peter, I think you are missing the point a bit and this is the perfect way to show you the importance of on page SEO: Your Q & A for this shows up on page one #8.

So, the SEO moz Q & A for today is more relevant to the search than your page because your on page is, well, not there. Here is the screen shot on a non personalized Google search.

Best

kWWQr.png

[petecorsaro]

Hey Robert,

Thanks for the advice! I'll get to working on optimizing my pages better for my brand with the title tag. I just assumed the domain name would be enough, but I guess not. It seems pretty crazy that even though my pages aren't necessarily optimized for my brand name that my page doesn't show up anywhere in the search results. None of my pages show up in at least the first 15 results pages for the search "grouvee kings quest 6." Really frustrating.

As for the 301's, the URL changes were: /news/final-fantasy-xiii-2-a-review-for-the-ages/121/  to  /reviews/final-fantasy-xiii-2-a-review-for-the-ages/1/    and

/news/review-dustforce-sweeping-the-nation-by-storm/79/  to  /reviews/review-dustforce-sweeping-the-nation-by-storm/2/

I did the redirects in my VirtualHost config. file that's loaded in by my http.conf file.

Honestly, these pages have the same issue. If you search for "grouvee final fantasy xiii-2 review" or "grouvee dustforce review" you'd never find my URL. I assume these pages have similar issues, but I can't believe they'd just not show up anywhere.

Thanks again for your help!

[RobertFisher]

Hello Peter, 
First, what is happening is happening because you are using your brand name in the search and.....unlike your competitors, you have not optimized the brand name. They have Grouvee in the url,  page title and H1 and content. They do this by reviewing your review. 
So, you might want to rethink your title tags: Mass Effect 3 Playstation XBOX | Grouvee or Mass Effect 3 | Grouvee or Grouvee Gamer Reviews, etc. You also want to have an image with Mass Effect 3 and an alt tag that says Scene from Mass Effect three.

Personally, most gamers will know what console is usable for each game. So having XBox or Playstation would be driven by how many searches are done for Mass Effect 3 with or without console mention.

As to the 301's you did, what were the original and the resolving urls? So from Grouvee/monkey-mantra to Grouvee/monkey-mantra-news as the format. Did you do the 301 in the .htaccess file?

Lastly, the main competitor who is stealing your thunder has a load of DA, but the PA is 1. If you clean up the on page, you should be able to slap him down a bit. Yes you need more links, but your biggest issue today is that you are using a search term that you have not optimized.....your brand. Time to get cracking.

Best