After optimising for SEO my ranking went down...

[DavidSpivac]

Hello,

My website was ranking for over 100 keywords but was not really optimised properly.

For example, the page title was much too long, it was segmented like this:

"keyword - Category - domain "

I followed recommandations in SEOMOZ and I removed the domain and category from the long page titles to only leave the keyword and updated the H1 to reflect also the keyword.

We dropped in ranking since even though we did not change anything, only made things more SEO optimised.

I don't understand how it made us drop in ranking??

David

[DavidSpivac]

Thank you Mike,

Very appreaciated

[MikeGracia]

Hi David.

Okay, unfortunately this is around the time of some major Google tweaks, making it possibly harder to figure our what went wrong, as we need to try to rule out Penguin/Panda issues (feel free to take a screengrab or csv download from GA with a chart, so I can cross-check against Google's updates, and see if any of the big drop-off dates tally with major algo changes for you, as this could help rule Pegnuin in/out).

I have had a quick look at your site, and done a couple of quick Google queries, and found the following (I am NOT saying this is the cause, but this is something that should definitely be looked into).

• LOTS (circa 1,900) of pages indexed in Google, with pretty much duplicates of your homepage title tag (I will private message you a link, rather than publishing here)

• Possible canonicalisation issues (need to check).

David, I have triggered a crawl test of your domain, and will cast me eye over the findings when it is finished, and let you know if I see anything that may be useful.

I am leaving the office soon (especially as it is sunny! VERY rare for Bristol!), but I will check to see if the results of the crawl test are ready tomorrow, and fire you a reply once I know.

Cheers David,

Mike.

[DavidSpivac]

Mike,

Thank you for your comment.

The changes were made during March 2012, since then I have been checking the SEOMOZ ranking tool and have been pulling my hair out of my head.

From April to June we lost about 40% of traffic.

Each month we had much more declined keywords than improved ones.

The drop off started immediately after the updates were made.

Here are the monthly visits for non branded keywords:

Feb: 542

March: 510

April: 436

May:426

June: 288

Cheers

[MikeGracia]

Hmmmm, and, was this change made in isolation, or were other on-page changes also made?

When you say the rankings have been going down for around 4 months, do you know what sort of date the decline started? - I ask as it may be wise to broaded the net a little in looking at the cause of this.

I am not saying the title tag changes didn't cause it, just that it would be wise to not restrict ones research... for example, did the decline start around the time of any major Google updates? (Panda/Penguin refreshes, etc).

Also, do you know how long the gap was between changing the title tags, and the drop-off becoming apparent?

So really, 3 questions:

1. Do you remember the date you made the changes

2. Do you remember how long until the drop-off was seen

3. What date did your traffic start to go down (checking Google Analytics data could show you this, switching to a 6 month view).

Sorry to answer with more questions, but I wouldn't want to put forward an opinion of what could have caused this without all the facts!

Thanks,

Mike.

[DavidSpivac]

Here is an example:

The title:

|

"Data centre & server room energy audits - Energy efficient design of data centres & computer rooms"

was renaimed "Data centre & server room energy audits - Energy saving computer rooms"

|

and

|

|

"Data centre Consultancy and independent advice - Data centre solutions : [Our Company Name]" was renaimed

| "Building a data centre - independent advice" |

etc. to a total of 76 page titles.

Then the pages started dropping in Google.

|

|

[DavidSpivac]

Good question.

I did not change the URL structure, I do plan on doing it as the URLs are not SEO friendly.

I will send an example.

[MikeGracia]

Just to check the obvious, you didn't change any URL structure (of the pages) did you?

How much optimisation did you carry out on the pages, please show an example, as it is possible to 'over optimise', especially these days.

Thanks,

Mike.

[DavidSpivac]

It has been decreasing for the past 4 months consistently. I will put together some sample and post them. Thanks

[ITRIX]

For how long you are experiencing this drop? I mean the time frame. Some times the rankings tends to drop if there are some minor or major meta details or site update, its natural. If the meta details that you have updated perfectly suits your site/ business and the link profile of your site is good then it will not take much time to re gain the old rankings. It will be better if you provide a sample of your past and present title meta details.

Thanks,