Sudden drop in rankings
-
Hi there,
I've been working on this site for three or four months (it was a brand new site), and we were seeing some really great improvements in rankings. I've concentrated on writing lots of good quality content and building a network of links through blogging and social networks.
Then, last weekend (6th October), we got completely wiped off of the results. We went from rankings 2,3 and 4 for our target terms to not being in the top 100.
I assumed we'd been given a penalty from Google as we'd been SEOing too hard and removed a reciprocal links page we had and asked Google to reconsider. I just got a message back saying there hasn't been any manual penalty, so it's just down to the algorithm.
I'm running am SEOMoz analysis, but so far it's just coming up with things like page titles too long and too many links on pages, which I can fix, but don't seem like something that would completely destroy us so abruptly.
I think we really have the most and best content on the subject of becoming a model, which has taken a great deal of effort to put tgether, so this is crushing. If anybody can shed any light, I'll be extremely grateful, and I'd be interested to knwo if anyone else has experienced anything similar.
Thanks in advance!
URL: www.modellingadvice. info
Kat
-
I will add my two cents to whatever Irving will answer, while I'm here.
It is possible to get out from under a penalty, but it is difficult and usually takes quite awhile. This is especially true when the penalty is related to backlinks, as it is difficult to remove backlinks to your site. There is certainly merit to Irving's suggestion to simply start over with a new domain.
It is typical for drops from a penalty to be immediate and abrupt.
I will also mention that I disagree with Irving's suggestion to "never point to the homepage". I understand why he is suggesting that, but a website with no links to the homepage doesn't look very natural to Google. Also, there are many instances where you'll have to link to the homepage, such as if you are submitting to a high quality directory. I would just say to be very careful, and don't build links you might need to delete later.
To be honest, I think you will find it nearly impossible to build really good quality links as long as the site has that thing that looks like a squeeze page across the top. Very few high quality websites will want to link to a site where the real content is buried underneath an aggressive "sell" like that.
-
Hi Irving,
Many thanks for your comments. Are you saying that even if I fix the over optimisation of the site (which I'm doing now) this domain will always be penalised?
The thing I'm most confused about is how abrupt the drop was, pretty much overnight.
Kat
-
You killed the site with bad linking and over optimization. Fix the over optimization on the site, then deindex www.modellingadvice. info and buy a new domain and start over. Get a .com and not .info since .info domains have been primarily used as spam sites.
Don't engage in link building on the new site, allow it to gain some trust. Read up on link building before you do it, and never point to the homepage unless you are prepared to go to all the webmasters and get your links removed if penalized.
-
Many thanks Sergio, I'll read these articles as well.
-
Hi Kat,
Unfortunately, I agree with Adam. The website has been clearly penalized, due to wrong SEO performance. I'm not going to give you a list of things to do, but you can consult these two excellent posts by Jason Acidre, where you can find a lot of good recommendations.
Anti-Penguin Link Building Plan
20 SEO Strategies for Sites Affected By Google Panda
I hope to be helpful.
Sergio
-
Thank you Maurizio, I appreciate your input.
-
Thank you Adam,
This is really useful - I'll get on it, and hopefully Google will start to like us again!
Kat
-
Hi Kat,
I would continue to educate the client on why having the site setup like that is a huge barrier to success.
Here are some resources on building links that won't get bitten by Penguin:
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/anchor-text-optimization-case-study-whats-natural/43404/
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/post-penguin-seo-link-building-the-naked-url-truth/46936/
Hope that helps!
~Adam
-
Hi
without evaluating your back link I went to see your home page.
i think that you must change something and for this can help you Semoz Tools , On page in your campaign.
First your Title seems a Keyword tag
Second, the description is too long , max 150-160 characters
Third, in the tag keywords , the words are separately by comma and newlines, if you want inset keywords just put commas but Remember that Google does not consider the tag Keywords.
Ciao
Maurizio
-
Hi Adam,
Many thanks for your reply. I'll make the changes you suggest - reducing the occurances of the keywords in title, links and in general.
I can't remove the call to action from that position because the client is insisting on it.
I'm not sure what to do about the backlinks - do you have any suggestions?
Do you think if I make those changes, we might recover our previous rankings? I really was trying to have good quality content at the core of my campaign, and am gutted to feel penalised like this without really knowing what I've done wrong.
However, I want to do things right, and make sure the SEO is solid and future proof!
Thanks again.
Kat
-
Hi Kat,
You may have been hit in the Penguin update on Oct 5th.
-
Your site is definitely way "over-optimized" or keyword stuffed. The keyword "Modelling" appears 77 times on your homepage, plus 4 times in the page title. Your internal links structure is also keyword stuffed.
-
Having the page content under the huge big call to action and form on top of the site is not good for users or search engine rankings.
-
A quick check of your backlinks shows they are mostly keyword anchor text links from directories and other lower quality sources.
To be honest, it looks to me like you're headed in the wrong direction SEO-wise and have likely been hit by one or more algorithmic penalties.
Sorry to be so negative.
Hope this helps!
~Adam
-
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
-
Homepage has dropped out of search results
As of 9/12, my homepage has dropped out of the SERPs. If you google my business name (Sumy Designs) it shows other pages in my site, my Facebook page, etc, but not the homepage. My sitelinks are gone too. It IS still indexed, which you can see if you do site:sumydesigns.com I had been ranking for about 15 keywords that have all been lost since my homepage has disappeared. Here's what I know: There are no manual actions. The homepage is still being indexed, it's just not showing up for any keywords, even my brand Nothing has changed in terms of content, I have been a near daily blogger for several years There's no indication of a problem in search console The drop only appears to be affecting desktop searches, mobile search it still shows up which seems pretty weird. I would love any ideas as to what could be causing this disappearance.
Technical SEO | | sumydesigns0 -
Why is our login page ranked higher than our homepage?
Hello everyone, When you search "ProtonMail", our Login page always ranks #1 while our homepage ranks #2. We're unsure why this is happening. The PA for our homepage is higher than the login page, and the login page itself basically has zero content except for a login form. We don't want to put the login page on robots.txt, we want to do our best to preserve it so that people can login. However it still does not make sense to us how the login page ranks higher, even though it has a lesser PA. I'd appreciate any help or advice you might have. Thank you.
Technical SEO | | kevinzh0 -
Detailed ranking question for the pros
Hi Community, We've been struggling with the search engine ranking of our SEO optimised homepage for a number of months. I'm going to provide an overview of the page stats in hope that somebody might have a suggestion as to what the problem might be or where we should be focusing our efforts. I have also provided the stats of our main competitor as I have no idea why they are ranking so high based on the stats provided: URL in question: https://mysite.com On Page Grade for our targeted keyword: A Domain authority: 36 Page authority: 45 Root Doman Links: 57 Total Links: 634 SE Ranking: #17 Competitor URL in question: https://competitorsite.com On Page Grade for same targeted keyword: A Domain authority: 32 Page authority: 43 Root Doman Links: 28 Total Links: 919 SE Ranking: #1 Another strange this about our homepage is that a second tier page on our site is actually ranking higher in the search ranking for the Targeted Keyword (#9), even though this page has not been optimised and has an On Page Grade of F. Does anybody have any suggestions of what we might be overlooking or what the issue here might be? -JF
Technical SEO | | ERpro0 -
Unstable ranking
Hello, I own a website wich lately (since like few months ago) have a unstable ranking, I mean that one day I get 800 organic visits (good sells) and then a week when organic visits fall to 700,600,500,400.. then up again Why does this happen? I am lossing ranking :S site : todorepuestoselectro(dot)com Thank you very much im learning a lot here!
Technical SEO | | matiw0 -
Organic Traffic Dropping. 404s found. Is this it?
My organic traffic has dropped 20% in the past month. I noticed some major 404 errors today on a very commonly clicked link on our website. I had the developers fix the error today, but then I thought I'd look in Google Webmaster Tools. That's when I saw the attached picture. 2454 404 errors were found. We only have 1500 pages in the entire Google index. Could this massive amount of 404 errors attribute to this drop in organic traffic? dU240 dU240
Technical SEO | | davewjones0 -
Rankings for Google Play Pages
Hey all, I'm relatively new here and certainly new to posting in the forums and interacting with the community but I hope to be much more active in the coming months. I have what might be a silly question regarding search results for a Google Play store-specific query. The company in question has their main North American app that's been out for a month and a half and then an International version that was released just a few days ago. If you run a Google search (NOT a search witin Google Play) for 'Google Play Company Name' the more recent (but less used and ultimately less important, at least for the time being) International app is higher in the SERP than the more used and reviewed North American app. I'm guessing that this is something that will correct itself over the next week as the North American app establishes itself as the more important of the two, but I figured it couldn't hurt to ask just in case there's something they can do to affect the results a little quicker. Any advice, input or just a verification of my guess would be greatly appreciated!
Technical SEO | | JDMcNamara0 -
How can I improve my google places ranking?
I am currently registered with google places for 'video conferencing in Melbourne australia' however I don't show up on page 1 of the places sesrch results for this search term. How can I improve it. I do note that my office address is in a residential area and not Melbourne CBD. Thanks Dan
Technical SEO | | dantmurphy0 -
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