Do rankings return to previous rank after a site has been un-indexed?
-
My client has had a site since 1996 (the first one was a www subdomain, his current site has no www). He came to my company for SEO about a year ago, after having a WordPress site that was accidentally set to not be crawled/indexed by search engines.
We set the site to be indexed and added a blog. Since then, he has had slow increase in keyword rankings (on page 3 or most globally searched terms) but is still nowhere near page 1 for most of his keywords. He thinks my company has done nothing, while I see the keyword improvements as a sign of success - slow, gradual - but going in the right direction.
I don't know if he was ranking well before he had a site that was not set to be indexed - but if he was on page one, would he eventually return there? Or do we have to build everything over again?
-
Thank you, Dan! We have indeed been very transparent about the repercussions of not being indexed. Appreciate you taking the time to respond.
-
Unfortunately not. If he blocked crawlers from his site for long enough, they would eventually give up and treat the site as though it was gone from the Internet. If he doesn't rank now, he will effectively be starting from scratch.
Indeed you are doing fine if you are getting improvements in search engine results. Whether he will return to page 1 or not depends on many factors, such as how much his websites has changed, how many links have been built during that period, what other websites have done during that time and any Google updates that might have affected his linkbuilding.
I wish you the best of success - but you will need to be honest with him and tell him the damage he did by blocking search engine crawlers. Doing THAT was 100% not your fault.
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
-
Backlink Query. Unranked pages of High Ranking sites.
Hi, So I was just wondering if someone with more knowledge than myself can answer this question for me. I have a site - currently sat on page 2 of google. On-site optimisation is done, however I am struggling to get backlinks that are from highranking pages. I am new to SEO so need a hand. My understanding of backlinks is that the higher the PR of the site that links to your 'money' site, the better that link is, and that these links are very hard to come by. (something that I am finding). Many times I have found sites that have a high rank and offer for a free listing, only for me to fill in details and get listed on a sub-page that has no ranking whatsoever. So my question is, are these kind of links worth the effort? Do they actually have any effect on rankings? And generally would anyone have any tips on the best sites to get links? Thanks
Industry News | | Chstphrjohn0 -
Subdomain initials vs full city name(s) for a multi city subdomain site?
Helping with a multi-city non-profit magazine/news blog. Subdomain options; sf.domain.com, ny.domain.com, la.domain.com sanfrancisco.domain.com, newyork.domain.com, ... Some cities added, will as an example seol.domain.com a city that doesnt have a recognizable initlals, like NYC for example. For brand, recognition, seo benefit, what have you used and why? Thanks
Industry News | | vmialik0 -
Why Did Our Site Disappear for 6 Months?
Hello! The company that I work for recently hired a company to do their SEO. After they took over we fell out of the search engines for our keywords for 6 months! (I had previously done the SEO using Moz, but had to step down due to my husband getting cancer. He's all better and I'm back. 🙂 ) We contacted the SEO company recently to find out why the only way we could be found in the search engines was if we searched on our name. The reason they gave was Penguin, Panda, and Hummingbird. I personally don't believe that would cause our site to disappear for 6 months then miraculously reappear for our keywords a few days after us complaining. One of my main concerns is they have submitted us to 140 directories and 20 social bookmarking sites. How do I tell if these are good or bad sites? A few of them I've clicked are suspended and one Google warns about malicious content and to leave immediately - so those are obvious. Thanks for your help! Kelley Insana
Industry News | | Kelley_I0 -
Can not get the ranking needle to move even after a year with a US based SEO company
Hello community, I have spent the last 16 months spending lots of money on our USA Based SEO company and on content. For some reason. The powers who may be at Google are not giving us any love. I am beginning to become very dissapointed after all of our efforts. We did have a link penalty a year ago however that has long ago been removed. We have been doing everything our SEO company has asked us but the needle is not moving. Any ideas for us? http://tinyurl.com/n2yoeyn Thank you in advance. Chris
Industry News | | scamper0 -
Get Google To Crawl More Pages Faster on my Site
We opened our database of about 10 million businesses to be crawled by Google. Since Wednesday, Google has crawled and indexed about 2,000 pages. Google is crawling us at about 1,000 pages a day now. We need to substantially increase this amount. Is it possible to get Google to crawl our sites at a quicker rate?
Industry News | | Intergen0 -
Is it OK to discuss SEO for an adult site?
Hey guys, I run a few big tube sites and sales pages that contain adult material. I'm also new to these forums, so before I do anything that might be considered rude or innapropriate, I wanted to know what the stance was on asking for advice related to the SEO of my adult sites and/or posting links. I've read the Etiquette disclaimer, however, I don't actually intend to post images or anything of the sort, only ask for your opinions and preferred strategies. If its completely frowned upon, then I completely understand and will never bring the subject back up again. Cheers and Happy to be amongst you all!
Industry News | | CrakJason1 -
My site was hit by the Penguin Update, Now What?
My site is very young, having only been up for about a month and a half. Despite being nascent we were seeing a ton of organic traffic. Enter Google Penguin update.... Traffic is down 40% or so over the past week. So, assuming the damage has been done, the question is, what do we do next to start moving back towards where we were? If we're doing everything everything right do we just chalk it up to the fact that our site is very new and stay the course on original content and link building? I know you can submit your site for reconsideration which is something that we are going to do this week, but I wonder what else we can do to start edging back to where we were pre-penguin update. Maybe this would be a good Whiteboard Friday topic.
Industry News | | knowyourbank0 -
Subdomains seen as one site
Earlier this month Google announced that sub-domains are now
Industry News | | AlanMosley
be treated as one site. At first I thought this was good news as I like to use
sub-domains for separation of categories and the like. But what about links
from one sub-domain to the other, they uised to be external links now they are
internal links. If you don’t have many external links, I would say that the
cross sub-domain links would have been important, if you have a lot of external
links then the flow of link juice would be of more benefit. I think overall its
is a good thing. Does anyone have any opinions about this or know of any writings
on the subject since this announcement? http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/08/reorganizing-internal-vs-external.html0