Massive Drop in Rankings
-
Hello,
My site (www.reynoldsdesignstudio.com) has recently dropped off the map (50+ places) for almost every phrase I was ranking between 3 and 6 on the first page. My main phrases on google were "web design rochester mn", "web development rochester mn"
I have been setting up a new web server but have not pointed this domain at that server yet so it shouldn't be anything related there. I also have not updated the site in a couple years (I know that's bad), so it doesn't appear to be a hacking issue either.
I was 'hacked' a few years back where I gained a TON of crappy links from China and what-not but it never appeared to affect anything. I'm not sure if that is what is causing the recent drop in rankings.
If anyone has any ideas on what could have caused the issue that would be great. According to my GA traffic I had a spike earlier in the month and then it has steadily dropped off. This is consistent with my actual page rankings.
Thanks
-
Hi everyone,
I'm not sure how to mark a answer as good but all of these were helpful. I found out that I had a ton of garbage links coming from overseas. I'm not sure how this happened but it looks like it is something the search engines should take into consideration. Especially since they are linking to my site for terms that make no sense for it. You'd think with the infinite wisdom of google they could understand that these links are spam or someone trying to maliciously hurt your site.
I'm not sure if others have had this problem but how do you stop robots from putting links with anchor text like I have onto blogs? This appears to be what the issue is.
-
Also, how is your anchor text profile for each keyword you dropped traffic or ranking? I found that unreal anchor texts with the addition of some spammy links can be really harmful with penguin updates. I used this anti penguin resource in conjunction with unique content creation, social signals, and are seeing some good results.
Best Regards, and best of luck!
-
Thanks everyone. I'm going through the links and adding them to the disavow tool. I wish the search engines would just ignore anything related to cialis, viagra or anything else like that. None of those links are ever useful.
-
Hi Eric,
A quick look in Majestic SEO shows nearly 34,895 external backlinks from 260 linking root domains with large numbers of links being added during March and April.
As mentioned by Bradley and Chris, there is a lot of suspect anchor text (including cialis, adipex, tramadol etc) in there and many of the referring sites are not places would really want to be getting your links from regardless of the anchors.
It seems your site has attracted some unwanted attention which has dramatically lowered Google's trust. While the obvious conclusion is that Penguin might be responsible, it is clear from the screenshot you provided that the dropoff actually happened around 5/6 May (Dr Pete has talked about "something" happening with the algorithm around 5 May and that would seem to correlate with your problems). Of course, it is possible that this was a test rollout of Penguin and your site was captured as a result, or it may be something completely different (which Google has given no information about).
Either way, it is easy to see that the linking behavior is harming your site's trustworthiness and unfortunately, this is likely to also affect your visibility in Bing and other Search engines as well.
Dealing with the backlink problem is the most critical place to start ... site updates will come later I'm afraid.
Hope that helps,
Sha
-
As Chris stated above, it does look like a Google Penguin hit.
First plan of action would be to log into Google Webmaster Tools and see if you have any notifications from Google regarding manual penalties. If so, take the necessary steps to resolve these issues.
Second, it does look like you have some really spammy links coming in from spammy sources. I ran an OpenSiteExplorer report on your page and I see the same "cialis" links that Chris alluded to above. You may want to look at disavowing links like these to make your inbound link profile look more organic.
And finally - update your site! If you had somehow managed to make it through Penguin 2.0, you would have eventually lost your rankings anyways because other sites will be coming in and taking advantage of absence.
Hope this helps!
-
If the drop coincides with May 22, you were probably hit by the Google roll out of "Penguin 2.0" Supposed to be much tougher on spammy links.
I am in a similar situation although for some keywords, I have just dropped a few slots. I am pretty new to this so I am sure you will get an answer from one of the very helpful experts here, but you might want to take a look at you link profile using OSE. It seems you have quite a few "cialis" links and that can't be good. Also see if you have gotten any warnings in GWMT. If you did, then it is what they call a "manual" action meaning a human at Google assessed a penalty. There is a process for reconsideration if this is the case. It could however just be the algorithm change.
Either way you should seriously look at getting rid of those links. I will be interested in the community responses here.
Best of luck, I know it is a bad feeling!
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
-
Unsolved Keyword Rank History chart has missing data for periods of time
Hello, When I look at the rank history for a particular keyword, there are missing gaps in the data. For example, the keyword was fluctuating around rank 10-20 from Jan 2022 to July 2022. Then suddenly the line on the graph disappears. It starts tracking again in Oct 2022 starting at rank 16. It almost appears as if Moz lost track of the keyword for some time. Other tracked keywords did not experience the same issue during this time. Then as a result, Moz reporting will say the tracked keyword moved up in ranking 40+. What is happening here? I'm unsure how to explain this activity to my clients.
Moz Pro | | celsiusmarketing0 -
Ranking issues with my local business website.
Hi, I have local business website "asapgaragedoorrepair.com" which im seeing weird ranking issues during last few months . i would like to share it with you guys and get help from you. first days i have indexed the website ,it was ranking good with google and then after 2-3 weeks i have noticed that none of the pages ranking anymore. i have looked for any issues in the optimization and i fixed them and indexed again. right now i have weird issues. 1- the website was ranking for another page in my website other that the one that i wanted for keyword" Garage Door Repair Pasadena " .(it was ranking with garage door installation page). i changed the content ,optimization on the other page and indexed. still the same issue. then i had no ways other that 301 to the right page . 2- when i check the rankings with "ahrefs" website or "Moz" or other tools that i have, it shows that im ranking for 16th position for " Garage door repair Pasadena ". but when i search it by myself im getting no results. (this is bothering) maybe i dont know something . pls help me 3- in Moz or ahref website shows the ranking like the image i have attached. 2 different results for each keywords. why is that? and why i can not see them when i search them by my self? htPQR
Moz Pro | | Mishel2980 -
What is the Best Local Ranking Tool?
I'm trying to track down a tool that will provide localized rankings within Google Maps/Places, Yahoo Local, Bing Local as well as major local directories such as Yelp, Yellow Pages, etc. Additionally, I'm looking for the results to provide the address being displayed in the ranking. Any suggestions?
Moz Pro | | JonClark150 -
SEO moz poor rankings reporting
How are we supposed to send ranking reports to clients if the rankings are constantly reporting false metrics This is not the first time this has happened, but the rankings are WAAAAAAY off. What is the point of reporting rankings that are not accurate? What is the possible cause of this. Is there a solution? What is SEOmoz doing to improve their ranking programs. Our client actually ranked #2 for "northern Virginia HVAC contractors" when moz had us not in the top 50! How are we supposed to bank on information that is so consistently unreliable? northernvirginiahvaccontractors.png northernvirginiahvaccontractorsrank.png
Moz Pro | | imageworks-2612900 -
Rank Tracking results
Hi, Some problem with rank tracking from research tools: I rank #1 for this keyword "w immo" for URL : http://www.wimmobiliere.com in my campaign monitor (ranking tab) In rank tracking for the same Search Engine (google.be) i am not in the 50. Do you know why? Some images that might help... Rank_1<a class="attachment-title">Rank 1</a>Rank_2<a class="attachment-title">Rank 2</a>
Moz Pro | | VOUS0 -
Pro Dashboard Rankings Report not accurate for the UK?
We rank in the top 5 consistently for our keywords on www.google.co.uk However, the ranking report (set to Google UK) shows that we don't appear in the top 50. When looking in more detail at the keyword in question, it shows the top ranking sites to be all US sites with .com domains that don't rank at all on google.co.uk. Can anyone shed some light on this or tell me if there is any way of getting accurate ranking reports via SEOmoz tools for UK sites, so I don't have to do it manually? Thanks in advance
Moz Pro | | heatherrobinson0 -
Why does SEOMoz Pro only do Rankings Once a Week?
Not sure I understand why the SEOMoz PRO report of rankings only occurs once a week? Any ideas? Seems like it would be easy to just pull that ranking report at any time.
Moz Pro | | findachristianjob0 -
How can I change (specifically, decrease) the reporting/crawling frequency of the keyword ranking?
It always seem to compare the standings based on the week before, which confuses the issue when I'm only reporting monthly or quarterly. Is there currently (or might there be in the future) a way to set this so that the comparison is based on a time period that I specify?
Moz Pro | | MackenzieFogelson0