Ranking drop Feb 2013?
-
I'm trying to get to the bottom of why Directholidays.co.uk suffered a drop in rankings for the term "cheap holidays" in February 2013.
Im looking at this recently and as an outsider so I haven't got access to Webmaster tools and I haven't been tracking rankings/link profiling.
They moved from 2nd to 10th temporarily and then recovered at 7th the new 10th!
I've looked at keywords improved/declined on, keywords lost/gained, traffic, traffic price but im failing to see exactly what I can use to show whether Panda #24 (officially 22nd of January) had a significant effect.
Can anyone shed any light on this? It would be massively appreciated!
-
No worries re: parrotting. If you look here in the Q&A and on things like Disqus, you'll find me repeating myself pretty often.
Travel sites like yours can be really difficult. There are so many of them, most have virtually the same content, and it seems that most are extremely committed to link spam (and are often still succeeding with it).
My gut instinct would be to try to come up with some really useful travel planning guides as a linkable asset like a PDF or maybe video. Some general guides for specific parts of the world (things like "How Not to Offend People in _____"), and maybe some for more specific locations. Then the tricky part is promoting that content in a non-spammy way so it will get shared, Liked, linked to, etc.
That's a lot of work, but if Google ever drops the hammer on the travel site niche which is competitive and pretty spammy, you will have a better chance of survival.
-
Thanks Nick,
I was trying to assess the "SEO landscape" at the time, but i'll hopefully cover that by discussing the progression towards a deeper, more naturally distributed valued content based SEO strategy.
I'm still keen to identify if there are any obvious factors besides general algorithm updates competitor growth that resulted in the observed ranking changes.
It would give me a better idea of how to plan an effective strategy on re-gaining the #2 ranking.
Thanks in advance and apologies for sounding like a parrot!
-
Not every ranking change is due to a named algorithm update.
I want everyone who uses the Q/A to have to repeat this 10 times before they are able to post a question. Well said
-
I am not sure how knowing whether or not one particular piece of Google's algorithm found a problem with the site is going to help, but since Panda is generally going after copied or thin/weak content, I think it is safe to say that a lack of unique and "quality" content is to blame. All those links using the anchor text "cheap holidays" are also a potential problem, though not specifically a panda thing.
If I understood correctly, the site dropped from #2 to #10 and back to 7. Still on page one, so count your blessings. With a relatively small drop like that, it is probably just the Google algorithm in general or external factors like lost or devalued incoming links, rather than a specific filter against the site. Not every ranking change is due to a named algorithm update.
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
-
Do you think profanity in the content can harm a site's rankings?
In my early 20's I authored an ebook that provides men with natural ways to improve their ahem... "bedroom performance". I'm now in my mid 30s, and while it's not such an enthralling topic, the thing makes me 80 or so bucks a day on good days, and it actually works. I update the blog from time to time and build links to it on occasion from good sources. I've carried my SEO knowledge to a more "reputable" business, but this project is still interesting to me, because it's fully mine. I am more interested in getting it to rank and convert than anything, but following the same techniques that are working to grow the other business, this one continues to tank. Disavow bad links, prune thin content.. no difference. However, one thing I just noticed now are my search queries in the reports. When I first started blogging on this, I was real loose with my tongue, and spoke quite frankly (and dirty to various degrees). I'm much more refined and professional in how I write now. However, the queries I'm ranking for... a lot of d words, c words (in the sex sense)... sounds almost pornographic. Think Google may be seeing this, and putting me lower in rankings or in some sort of lower level category because of it? Heard anything about google penalizing for profanity? I guess in this time of authority and trust, that can hurt both of those... but I wonder if anyone's heard any actual confirmation of this or has any experience with this? Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | DavidCapital0 -
How does this site rank no 1 for big terms with no optimisation?
Hi, A client recently asked me abut a site that appears to have popped up out of nowhere and is ranking for big terms within their industry: http://bit.ly/11jcpky I have looked at the site for a particular term: Cheap Beds I was using unpersonalised search on google.co.uk with location set to London. The site currently ranks no 1 for that term and other similar terms. The question is how? SEO Moz reports no backlinks (they must have blocked?) Ahrefs and Majestic report report some backlinks but not many and no anchor text with the term in. The Page title and meta do not contain the term nor does the page seem to contain the term anywhere. The domain does have some age though has no keyword match in the URL. I'm a little stumped to how they are achieving these results. Any Ideas Anyone?
Algorithm Updates | | JeusuDigital0 -
Sudden drop after 301 redirection
Hi Experts We did a 301 redirect from an old site to a new site to get rid of any bad link juice. We recently found a big drop in rankings and traffic after google last indexed the new web pages. We did 301 using asp at page level coding. The website had 4000 approx. pages and we did 301 section by section. This is how we did as per one of the blog post in seomoz. Create a sitemap for your old domain. Create content (contact information, description of your company, indication of future plans) and something link worthy for the new domain. (You should start trying to build links early) Setup the new domain and make it live. Register and verify your old domain and new domain with Google Webmaster Tools. Create a custom 404 page for old domain which suggests visiting new domain. Old Domain error checking and fixing In a development environment, test the redirects from the old domain to the new domain. Ideally, this will be a 1:1 redirect. (www.example-old-site.com/category/sexy-mustaches.html to www.example-new-site.com/category/sexy-mustaches.html) 301 redirect your old domain to your new domain. Submit your old sitemap to Google and Bing. The submission pages are within Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Webmaster Center (This step will make the engines crawl your old URLs, see that they are 301 redirects and change their index accordingly.) Fill out the Change of Address form in Google Webmaster Tools. Create a new sitemap and submit it to the engines. (This will tell them about any new URLs that were not present on the old domain) Wait until Google Webmaster Tools updates and fix any errors it is indicated in the Diagnostics section. Monitor search engine results to make sure new domain is being properly indexed. We also did a press release with prweb to announce the new launch. We followed the steps recommended in one of the I am not sure what to do next. Can anyone suggest if its normal to see a drop and we should wait for some time or if we did something wrong? We are loosing business with every single day. Please help !
Algorithm Updates | | ITRIX0 -
Is my page footer the reason keyword rankings have dropped?
Hi all, One of my sites http://henstuff.com/ has seen some ranking drops for major keywords over the past few weeks and I was wondering if it was something to do with Penguin not taking a positive view of link-filled footers. It is something we are looking at phasing out but wanted to get the opinions of the SEOMOZ community. Thanks! Rob
Algorithm Updates | | RobertHill0 -
Decline in traffic but no change in rankings
I'm comparing our best search traffic month in 2011 (March) with our current traffic (April)and have seen significant declines in traffic, despite no change in our rankings or even improved rankings for the same terms. Trying to sort out an explanation. We have been a white-hat SEO site since our inception over 10 years ago. Our SEO consultant doesn't think we've been affected by any algo changes, at least not to any significant degree. My only explanation for this possibly anomaly is: decrease in the use of the KW terms in search over time (how to determine?) generalized increase in PPC instead of organic search driving traffic possibility that Adv Web Rankings is no longer accurately collecting SERP rankings Does anyone have any other thoughts or considerations that might explain the decline in traffic, despite maintenance or improvement in rankings? Thanks.
Algorithm Updates | | ahw0 -
Google.ca English and French returning different rankings
French Keyword : "Chauffage électrique" Currently Ranking 4th on Google.ca (French) It is not even top 50 on Google.ca (English) Why so much gap between them? Both are on Google.ca, just different language. Also, when searching the keyword on Google.ca (English), all the results shown are in french anyway ! Why is mine way off ? How can I help the ranking on the EN version? Why does Google.ca FR and EN have different rankings?
Algorithm Updates | | Kezber0 -
Whats the best thing to do after rebuilding a site to get old rankings back ?
A website changed its platform from the old one to magento ecommerce. In webmaster tools google says that yesterday was the last time that crawled the site, but the old rankings for keywords are gone , traffic went down big time and now i'm not sure where to start working in order to bring everything like it was. any advice ?
Algorithm Updates | | footballearnings0 -
Rankings moving in every 2 days.
Hi, I am seeing strange behavior of Google for my rankings. I have a very competitive keyword (I can't disclose because of NDA) but for example keyword like "Cameras" on google.co.uk , it stayed on #4 spot for years, we have been practising all good SEO techniques for this. From last couple of weeks, it goes to 9 then stays there for 2 days, then come back to 4 for 2 days, then go back to 9 & then after 2 days come back to 4 & it is keep moving like that... at the time of this post, this one is on 9. Our site have been on top for very competitive kws even like word "Camera" we are 2 which is stable... None of our other kws ranks are changed but only word "Cameras" is affected. I am not sure how & why this is happening, I have been following SEOMoz from long time & hope can find solution here. Note : Keywords used here are not actual, but carry equal importance Please let me know.
Algorithm Updates | | spopli0