Steady, but continous Google traffic drop. Help?
-
I am facing a steady, but deteriorating Google traffic drop and i am struggling to find the real reasons. The site is in the video entertainment niche.
Here is some data regarding the site in general:
-
Site redesign happened around June
-
We are not doing a lot of off-site and link building in 2013, besides social activities and content distribution to partner sites (top links from OSE are gained long time ago)
-
GWT crawls errors are clean (besides 404s)
-
No manual actions from Google or penalty notifications
-
Serious fluctuations in indexed content in June, but no real effect on traffic
-
Removal of old content during August
-
Top keywords are dropping (may be caused by category pages removal and flattening site structure)
-
Robots file disallows only search-generated pages
-
No sitemap errors or warnings
-
2K of duplicate meta-titles and descs
Thank you and appreciate your help.
-
-
Well as for the 404s, I would run the site through Screaming Frog and see what I get. If you find 404s there, then redirects and edits will be needed to fix them. Otherwise forget about the GWT report.
I think the most important thing for you to do (besides an overall marketing campaign) is fix those duplicate page titles and descriptions. This is a huge factor, undoubtedly.
A PPC campaign (executed properly) can always help, but you shouldn't lean on it as your fix to your marketing campaign. It is only another spoke in the wheel of your overall efforts.
Hope this helps.
-
Hi Jesse, Thanks for your reply. I'll try to clear up some statements:
-
- GWT crawls errors are clean (besides 404s) ** - That's not clean. Fix those 404s.**
How would you handle 404 errors in GWT? - They shouldn't have any negative SEO effects according to Google.
- GWT crawls errors are clean (besides 404s) ** - That's not clean. Fix those 404s.**
-
- Removal of old content during August ** - ???**
-
We deleted the online games as part of the site (10% of all content).
-
Serious fluctuations in indexed content in June, but no real effect on traffic - Wondering what your anchor text profile looks like... - Anchor text profile looks safe, since top 5 are branded keywords and the rest are targeted keywords. Brand name tops the chart with 9%, and no significant gap between the rest.Another question, would a PPC campaign help in this moment?
-
-
Great responses Jesse - couldn't have said any of it better myself!
-
-
Site redesign happened around June - Don't matter
-
We are not doing a lot of off-site and link building in 2013, besides social activities and content distribution to partner sites (top links from OSE are gained long time ago) ** - This is your problem.**
-
GWT crawls errors are clean (besides 404s) ** - That's not clean. Fix those 404s.**
-
No manual actions from Google or penalty notifications ** - Good. But doesn't always mean the algo isn't hurting you.**
-
Serious fluctuations in indexed content in June, but no real effect on traffic ** - Wondering what your anchor text profile looks like...**
-
Removal of old content during August ** - ???**
-
Top keywords are dropping (may be caused by category pages removal and flattening site structure) ** - or lack of SEM campaign in general.**
-
Robots file disallows only search-generated pages ** - Don't matter**
-
No sitemap errors or warnings ** - K**
-
2K of duplicate meta-titles and descs ** - ?! FIX THIS FIRST!! **
I would ask you: What are you doing to promote your site, market your business, and increase traffic?
-
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
-
Why google does not remove my page?
Hi everyone, last week i add "Noindex" tag into my page, but that site still appear in the organic search. what other things i can do for remove from google?
Technical SEO | | Jorge_HDI0 -
Google Disavow Tool
Some background: My rankings have been wildly fluctuating for the past few months for no apparent reason. When I inquired about this, many people said that even though I haven't received any penalty notice, I was probably affected by penguin. (http://moz.com/community/q/ranking-fluctuations) I recently did a link detox by LinkRemovalTools and it gave me a list of all my links, 2% were toxic and 51% were suspiscious. Should I simply disavow the 2%? There are many sites where is no contact info.
Technical SEO | | EcomLkwd0 -
Google Penalty Investigation
Hi All, I've recently had a google penalty, and have spent a long while working through tying up any loose ends with my site (I'm building a new one, so you'll still see some probs on my current one). My search referrals do slowly seem to be recovering, but only for variations of terms that are similar to 'bike repair'. Now, my site does primarily offer bike repair advice, so that's a good thing, but I'm not yet ranking for any of my specific keywords. One example is that I used to rank quite high for the term 'schrader valve'. Is this a signal of anything in particular? Or can I not read anything specific into this? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | madegood0 -
Sudden drop in ranking google.co.uk ranking
Anyone else had any sudden drops in rankings this week? Is there an update going on? One of my primary keywords has dropped from 6th to 49th in the google.co.uk search results. Not in webmaster tools to flag an issue. I have downloaded the links from webmaster and it does look if some content has been scraped and then linked back to us from a large number of sites that we have never sort links from. I have upload the google disavow link tool. Only one keyword appears to be effected not all of them? Any ideas? Thanks
Technical SEO | | highwayfive0 -
Does Google index has expiration?
Hi, I have this in mind and I think you can help me. Suppose that I have a pagin something like this: www.mysite.com/politics where I have a list of the current month news. Great, everytime the bot check this url, index the links that are there. What happens next month, all that link are not visible anymore by the user unless he search in a search box or google. Does google keep those links? The current month google check that those links are there, but next month are not, but they are alive. So, my question is, Does google keep this links for ever if they are alive but nowhere in the site (the bot not find them anymore but they work)? Thanks
Technical SEO | | informatica8100 -
Help optimising this site
Hi I have been optimising this site http://seakayakdevon.co.uk/ which is a wordpress site since making changes to it recently the site is now indexed and appearing among its competitors. trouble is they still are placed higher rn the SE rankings. i wish to optimise for local search i.e on Google places etc. but the trouble is there is'nt a physical address for the business it is run from various coastal locations. any ideas how i can still market for local search- maps etc. I have done the following optimisation: sitemaps title tag, description tag improved content removed duplicate content an blocker pages replace image text and replaced with header tag improved page names - making them static any advice of guidance would be greatly appreciated- will the fatc its built in wordpress limit its ability to gain better ranking in the SE? Thanks
Technical SEO | | Bristolweb0 -
Why Google not picking My META Description? Google itself populate the description.. How to control this Search Snippets??
Why Google not picking My META Description? Google itself populate the description.. How to control this Search Snippets??
Technical SEO | | greyniumseo0 -
Frustration With Google Places
I have been trying to solve this problem with Google Places for quite some time now and just can't figure out where to go from here. I've tried several sent messages explaining the problem and even received several phone calls from Google Places trying to correct the issue with no luck. I have even tried totally deleting the listing and started over from scratch and re-verified the address with a mailed postcard. My site: http://www.captainrichsmith.com has a Google Places account set up and verified http://maps.google.com/maps/place?hl=en&georestrict=input_srcid:1c8fa43cf77e0c93&ie=UTF8&t=h&z=14&vpsrc=0 For some reason when you do a Google search for one of my keywords Miami Fishing Charters On the listings normally under the letter "E" on the Map another website has a placemark at my location Miami Fishing Charters Directory
Technical SEO | | captainrichsmith
www.fishing-charters-miami.com/ - Cached Fishing Charters Miami is a quality directory of the best fishing boats in the Miami area. The top Miami fishing charters are listed on this website.
2550 South Bayshore Drive, Miami
(786) 263-9231
captainrichsmith.com (7) When you view this Google places listing further. I see it is using my images, videos, placemark on map but NOT the address, phone number, or reviews. Any help on this issue would greatly be appreciated0