Why did my rankings drop so fast?
-
Hi Mozzers,
One of my clients have suffered from a sudden ranking loss that started beginning of August.
A little background: My client is a big cleaning company that has many franchises nationwide and had very good rankings for the past few months. Generally the busiest time of the year is summer and the 4th quarter is the slowest. Organic Traffic generally drops by 5 to 10% between Q3 and Q4 of each year.
2 things have caught my attention while investigating these ranking losses
- The latest recent Update from the moz index evaluated the website's DA of 48 when in the summer we had a DA of 56. Never seen such a drop before!! My first question is how accurate is the moz index? How can I make sure this data is accurate? I am very surprised because we have been working hard on getting good quality links for the past year and a half. If the DA is accurate then that could explain the ranking loss
- Google updating its search engine to the Hummingbird version. Do you guys think this has anything to do with the drop in rankings? The content on the website is not the best but is fairly decent. I am still not sure how the ranking drop could be related to Hummingbird?
I have also checked webmaster tools to see if I got hit somehow by penguin and it seems fine.
Thanks mozzers
-
Hey There
Just to add to Remus's answer (which was very thorough, thanks for that) - to explain a little bit more about Moz's DA. Each time Moz updates there linkscape index (which open site explorer is based on) there index may change slightly.
So you may still have links from sites out there on there net, but every once and a while month Moz will have them in their index and the next month their index might get a little smaller and they may not show, and thus you didn't really lose authority, it just appears that way.
So I'd track something like DA with a long term approach (like 6-12 months) and watch for it to go up year over year - especially if your in a space that's not going to pile on links as quickly as like retail etc.
Hummingbird was the end of August, and didn't throw off people's rankings so much, so this is very unlikely to have anything to do with the ranking change.
I don't see any other major alo changes at that time. (you can check here: http://moz.com/google-algorithm-change) - but it would be worth doing what Remus suggests and digging a little deeper into your analytics, backlinks profile etc and see if you can pinpoint anything more specific. One good approach is to try and pinpoint if it's sitewide or just specific keywords/pages.
-Dan
-
Hi Taysir,
Domain Authority is Moz's calculated metric for how well a given webpage is likely to rank in Google's search results. It uses a machine learning model to predictively find an algorithm that best correlates with rankings across the thousands of search results that we predict against.
In terms of accuracy (the level of correlation with Pagerank and other signals from Google) it's pretty good. A lot of professional SEM's are using it to get a general idea of how competitive a given site is in Google.com. But, in your case, a difference of 7 points does not say anything. If we compare two different websites which have a 7 point difference we can't say that one is ranking better than the other. One of them could focus on very specific terms and rank better there (even with a lower DA) than the other with more general approach for users.
There are a few other things that cause fluctuations in DA, which are not in your control:
-
Moz says: "We constantly update the algorithm used to calculate Page Authority, so you may see your score fluctuate from time to time."
-
Some of the websites you got links from might loose some of their powerful links - and even if you constantly add more, if the loss is bigger than what you gain - you will see a drop in DA
And a few more things:
-
Don't rely on DA to "explain the ranking loss". It was not meant for this. Instead try to match the Mozcast Google Algorithm Change History with the drop in your rankings.
-
Webmaster Tools does not tell you if you were hit by Penguin, Panda, or Hummingbird. It tells you if you have a manual penalty which is a totally different thing. If you see a drop in impressions in GWT you could be hit by any of the above. Try to do the timing check mentioned above.
-
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
-
Which is the better keyword strategy? Specifying page or seeing what ranks?
I recently began using another third-party tool that requires a list of keywords and the URLs I want those keywords to rank on (for example, "vegetarian recipes" on www.123.com/vegetarian-recipes). Is this a better strategy than using the Moz ranking tool to see which pages on my domain my target keywords are already ranking for? I can see how the former might mean we miss opportunities but the latter doesn't necessarily show how my priority pages are doing for specific keywords.
Moz Pro | | RikkiAyers1 -
Big drop in Domain Authority on 17 Nov 2015
Hello, My domain authority dropped on 17 Nov 2015 Domain name is: http://www.proprofs.com/ drop from 74 to 68 Also on another domain : http://www.marriage.com/. Drop from 38 to 34. Very much surprised by this big drop? Would appreciate everyone's feedback? Thanks
Moz Pro | | SameerBhatia0 -
Moz shows an F grade and 0 keywords on a previously high ranking page - Please help
Hi all, Moz is showing an F grade and 0 keywords across all URL, Title, Meta, H1, Meta and IMG ALT. My page has also dropped from 1st page rankings for numerous pages to 2nd and 3rd page. The page I am talking about is: http://year13.com.au/10-highest-paying-jobs-you-can-get-without-a-degree/ The keywords/phrases we were previously ranking very well for are: High paying jobs in Australia High paying jobs Highest paying jobs you can get with no degree Etc Etc I have also seen reduction in rankings on other keywords/ pages as well. Does anyone know why this might have happened? And what might be happening? Thanks in advance!
Moz Pro | | Stubs0 -
Rankings Report - figures clarifiction
I've noticed a possible discrepancy with my data and the figures in the Ranking Report >> Rankings which leads to this question: In top 3 : 10 On first page: 19 Is this meant to mean 10 of the 19 are in the top 3, or after the 10 top 3 there are 19 more keywords on first page?
Moz Pro | | MickEdwards0 -
Search Volume in Keyword Rankings Page
Is there a way to show search volumes for keywords in the Keyword Rankings tab page? A lot of times keywords we are ranking for are added to our campaign, and it would be very useful to see the search volumes within that grid. That way we could sort by the search volume and determine which keywords are worth targeting and optimizing for. I've had this ability with other software in the past and would be a great option for either Moz Pro version or the new Beta that is coming out. Which I'm still waiting for my invite BTW:)
Moz Pro | | agencypromogroup0 -
Rankings Report not working
Hi (What happened to the User Voice feedback in PRO campaign reports? Another cutback because of scalability?) I'm getting sent here for Help on the reports It's Friday morning here in France ; I'm preparing a meeting with a client and as part of this I want their Rankings Report from the campaing I set up for them month's ago Half the keywords are showing up as "SAT" ; the message at the top says "Your keywords are updated weekly on Saturday. The last update was January 26th, 2013" They're not new keywords, if I click on them I get historic data up untill January 19th I'm guessing you had a problem on January 26th but why not put January 19th rankings rather than SAT ? The report is now useless. Here's the url if useful http://pro.seomoz.org/campaigns/54444/rankings Neil
Moz Pro | | NeilInFrance0 -
I need country specific ranking reports for our Google/Yahoo/Bing positions
Hi Guys, Using the ranking reports given here at SeoMoz I cannot select various countries as it seems to only provide US Google/Yahoo/Bing results. I need ranking reports specifically for Thailand, UK, States, Australia, India, Hong Kong. Does anyone know of any such tools? Many thanks in advance.
Moz Pro | | ewanTHH0 -
SEOmoz v's Google Webmaster Keyword Ranking
Hi, how accurate is SEOmoz keyword ranking v's Google Webmaster? Some Keywords in SEOmoz say I'm in position 3 in Ireland for some Keywords and in Google Webmaster they are figures like 16. I understand in Google Webmaster that the keyword position is an Average What should I be going by and what is the credibility of both ranking estimators?
Moz Pro | | Socialdude0