Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Ahrefs - What Causes a Drastic Loss in Referring Pages?
-
While I was doing research on UK Flower companies I noticed that one particular domain had great rankings (top 3), but has slid quite a bit down to page two. After investigating further I noticed that they had a drastic loss of referring pages, but an increase in total referring domains. See this screenshot from ahrefs.
I took a look at their historical rankings (got them from the original SEO provider's portfolio) and compared it to the Wayback Machine. There did not seem to be any drastic changes in the site structure. My question is what would cause such a dramatic loss in total referring pages while showing a dramatic increase in referring domains? It appears that the SEO company was trying rebound from the loss of links though.
Any thoughts on why this might happen?
-
The Google Disavow tool doesn't work like that. It won't actually remove links from any pages. It is basically just a signal to Google that you want those links to be nofollowed. Ahrefs would have no clue if something has been disavowed or not.
-
Hi,
One thing that comes to mind is using the Disavow tool. The UK Flower company might have used the Disavow tool to remove all the referring pages that they thought were spam.
-
First thing that comes to mind is maybe the site had a lot of site-wide links before. If it had 5,000 or 10,000 links coming from 1 single domain and that website went down, that would be a huge loss of referring pages in a short amount of time. Maybe they were in web directories and asked to be removed? While simultaneously attempting to build some high quality backlinks from more referring pages?
It's all speculation of course, but plausible.
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
-
On page vs Off page vs Technical SEO: Priority, easy to handle, easy to measure.
Hi community, I am just trying to figure out which can be priority in on page, off page and technical SEO. Which one you prefer to go first? Which one is easy to handle? Which one is easy to measure? Your opinions and suggestions please. Expecting more realistic answers rather than usual check list. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Log-in page ranking instead of homepage due to high traffic on login page! How to avoid?
Hi all, Our log-in page is ranking in SERP instead of homepage and some times both pages rank for the primary keyword we targeted. We have even dropped. I am looking for a solution for this. Three points here to consider is: Our log-in page is the most visited page and landing page on the website. Even there is the primary keyword in this page or not; same scenario continues Log-in page is the first link bots touch when they crawling any page of our website as log-in page is linked on top navigation menu If we move login page to sub-domain, will it works? I am worrying that we loose so much traffic to our website which will be taken away from log-in page sub domain Please guide with your valuable suggestions. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
More pages or less pages for best SEO practices?
Hi all, I would like to know the community's opinion on this. A website with more pages or less pages will rank better? Websites with more pages have an advantage of more landing pages for targeted keywords. Less pages will have advantage of holding up page rank with limited pages which might impact in better ranking of pages. I know this is highly dependent. I mean to get answers for an ideal website. Thanks,
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz1 -
US domain pages showing up in Google UK SERP
Hi, Our website which was predominantly for UK market was setup with a .com extension and only two years ago other domains were added - US (.us) , IE (.ie), EU (.eu) & AU (.com.au) Last year in July, we noticed that few .us domain urls were showing up in UK SERPs and we realized the sitemap for .us site was incorrectly referring to UK (.com) so we corrected that and the .us domain urls stopped appearing in the SERP. Not sure if this actually fixed the issue or was such coincidental. However in last couple of weeks more than 3 .us domain urls are showing for each brand search made on Google UK and sometimes it replaces the .com results all together. I have double checked the PA for US pages, they are far below the UK ones. Has anyone noticed similar behaviour &/or could anyone please help me troubleshoot this issue? Thanks in advance, R
Algorithm Updates | | RaksG0 -
Ecommerce good/bad? Showing product description on sub/category page?
Hi Mozers, I have a ecommerce furniture website, and I have been wondering for some time if showing the product descriptions on the sub/category page helps the website. If there is more content displayed on the subcategory, it should be more relevant, right? OR does it not matter, as it is duplicate content from the product page. I think showing the product descriptions on non-product pages is hurting my design/flow, but i worry that if I am to hide product content on sub/category pages my traffic will be hurt. Despite my searches I have not found an answer yet. Please take a look at my site and share your thoughts: http://www.ecustomfinishes.com/ Chris 27eVz
Algorithm Updates | | longdenc_gmail.com0 -
Why has my homepage been replaced in Google by my Facebook page?
Hi. I was wondering if others have had this happen to them. Lately, I've noticed that on a couple of my sites the homepage no longer appears in the Google SERP. Instead, a Facebook page I've created appears in the position the homepage used to get. My subpages still get listed in Google--just not the homepage. Obviously, I'd prefer that both the homepage and Facebook page appear. Any thoughts on what's going on? Thanks for your help!
Algorithm Updates | | TuxedoCat0 -
Does google index non-public pages ie. members logged in page
hi, I was trying to locate resources on the topics regarding how much the google bot indexes in order to qualify a 'good' site on their engine. For example, our site has many pages that are associated with logged in users and not available to the public until they acquire a login username and password. Although those pages show up in google analytics, they should not be made public in the google index which is what happens. In light of Google trying to qualify a site according to how 'engaged' a user is on the site, I would feel that the activities on those member pages are very important. Can anyone offer suggestions on how Google treats those pages since we are planning to do further SEO optimization of those pages. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | jumpdates0 -
Home page replaced by subpage in google SERP (good or bad)
SInce Panda, We have seen our home page drop from #2 in google.ie serp to page 3 but it has been replaced in the same position @#2 by our relevent sub page for the keyword that we ranked#2 for. Is this a good or bad thing from and seo point of view and is it better to have deep pages show in serp rather than the homepage of a site and what is the best line of action from here in relation to seo. Is it best to work on subpage or home page for that keyword and should link building for that phrase be directed towards the subpage or the homepage as the subpage is obviously more relevent in googles eyes for the search term. It is clear that all areas of the site should be looked at in relation to link building and deep links etc but now that google is obviously looking at relevancy very closely should all campaigns be sectioned into relevent content managed sections and the site likewise and treated on an individual basis. Any help that you may have would be very welcome. Paul
Algorithm Updates | | mcintyr0