Odd pattern after site got deindexed and reindexed again
-
I had a very interesting experience with one of my sites happening for the last 4 months.
The site is for a professional service in a highly competitive market (NYC). There was an algo penalty several years ago that was recovered through new content and lots of quality links (mostly, media).
We were #3-15 for the main money keywords before we changed the site into Genesis. We tested the site on a shadow server where we put the no-index attribute in robots.txt. However, when the site was migrated back to a live hosting, we accidentally forgot to remove it, so the site got de-indexed by mistake.
The error was detected nd corrected about 5 days later, however the site did not appear in search for the next few weeks. After that, the site jumped bounced back. BUT, it had #1-5 positions instead on all money keywords. This lasted for 5-7 days, when the site bounced back to #3-15 positions again.
We've been putting a lot of investment and effort since that but the site never got back to #1-5.
Any idea on why this can happen? We have better links than competitors. The professional is a nationally recognized media person. There might be some older toxic links that give a little bit of penalty?
Thanks in advance!
-
Hi Patrick,
Thanks for getting in. I beleive I see the SERP fluctuations on a daily basis, but that exact thing was surely off the loop. Possibly, Google took into consideration some penalizing factor that it hadn't measured in right after the site was re-indexed. That's why I thought of some toxic links that were re-assessed.
-
Hi Arkady
This sounds like just normal fluctuations in the SERPs. You can use Mozcast too to watch how volatile search results are.
A couple of things I would look into:
- Local SEO (Moz)
- How to Do a Content Audit (Moz)
- Guide for Link Removals & Risk Mitigation (Moz - you mentioned checking backlinks, just a good habit to get into)
If your rankings are all back to normal then that's great! I would just use the above as value add to the site and your ongoing maintenance and see if you can catch some easy wins. Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any question - good luck!
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
-
Site Speed Testing Tools For Production Sites
Hi Guys, Any free site speed testing tools for sites in production, which are password protected? We want to test site speed before the new site goes live on top priority pages. Site is on Shopify – we tried google page insights while being logged into the production site but believe its just recording the speed of the password page. Cheers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | brandonegroup1 -
Google cache is showing my UK homepage site instead of the US homepage and ranking the UK site in US
Hi There, When I check the cache of the US website (www.us.allsaints.com) Google returns the UK website. This is also reflected in the US Google Search Results when the UK site ranks for our brand name instead of the US site. The homepage has hreflang tags only on the homepage and the domains have been pointed correctly to the right territories via Google Webmaster Console.This has happened before in 26th July 2015 and was wondering if any had any idea why this is happening or if any one has experienced the same issueFDGjldR
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | adzhass0 -
Mobile Site Annotations
Our company has a complex mobile situation, and I'm trying to figure out the best way to implement bidirectional annotations and a mobile sitemap. Our mobile presence consists of three different "types" of mobile pages: Most of our mobile pages are mobile-specific "m." pages where the URL is completely controlled via dynamic parameter paths, rather than static mobile URLs (because of the mobile template we're using). For example: http://m.example.com/?original_path=/directory/subdirectory. We have created vanity 301 redirects for the majority of these pages, that look like http://m.example.com/product that simply redirect to the previous URL. Six one-off mobile pages that do have a static mobile URL, but are separate from the m. site above. These URLs look like http://www.example.com/product.mobile.html Two responsively designed pages with a single URL for both mobile and desktop. My questions are as follows: Mobile sitemap: Should I include all three types of mobile pages in my mobile sitemap? Should I include all the individual dynamic parameter m. URLs like http://m.example.com/?original_path=/directory/subdirectory in the sitemap, or is that against Google's recommendations? Bidirectional Annotations: We are unable to add the rel="canonical" tag to the m. URLs mentioned in section #1 above because we cannot add dynamic tags to the header of the mobile template. We can, however, add them to the .mobile.html pages. For the rel="alternate" tags on the desktop versions, though, is it correct to use the dynamic parameter URLs like http://m.example.com/?original_path=/directory/subdirectory as the mobile version target for the rel="alternate" tag? My initial thought is no, since they're dynamic parameter URLs. Is there even any benefit to doing this if we can't add the bidirectional rel="canonical" on those same m. dynamic URLs? I'd be immensely grateful for any advice! Thank you so much!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Critical_Mass0 -
Can a Hosting provider that also hosts adult content sites negatively affect our SEO rankings on a non-adult site hosted on same platform?
We're considering moving a site to a host that also offers hosting for adult websites. Can this have a negative affect on SEO, if our hosting company is in any way associated with adult websites?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | grapevinemktg0 -
Acquisition of a new site in the same field.
Hello, I work with SEO for a company that just bought another in the same field. What is better to do? Just a 301 domain? Make 301 per page for a related page (more than 10,000 URLs, i'am afraid that this may be interpreted as blackhat ) or make crossdomain canonical tag urls related to (I believe this is not good, because the pages are not fully equal). thank's
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | j0a0vargas0 -
Niche sites: how to optimize them?
Dear SEOmozzers, I am focusing on those keywords I find using the "Keyword Analysis" tool that are not too competitive (among 20%-30% competitiveness). I then buy domains that include those keywords. The sites are in Italian and targeting the Italian search engines, so the competition is lower than it would be in the US. Basically, I'd like to build niche sites and I'd like to ask a few questions that I hope somebody with a good experience in this field can answer: How do I optimize a niche site. Specifically, how do I go about link building? How many backlinks should I get to see some results? How long does it take for a typical niche site to start appearing in the search engines for a certain keyword, after launching an effective link building campaign? Please kindly provide any recommendations you believe to be important when building niche sites. For example, is there a company/professional you know that specializes in this field and who is trustworthy/reliable? Thank you very much for your help. All best, Sal
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | salvyy0 -
Has my site been penalized?
Our site was listed on the first page for the phrase Active SEO on Google.co.uk. We suddenly find ourselves on page 4 overnight and we're not sure what's going on. We have not undertaken an Black hat techniques however the site is fairly new. Anyone have any ideas as to what is going on?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MassivePrime0 -
Is blogging enough to keep my site fresh?
I know that one of the things Google looks for is fresh content. My main site is a wordpress site where I have optimized about 12 static pags and I also do blog posts. Assuming I continue to blog, do I need to give my pages a periodic "face lift" or is enough just to keep blogging and add a static page from time to time? Paul
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | diogenes0