Lost 24 places with one keyword

[CFCU]

Hi All,

Hope I could get some help. Moz has just finished crawling 1 of our 4 business sites and one of our keywords has dropped 24 places (21st to 45th).

Is this the new algorithm at play? (our site is responsive)

Cheers

[Andy.Drinkwater]

First of all David, I would wait until the next refresh before making any decision on what could / couldn't have caused this. The MOZ tracker might have just caught the SERP in the middle of a bit of a Google dance, so it may return to where it was originally.

If not, then we can look at other alternatives - it certainly doesn't sound like changing the page title as you suggest, could do this.

Cheers,

Andy

[CFCU]

Hi Andy,

Im using the keyword rankings tool in Moz.  I first saw the drop today after the crawl compared to last week. I have made a change yesterday as the Page title wasnt correct (it was some random content) and the meta descirption was the same content as the page title - neither which included the keyword that im targeting.

Hope this is the right direction ?

Cheers

[CFCU]

Great - Thanks as always mate

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Hi David,

Very difficult to say with any degree of certainty. There is so many reason why this could be but if you are seeing the drop in rankings on a desktop machine rather than mobile, it won't be the mobile algorithm.

When did you first see the drop? What are you using to do your tracking? Have you made any changes to the site recently or undertaken any off-site work such as link building?

Cheers,

Andy

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi David

I would line up the drop with the algorithm history; from there you can assess the following:

• Do I need to do a content audit?

• Do I need to do a backlink audit?

• Are my issues mobile related?

• Just because a site is responsive doesn't mean there arent other issues

• Do I need to look into my local SEO?

If it was a recent drop (within the last week) I would say it's probably based on mobile, but you would have to check your mobile traffic in your Google Analytics.

I would specifically look into that page and check your Google Webmaster Tools to see if any other issues have been happening or seen. Make sure your on-site SEO is on point, content is well kept and optimized, look into your backlinks (and your competitor's who may now be ranking - this is to be used as a guide - not a copycat), and you should find out pretty quick where the issue is.

Hope this helps! Good luck!