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.
HOW!??! Homepage Ranking Dropped Completely out of Top 100 on Google....
-
So I'm competing for a very competitive keyword, and I've been on the bottom of page 2 for a while now, ranking for my homepage, which is very content rich and has GREAT links pointing to it.
Out of nowhere, last week I dropped completely out of the top 100 or so, yet one of my article posts now ranks on page 6 or so for the same keyword.
I have great authoritative links, my on-page is spot on, all of my articles are super super high quality, I don't understand how my homepage, which has ranked for the main keyword for months on page 2, can just completely drop out of the top 100 or so....
Can anyone help provide some insight?
-
This is normal. First you need to evaluate this guide: http://www.elite-strategies.com/flavors-types-google-penalties/ and see what kind of penalty you have. Then you need to get all data from Analytics, Search Console both Links and Analytics there.
And here is huge analysis...
- You need to check timeframe of your sudden drop. Are there some turbulence in SERP? New algo released? Anything weird in your own castle (server, CMS, hosting provider, etc)? If there is something - fix it. Also read about algos/turbulences in industry news sites.
- Check for messages in SearchConsole about "Manual Actions" and fix them if it's any.
- Check for sudden change of your links and create linking profile. If there are new and weird links from spammy sources - disavow them ASAP. If there is overoptimization for keywords - change anchor or disavow. This can be something Penguin algo related.
- Check for sudden change of your site - thin content, aggregated content, duplicate, irrevelant, etc. Check also user signals - low CTR, high bounce rate, low time on site and low % of returning users. Also check bad UI - design, navigation, mobile redirects, site speed, ads. Check for low trustworthiness - in Google Raters Handbook that was recently released. This can be - providing contact information, ToS, PP, etc. And last - overoptimization. This can be something to Panda algo related.
- Check for other algorithms - like TopHeavy aka Page Layout Algorithms that may affect your site.
So after you know what can be your drop related then check and recheck. Isn't first nor last time when you can think about Panda but in reality was Penguin or vice versa. This can save you few months. After you're 100% sure what was then try to make changes to escape from algo penalty.
Same happens to me almost year and half. We're running brand new site and faced sandbox algo. But we make few links more than we should and from low quality sites. So site was shown in SERP for month in first or second page and then suddenly drop to 10 page. Our organic traffic was fell to 1/10 of before almost overnight. But we make new traffic sources - social media and referral traffic so we could live without organic. We change links, make diversify linking profile changing links, anchors or even both. We also delete some links. But nothing happen in SERP position. Then i use disavow tool and 2 weeks ago there was algo refresh (Penguin). Almost overnight search traffic jump more than 10x and recovering previous positions and getting new and ever better positions. Today - this site make traffic as 10x than after recovering.
The problem is that you need to make changes in site against penalty. And wait for algo refresh. You also need huge patience because some drop can happen anytime, but for recovering you need algo refreshes. And refreshes take months or even years.
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
-
High Rank and Traffic of low DA and Backlinks
Hi guys, is a pleasure being a part of this community, hope in learning a lot with you guys, i just started a year learning about SEO and it been a big journey. I was looking at some competition of some websites that i been optmizing, and i found a website that called my attention and i cant figure out whats going on, it haves huge traffic but in terms of technicall SEO is really week, and not just this but also in terms of DA and backlinks (most of them spammy - 20 backlinks), the domain in question is bhnews.com.br I notice that doesnt have any social media, not analytics, etc. The only thing that i notice is that there is a website or a company called "BH news" (televesion), but its not related with it, since the type of information that bhnews.com.br presents is "lottery" results. So this kind of situation confuses me a lot, because is a lot of hard work in optmizing a website to rank in google, and than i come a across with this type of website with 20 backlinks (most of anchor or name of domain), and than haves like 2M visits per month and ranks for keywords related with the this type of sites of lottery. Can someone tell me if there is some kind of black seo, or something that is making this rank so high? regards
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jogobicho0 -
How to fix site breadcrumbs on mobile google search
For past one month, I have been doing some research on how to fix this issue on my website but all my efforts didn't work out I really need help on this issue because I'm worried about this I was hoping that Google will cache or understand the structure of my site and correct the error the breadcrumb is working correctly on desktop but not shown on mobile. For Example take a look at : https://www.xclusivepop.com/omah-lay-bad-influence/
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Ericrodrigo0 -
Keyword Appears In Top Level Domain
If i add a keyword in my domain so it will help me or not in search ranking.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | MuhammadQasimAttari0 -
Does Google want contact numbers in the meta description?!
Reading up it seems like there's complete free reign to enter what you want in the meta description and they are not considered a direct ranking signal However I have added contact numbers to the meta descriptions for around 20 reasonably high ranking pages for my company and it seems to have had a negative effect (taken screen grabs and previous rankings) More strangely when you 'inspect' the page the meta description features the desired number yet when you find the page in the serps the meta description just does not feature the number (page has been cached and the description does not carry on) I'm wondering whether such direct changes are seen as spam and therefore negative to the page?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Jacksons_Fencing1 -
Black hat : raising CTR to have better rank in Google
We all know that Google uses click-through-rate (CTR) as one of it is ranking factor. I came up with an idea in my mind. I would like to see if someone saw this idea before or tried it. If you search in Google for the term "SEO" for example. You will see the moz.com website in rank 3. And if you checked the source code you will see that result 3 is linking to this url: https://www.google.com.sa/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CDMQFjAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fmoz.com%2Fbeginners-guide-to-seo&ei=F-pPVaDZBoSp7Abo_IDYAg&usg=AFQjCNEwiTCgNNNWInUJNibqiJCnlqcYtw That url will redirect you to seomoz.com Ok, what if we use linkbucks.com or any other cheap targeted traffic network and have a campaign that sends traffic to the url that I show you. Will that count as traffic from Google so it will increase the CTR from Google?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Mohtaref11 -
Thumbtack Blatantly Violating Google TOS?
Hi, We have a business registered on Thumbtack so we receive their newsletters. I'm aware that review sites offering a "badge" or verification logo which links back to your profile is nothing new. But the email I received from Thumbtack is a fairly blatant attempt to game Google for popular keywords. I was just curious on your thoughts about this. I believe it was Overstock who did something like this and got slapped by Google pretty hard for a while. Could Thumbtack be heading down the same path? Image: http://i.imgur.com/FWPnmEP.jpg
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | kirmeliux0 -
Google places VS position one ranking above the places.
Hi Guys, Will creating a new Google places listing for a business have any effect their current position one spot for their major geo location keyword? I.e restaurants perth - say they are ranking no 1 above all the places listings if they set up a places listing would they lose that position and merge with all the other places accounts? Or would they have that listing as well as the places listing? I have been advised it could be detrimental to set up the places account if this is the case does anyone know any ways around this issue as the business really needs a places page for google maps etc. Appreciate some guidance Thanks. BC
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Bodie0 -
Will Google Penalize Content put in a Div with a Scrollbar?
I noticed Moosejaw was adding quite a bit of content to the bottom of category pages via a div tag that makes use of a scroll bar. Could a site be penalized by Google for this technique? Example: http://www.moosejaw.com/moosejaw/shop/search_Patagonia-Clothing____
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BrandLabs0