Google is alternating what link it likes to rank on wordpress site and
-
Hi there,
I'm experiencing a problem where google is pick and choosing different links structures to rank my Wordpress site for my main keywords. The site had pretty good #1 rankings for a long time but recently I noticed Google is choosing to rank the page in one of two ways. Let me just say that the original way where it held good rankings looked like this for example: flowers.com/the-most-beautiful-wedding-bouquets/ this is just an example it' is not my site.
And when google decides to switch it up it uses this link structure:flowers.com > weddings (this still points to this link flowers.com/the-most-beautiful-wedding-bouquets when I hover my mouse over it) however this link structure that never appeared before and now does, usually has much lower rankings. Please note it's not both link structures being ranked at the same time for the keywords. It's one or the other that google is currently alternating in ranking and I believe it's hurting the sites position.
I'm not sure if this is a wordpress settings thats gone wrong or what the problem is but I do know when shows the expanded and descriptive link structure flowers.com/the-most-beautiful-wedding-bouquets the rankings are higher and in 2nd place. I'm hoping by rectifying this I can regain back my position.I'm very grateful for any insight you could offer on why this is happening and how I could fix it. Thank you.
PS Wordpress site has several SEO plugins
-
Hi Christy, it's not resolved yet, I'm still seeking help. My rankings are going lower because of this daily and I don't know what to do.
-
Hi Tom,
I just noticed your reply here, somehow I didn't get the email update. That would be great if you can find something. I checked my PM box and it's empty as of now.
Thanks
-
Hi Danny,
Thanks for your reply. I checked the SEO plugins Yoast and Seopressor both which are active and they are not set to have anything to do with sitemaps as far as I can tell.
Sitemaps
Google XML sitemaps plugin is handling the sitemaps. I do have two sitemaps submitted for the site however, one in the form sitemap.xml and the other sitemap.xml.gz both of which are identical just in different format. Could the two sitemaps be the cause of this problem? The other competitors are not having this issue, only my site is being affected.
Whenever google shows my site with the shortened form the site shows with substantial loss in rankings, however when it's in the normal descriptive longer form (not that long at all and doesn't require breadcrumbs or anything like that) it ranks well, which is great but it doesn't last long.
Permalinks
The permalinks are set to the correct setting as suchhttp://example.com/sample-post/
CachingCan you elaborate on this and what I should look for?
URL Length
The length is not long and my competitors have the same length or longer without the problem I'm having. This is an example length and it's no longer than this. http://example123.com/test-that-this-the-the-example/
Appreciate your insights and feedback. please let me know
-
Hey Z,
i got your PM just wanted to update you I will run an audit on that for you tonight. Sorry for the delay I've been out of town seeing my family was on a vacation. Please look for my response in the private message tonight around 8 PM Eastern in addition I will update the board here and tell you that there is a letter for you and your private mailbox.
All the best,
tom
-
Hi there, thanks for your question! Were you able to sort this issue out? We'd love an update, thanks!
Christy
-
Hey Z, it looks like SEO plugs ins are conflicting each other, creating several sitemaps for Google and Google doesn't know which links has higher authority, main one or redirect, it could be permalinks as well or cashing.
If url is the same, then most likely is too long and Google is trying to shorter it down with some type of their beta testing.They usually do run tests all the time.
I don't advice several SEO plugins, if not being used.
-
Hi Tom, I sent you a PM with the url and info, please let me know what you think.
-
Oh I see, sorry about the confusion, I made the URL up and I guess it happens to work at the same time. I will PM you now.
-
try http://flowers.com/the-most-beautiful-wedding-bouquets
I thought you gave a real domain please use example.com so I will know.
without the domain I think it is wordpres adding the / can you PM me the domain?
Thanks,
Tom
-
Hi Tom, thank you for your reply, however please note as I stated the flowers.com reference was just an example, it's not my site. I think that would probably change your advice?
-
Hi
So you know wordpress adds the forward "/" to urls that are categories for have been set up using regex /?$
Or you have it set up the right way
Source: ^/flowers.com/the-most-beautiful-wedding-bouquets/?$
1. Redirect A Page
To redirect one page to another page, just fill in the fields like so:
Name: Redirect my contact page Domain: www.flowers.com Source: ^/flowers.com/the-most-beautiful-wedding-bouquets/?$ Destination: /new-path/contact-us/ with or with out "/" Redirect type: 301 Permanent
NOTE
-
This Redirect Rule will match a URL of http://www.domain.com/old-path/contact-us -or-http://www.domain.com/old-path/contact-us/
-
The variation is because of the Regex Syntax “/?$”
-
The Question Mark “?” makes the Trailing slash Optional
-
It will also only match the Source if it Starts with a “/” (note the carrot “^” ), or ends with either “s” or “/” (note the ending “$” )
-
See
-
check your canonical's
-
use Yoast SEO it will add canonical's for you then the you will not have the tracking added like I see on all pages ?cm_sp=flowers--globalnav--birthday-topcat-D10147
-
| rel="canonical" href="http://www.flowers.com/birthdayflowers" /> |
| | -
Correct this code https://github.com/bunchoup/alert_site/blob/master/tmp/menu_FD4.xml
-
Use Deepcrawl or Screaming Frog to find & fix
I hope this helps,
Tom
-
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
-
How do you handle a site with inherited negative links, but no penalty?
I'm trying to rank a new client for various key phrases that contain "it support." The problem is that about 100 of their 180 total referring domains have links that include "it support" (usually as partial match, or if exact then for uninteresting terms with low traffic), mostly on quite low quality directories. So, no penalty, and not much exact match I'm worried about, but I'm concerned that there's too high a percentage overall of partial match or simpy "it support"-based links for me to continue building keyword-optimized links to try and rank for the much harder terms we need to rank for... Despite the large number of low quality directories, a disavowal does not seem like a good idea since there is no penalty, but how does one avoid being handicapped by such bad links that came before one's time?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | zakkyg0 -
Linking to one of my own sites, from my site
Hi experts, I own a site for castingjobs (Site1) and a site for selling paintings (Site2). In a long time, I've had a link at the bottom of Site1, linking to Site 2. (Basicaly: Partnerlink: Link site 2). Site1 is for me the the only important site, since it's where Im making my monthly revenue. I added the link like 5 years ago or so, to try to boost site 2. My question is:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KasperGJ
1. Is it somehow bad for SEO for site 1, since the two sites have nothing to do with each other, they are basically just owned by me.
2. Would it make sense to link from Site 2 to Site 1 indstead?0 -
Google Flux in Rankings Or Something More Serious
Hi all, Two weeks ago i noticed that one of our pages which normally ranks in the top 5 of search results dropped out of the top 50 results. I checked to make sure there were no Google penalties and checked to make sure the page was crawlable. Everything seemed fine and after a few hours our page went back into the number one position. I assumed it was a Google Flux. This number one ranking lasted about a week, today I see my page has dropped out of the top 50 yet again and hasn't come back up. again there are no penalties and there doesn't seem to be issues with the page. I'm hoping it comes back up to the top by tomorrow. What could be causing such a big dip multiple times?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | znotes0 -
Redirect wordpress.com and internal link ?
Hi Moz Fans, First of all, I need to say thanks to all of answer to previous post. And today i also have the another question that similar to that post. Because our website using Wordpress.org as our CMS for blog post then easier to redirect by point to new site, According to setting site URL ? However in our each blog articles also have anchor text as internal link that link to another blog post, Which mean those link will be automatic redirect to new URL. So once Google bot re-crawl our website when we tell the Google by webmaster tools and the redirection we using 301. What will be happen when Google Bot crawl those link again We need to changes those link as well Keep same with redirection. Nothing happen
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ASKHANUMANTHAILAND0 -
New site causes massive drop off in ranking, old site restored how long to recover?
Hello, We launched and updated version of our site, mainly design changes and some functionality. 3 days after the launch we vanished from the rankings, previous page one results were now out of the top 100. We have identified some of the issues with the new site and chose to restore the old well ranking site. My question is how long might it take for the ranking to come back, if at all? The drop happened on the third day and the site was restored on the third day. We are now on day 6. Using GWT with have used fetch as Google and resubmitted the site map. Any help would be gladly received. Thanks James
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JamesBryant0 -
Can you recover from "Unnatural links to your site—impacts links" if you remove them or have they already been discounted?
If Google has already discounted the value of the links and my rankings dropped because in the past these links passed value and now they don't. Is there any reason to remove them? If I do remove them, is there a chance of "recovery" or should I just move forward with my 8 month old blogging/content marketing campaign.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Beastrip0 -
Clickable links in Google SERP
Hi, I came across clickable links appearing below the meta description in Google SERP. The links are not necessarily the top pages for that particular domain and sometimes tend to reflect the newly added stock. Is there a way to determine what factors account for this? Thanks, mryxN.png
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RaksG0 -
My site dropped in serp and backlinks ranked higher than it.
appliance-repair-ny.com I recently got some new good page rank backlinks (4-5) to my site. After a nice increase in rankings i left it for a couple of day (holiday) when i came back i found out that my rankings dropped dramatically for many different keywords when in some cases the backlinks are listed higher than me for the keyword. Any suggestions? should i keep on building links in the same paste, or slow down a little? UPDATE: I now noticed that the seomoz app has a warning that my homepage is missing title tag and meta tag. I'm using wordpress and headspace plugin. I recently updated wordpress.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | atohad0