Drop in Rankings
-
Hello Webmasters,
My site has incurred a sudden dip in rankings across sections. We conducted an analysis and have observed the following two major issues:
- Unnatural Links Penalty: Our site was issued an Unnatural Links Penalty on May 23.
Basically, we have both 'http' and 'https' versions of our website registered on Webmaster tools. Initially, the warning showed up on the 'http' version and thus we started a cleanup by extracting the linking domains and have also filed a reconsideration request once all the spammy domains were removed and rightly disavowed.
Recently, we got another manual action warning on the 'https' version regarding the unnatural links. So we have started with the cleanup activity right away. While analyzing this issue, we came across another major problem regarding the two versions which is our next concern and is mentioned below.
- https Canonical Issue: For more insights, we went through our site’s content and found that our website is following the below pattern
Our 'http' version of the webpages get 301 redirected to the 'https' version. This 'https' version again has a canonical pointing to the 'http' version thus creating a loop.
To conclude, I request your valuable learnings and thoughts on the following:
- Which of these issues are likely to have affected our website’s ranking
- Which version is likely to be preferred by Google (https or http) in our case
-
Making sure that the https pages are canonicalized to https pages should be relatively easy and within your control. I would get that done right away.
If the canonicalization wasn't done right in the migration, it makes me wonder what else may not be right with the move to https. You might want to look here https://moz.com/blog/seo-tips-https-ssl, especially the links under "best practices" and double check all that.
The unnatural link clean up and reconsideration request will be more work intensive and take a lot more time and is on some level not entirely within your control, as you are left at Google's mercy.
Both need to be done, but they seem like very different sized problems with very different timelines to payoff.
Best of luck! ... Mike
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
-
Page Rank Flow
I wonder if someone can help me understand clearly page rank flow. If we have a website with a Home page, Services, About and Contact as a very basic website and the page rank will flow to each of those pages from the Home page (i'm not including internal linking between pages or anchor text from the home page content - this is a question purely about home page flow via the main navigation). If the Services page had 3 drop down pages. Would the home page rank also flow to each of these or is it going to the Services page which then distributes it to the three drop down. So instead of Home page rank flowing to 3 pages 33% each - it is flowing to 6 pages 16.6% each. Or is it flowing to 3 pages - 33.3% then the Services pages get a third of 33.3% ->10.1% I know this is simplifying it all a great deal- but it is the basic concept I am trying to grasp on this simple example. Thanks
Technical SEO | | AL123al0 -
Eligible To Rank For Few Queries
I can't figure out why this site (www.liveathomeseniors.com) is eligible for so few search queries on Google Webmaster Tools. I know there is a lot of work to be done, but this is my biggest puzzle right now. What am I not seeing? 379 pages are indexed and yet the site is has only been deemed eligible to rank for 3 queries over the past 3 months. Is it all the repetition in the way the content has been structured? I'd appreciate people's thoughts on this. I can't see the forest for the trees. Donna
Technical SEO | | DonnaDuncan0 -
Website redesign: impact on SEO rankings?
Hi We're redesigning a website for a client whose SEO rankings are fairly strong, and are driving a good volume of enquiries through their website. We would like to do our best to ensure the redesign has a minimal impact on the rankings but aren't sure if there's anything in particular we should be doing to avert a severe dip in results. The content will be similar on many pages, with the major updates being from 2013 products to the 2014 suite. Layouts and images will, of course be updated, and we're going to do our best to keep the inbound links going to the correct place - any advice here would be much appreciated, too. We'd be really grateful for any suggestions for how to avoid a ranking disaster, and any major pitfalls we should look out for. Many thanks.
Technical SEO | | Kal-SEO0 -
Does server location affect rankings?
Hey guys, I'm just wondering whether you can help me out here. We're considering moving our servers to a new country but are a little hesitant to what - if any - SEO impact it would have on our clients' sites. For instance, if all of our clients are UK-based but their server isn't, would that affect their rank in Google UK? Or is it simply just a case of whether moving a server would affect the site speed or not?
Technical SEO | | Webrevolve0 -
Rankings have fallen suddenly - I need a plan of attack.
I started my business a few years ago. Only recently (6 month) I started to get some good traffic and sales. At first I was ranking pretty well 3-5 for my main keywords and business began to pick up. After Penguin I was hit hard and I'm placing 10-17'ish. My Google local/places has disappeared too. I haven't received any contact from Google about unnatural links (but I'm not sure where that would appear? Email? Web Master Tools? Horses head on my pillow?). I've read so many different things online about what I 'could' do. I'm not sure where to start. I've checked and I know we've created lots of questionable back links. Using the Open Site Explorer lots of the backlinks don't have terrible DA but some do. I guess I was hoping someone would give me a checklist or priority list of things to do. It's just me so I need to use my time as best I can. What should I be doing first? Should I be trying to: Remove my bad backlinks? Spend my time making quality backlinks. On-page issues that I can't see? Telling google i'm sorry via web master tools. Changing to new domain (eek) I'm very time poor and hoped the seoMoz community might save me from wasting my time. www.bringyourownlaptop.com.au Keywords: indesign training, web design courses & photoshop courses Thank you in advance. Dan
Technical SEO | | danlovesadobe0 -
What Would i do to get my site ranking high?
Hello Friends, I need your help please tell me what would I do to get my site ranking high in Google search engine. When I start my work on my site my work blog commenting , social bookmarking, keyword targeting etc.… But now the scene is completely changing. Now I am working on just guest blogging. I don’t understand that what would I do next after the guest blogging. Because I think there is now just one way to promote your site VIA guest blogging. Now please tell me is there any other option to work and get high ranking?
Technical SEO | | KLLC0 -
Could you give me some advice to be ranked first
hi everyone, i need some advice; i'm trying to get first in the organic result for the keyword "poltrona frau brescia" in google italy, i list below the latest action i've been taken on my site ( http://poltronafraubrescia.zenucchi.it 😞 i've just added the site into some directories i've just recived some inbound link from a few sites with the anchor text "poltrona frau brescia" i wrote some press release that links to the site i created a google plus profile i created a google places profile linked to the google plus too actually i don't see the page authority going up but the authority is the same as the domain in wich the site is located. my goal is to rank first, now the first position is owned by a site with no autorithy but with the exact keyword matching in the domain. please gays give me some advice to get concrete results, only just a couple of things to follow... it seems a little bit strage for you but i'm having some troubles with this aim.... thanks a lot, Guido
Technical SEO | | guidoboem0 -
Site dropped after article submissions
I have a site about back pain. The name is lower back pain relief. It has a lot of content on how to treat back pain with natural remedies. I paid for botw.org and yahoo directories as well as submissions from submit edge. My site was doing well within a few months. I was floating around at the bottom of page two for "lower back pain relief" and lower back pain. I found out about Unique article wizard. I started using that to write and submit articles. Now, my website is not ranking anywhere. I submitted a request for reconsideration to Google. They said no manual action had been taken. The question: How long does this penalty last? Is that website toast now? I think it was penalized for using the anchor text too much or adding too many links at once. It has been penalized for about 6 weeks now.
Technical SEO | | Naturalhealth150