Sudden big drop in ranking - update, tech issue or penalty?
-
We are managing a website that was previously consistently ranking on P1 or top position on P2 and over the weekend (28th Jan) suddenly dropped to P5.
What is the best way of ascertaining whether this was down to an update, a tech issue or a penalty? There are other pages on the site (sub-folders) which are still continuing to rank well on the site for similar kws.
Regards,
V -
Thanks Greg & Marie,
The site in question was acquired a few months' ago a fairly old site on a WP engine and had a couple of tech issues at the start but they were fixed and seemingly all was back to normal.
I have since gone on and disavowed some poor backlinks and also fixed some 'Missing Author Missing Updated' issues that were popping up on GSC
No crawl errors and no Manual Actions showing up, hoping it is just a temporary blip.
-
I've found that there has been a lot of turbulence in the SERPS in the last few weeks. I've had two clients that dropped from page 1 for many terms to beyond page 6 and then a few days later jumped up to rank even higher than they were before.
Have you made any changes to the site in the last couple of weeks? Here are some things I'd be doing to assess a traffic drop:
-Check in GA to see if the drop is across all pages or just certain pages. If it's certain pages, is there a pattern?
-Is the drop across all devices? For example, if the drop is just in mobile, perhaps the site was affected by Google's changes to the mobile interstitial algo.
-Have there been changes to the robots.txt file?
-Is there anything in Google Search Console --> Search Traffic --> Manual Actions?
-Are there any crawl errors in GSC that could alert you to a problem?
-Do your pages fetch and render properly in GSC?
Another thing to consider is the age of the site. If this is a new site, it's not uncommon for the site to get a honeymoon boost and then drop down again.
If none of those apply, then what I'd recommend is to wait it out for a few more days and see what happens. You may find everything pops back up again.
-
I would give it a bit more time to settle, its very easily to jump the gun. You can also check sites like serpmetrics and algoroo as well as webmaster world etc. for any news but Google is constantly trying different things that result in SERP moving about. I normally leave things for a week before i conclude that may be the final position. I would also potentially check and changes you've done off-site or on site that may have affected the rank, not forgetting search engine console.
Hope this helps.
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 can I see the keywords my competitors are ranking highly for?
I want to know which keywords I should be targeting to get the traffic from rival companies. I work for a travel company. Is there a way I can do this on Moz? Thanks so much!
Moz Pro | | nicolewretham1 -
Why My Website DA and Rankings are not improving
It's been about 3 months my Website DA and Ranking are constant. What should i do about it? I am generating good quality links and syndicating Content in different website but no Help.
Moz Pro | | rashmibhardwaj860 -
My website was at the top of Google search for some years... suddenly I almost can't reach first page! Moz ranks my website better than the competitors... what might be going one? Could anybody help me out? Thanks!
Hello Guys! My website was at the top of Google search for some years... suddenly I almost can't reach first page! Moz ranks my website better than the competitors... what might be going one? Could anybody help me out? Moz rank us grade A... the competitors B or C .. I think we have better back links than they do... Would you need any kind of data or report to help me here? Thanks!
Moz Pro | | wesleyms0 -
My moz campaing not update completely
I have create new account and campaign last week, till now my moz campaign not update like: keywords ranking, competitor websites links etc. Why it is so please update me.
Moz Pro | | Surabhi_Dewra0 -
Google shutting down Rank Tracking Software? - Raven and AHREFS close down ranking results.
Hi, I was wondering if other people had noticed the (very sudden) closing down of the ranking tools for both Raven and Ahrefs - both of which were major parts of their software. Given the sudden and synced timing my guess is that Google is throwing its weight around and banking on the doors of companies offering ranking software with the threat of a fat lawsuite! What is everyone else using for their rank checking ? Will this impact SEOMOZ ranking results ?
Moz Pro | | James770 -
List ranking analysis for all keywords?
I would love to see the option of having the ranking analysis listed for all my keywords! As it it now I have to click and get the numbers one by one and manually create a spreadsheet in order to have an overview of which keywords to pursue. I want to see my google ranking for each keyword next to information on how many people search for that term (in my country of choice - google.xxx) and the keyword competition in % Please tell me there's a way to do this and save me a truckload of time!
Moz Pro | | JaneVO0 -
Rankings in Google UK
Hi everyone, I've posted before on this and I'm still not satisfied that the answer is correct. Basically, my ranking report is saying that hardly any of my keywords are ranking in the top 50 of Google UK. Now, I appreciate that rankings can be affected by my search history, but I've tried other computers, other IP addresses, logged out of Google, cleared cache etc.. and I'm still seeing the terms I'm wanting to rank for on the first and second pages of Google UK. What is going on? My boss is wanting to see progress with these terms - I'm confident that we're ranking well, but the report is saying otherwise.
Moz Pro | | columbus0 -
How can I get ranking keys of competitors
Sometimes it might be clever to analyse the stategy of a competitor to see with which keys they rank successfully. For example I have a webshop, so I type in amazon.com and seomoz spits out: books, dvds, ... I can now see with what keys i wont have a chance and can think of missing keys where my chance might be. Is there a possibility to find out with seomoz?
Moz Pro | | SEOBavaria820