Unexpected Rank Down After Page Update

[ManAPR]

Hello Team,

I have a post on my blog which was ranking on #1 in SERP. I always tried to update it with new content.On 31-Mar-2017, I made a big update in it. Like, it was a list of 20 tips and I made it to 50+. I thought it will help me to increase it's CTR. And, I changed its URL and redirect old one to new one.But when I checked today, it was totally disappeared from SERP it's nowhere. But it is indexed I have checked but not ranking now. I did this thing (Content Upgrade) before and it always gave good results but I don't know what happened now.Any suggestions or help?Old URL: http://excelchamps.com/blog/2015/12/21-useful-macro-codes-for-vba-newcomers/New URL: http://excelchamps.com/blog/2017/03/useful-macro-codes-for-vba-newcomers/-With love and respect,Puneet Gogia

[ManAPR]

Here in INDIA, it's on #1. I think it's recovering.

[RobCairns]

I see it ranked #7 for that term

[ManAPR]

Hey Rob,

Just go to google and type "Useful Macro Codes". Check if my page is there.

With love and respect,

Puneet Gogia

[RobCairns]

Hey Puneet,

Well, the update may have removed the canonical tag from your site with respect to the content, assuming you created a new URL for it to rest on. It just depends on how you went about making the change. If the page remains live but is simply redirecting to another with the update, you wouldn't lose the canonical reference to your content regardless of what someone else did in terms of putting it on their site.

Your post wouldn't lose rankings even if it was duplicated on another site - Google now only removes benefits from duplicating content, it doesn't penalize you for it.

While it's annoying that someone would copy your content, I think that's a red herring here. Give it a couple of days and I bet it will come back with similar rankings to what you're familiar with - maybe even improved with the new content.

Keep in mind that the new page your content rests on does not have a link profile to speak of, whereas your old page had lots of time to build up user review information and links. In effect, Google thinks it is looking at a brand new page, not a revision of a previous one. It will take time to recover rankings (a couple of days) but it will happen.

Last thing I hadn't considered - April 1 there was a renewed rollout of the Penguin algorithm - is it possible that there are some spammy links pointing to this page that might be influencing its rankings? I had a couple of clients that saw similar drops on April 1st but they are rebounding now.

All the best,

Rob

[ManAPR]

Yup James, you are right. I think the only weapon I have is Patience.

Thanks again for the help, James.

With love and respect,

Puneet Gogia

[ManAPR]

Thanks for the valuable stuff, Rob. You are like a Guardian Angel.

But, I have skipped a big part of this whole story, I'm sorry for that. So, let me come again.

**Part 1: **On 31st Mar, I have updated one of my old posts and redirected it to a new one. On 4th Apr, when I checked, my post was nowhere in the SERP. But it was indexed. I didn't change any content from the post but added new stuff. As I told, it was a list of 21 tips and I made it to 50.

**Part 2: **Tomorrow, I checked my post URL through OSE and AHREF and I was wondered to see that someone copied my content on his website, and it was like copy paste. Text, Images, everything. From his blog, post images were linking to my site and some of the internal links. The first thing came to my mind that my ranking is dropped due to this thing. And, I spend next 3 hours to contact that person and fortunately, he was guilty and he deleted that page from his site.

Important Points:

• He copied my content on 7th Mar from OLD POST.
• I updated my blog post on 31 Mar.
• And, I lost my ranking on 1st Apr.

I have a strong gut feeling that this is just because of updating page not because of that content theft. What do you think Rob?

To your question:

I was ranking for 6-7 terms, mostly on the first page, and for 1-2 on #1, all lost.

Thanks again for your help.

With love and respect,

Puneet Gogia

[RobCairns]

Hello Puneet,

There are a few options here which may be in play:

1. Rank Hopping

While rank trackers are typically pretty accurate, there can be a delay between crawling, indexing and ranking for your posts/pages. I have seen this myself with several clients in the last 2 weeks - there is a huge drop off in rankings for several days before they rebound and either return to normal or improve. This trend usually follows a round of link building or improving content, so it stands to reason that might be the cause here. I would give it another couple of days to determine if this might be what's happening in your case. (Typically my rankings have rebounded within 7 days or so)

2. Outbound Links

A post is generally considered to be valuable when it provides information to visitors that they take in and provide signals of satisfaction for (low bounce, time on page, scroll % and so on). However, there can also be a technical risk in providing tons of outbound/internal links on a post that don't particularly improve the value of the content. For example, increasing the number of tips you have in your content - I don't know what the page looked like before you updated it, but you have effectively added 30 "internal" links to your content from the last update which limits the effectiveness of linkbuilding to the page itself. Google likes to see direct lines of thought and access and increasing the number of links on any particular page can have a negative impact on the rankings. In this case, it's a great UX addition, but it may be hurting you on the ranking front.

3. Redirect

Any redirect will reduce the effectiveness of the links on a page. The estimates vary, but it is somewhere in the single-digit %'s. (i.e. somewhere between 3% and 10%). This means that you will reduce the impact of your link profile when you redirect and this may be influencing your post's overall rankability.

4. Follow-Up Question Regarding Targeting

When you say that your rankings have dropped, do you mean for a single keyword or for multiple keywords?

If you are only tracking a single phrase or keyword, this sounds like a simple case of rank bouncing and you should expect it to return to normal pretty quickly.

If you are tracking multiple terms and they have all dropped off, this may signal a penalty, or, more likely, you have altered what Google believes the post is about and it has to reconsider the new content before assessing new rankings for new terms.

Overall, my bet is that it will return to its normal position in a couple of days. If not, please don't hesitate to get in touch with me and I would be happy to help find a solution with you. In the meantime you might consider fleshing out your content with more succinct targeting, re-thinking your redirect, or reducing the number of internal links on your page. Personally I think it's a great post, so I doubt you will be stuck without rankings for long.

Cheers and don't hesitate to get in touch!

Rob