Drastic Difference between Ranking in Seomoz Keyword Ranking and non-personalized Google US Search
-
Hi everybody,
for some of our keywords we saw a huge drop in ranking in the Seomoz Dashboard, yet when performing a non-personalized Google US search we still hold our old positions. Now, I am worried whether this is an upcoming Google penalty or just some bug in the latest crawl.
Did anybody ever experience something similar and how could we find out if we were indeed penalized by Google (as we did some major linkbuilding campaign for these keywords recently)?
Cheers and a major thanks for your suggestions,
Tobias
-
Hi Nick,
major thanks! That sounds like a great way forward and I'll file a reconsideration request!
Luckily, the drop only showed for some internal landing pages and not the domain in general.
Cheers from Germany and another thanks,
Tobias
-
A 30 or more place drop does seem like a penalty might be in place. If you are only seeing the drop for some keywords and not everything, a 30 or 50 position drop could be an "over promotion" penalty. I have to admit I haven't done thorough research on the so called 30 or 50 penalties, but the belief is that if you have too many of the same anchor texts in your inbound links as is often the case with bulk directory submissions, you will lose 30 places with this penalty. In extreme cases it can be 50. I guess that could happen if your page is keyword stuffed too.
Again, I have no proof other than some anecdotal evidence - I had a client who prior to working with me hired a "1000s of back links" scammer who did indeed submit to about 1000 junky directories with the exact same keyword anchor text for each. Once those links started showing up, the site's position for that keyword went off a cliff.
If that sounds like your situation, you could try sending a Reconsideration Request through Google's Webmaster Central. They will usually get back to you within a few weeks with a message that either no manual penalty has been imposed, or if there is one, hopefully they will tell you why.
-
Hi Nick,
thanks for your thoughts! The localization is definitly something to consider, yet the drop we experienced was more than 30 places for a few keywords while others remained unchanged. Therefore I fear that there are some "worse" reasons behind this drop. The thing about information distribution to 3rd party tools might be another good lead particularly as we did not see the drop when performing a non-personalized Google search.
Do you happen to have suggestions on how to find out about Google penalties?
Best,
Tobias
-
I have been seeing a lot of that kind of thing too, but not just with SEOMoz tools. I think something is up with Google in some way. My theories so far are - some kind of algorithm adjustment that has only partially rolled out, a change in how Google releases info to 3rd party tools, or the conspiracy theory: a change in how personalization is handled so that no search isn't at least a little personalized.
Considering Google's recent announcement about limiting search query and referrer data to Adwords tracking only, I am thinking it is an overall shuffling around of things at Google.
Here's a link to a question I asked about a similar problem where my non-personalized local searches were not looking as good as the various keyword position tools I use. Kind of the reverse of your issue, but I think it may have a similar cause, whatever that may be: http://www.seomoz.org/q/local-searches-done-from-outside-of-local-area-better-than-searches-from-within-local-area
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
-
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 -
How to rank for multiple keyword phrases
Hello everyone! My website is smartyprogrammer.com. How do you go about ranking for multiple keyword phrases? Using the Site Grade Tool, I rank really well for one keyword phrase, like "Smarty Programmer", but then rank really poorly for another phrase like "Smarty Tuner". However, if I change my titles and all my wording towards "tuner" instead of "programmer", it seems like it will make my content either be spammy sounding, or I'll starting lacking in the "programmer" department. Is it best to just create a separate page to rank for "Smarty Tuner"? Or what is the best way to go about ranking for multiple important keyword phrases? Thanks everyone for your help!
Moz Pro | | dieselprogrammers0 -
Keyword Suggestion Tool
I want to know is their any good keyword suggestion tool other than Google keyword suggestion tool and keyword planner. I need to have a list of free ones only for now.
Moz Pro | | csfarnsworth0 -
Ranking Tool
We are considering purchasing your complete suite. Our question is regarding your Ranking Tool. We currently subscribe to Market Samurai and they provide us with keyword ranking abilities tied to our internal pages. Our domain, www.wklaw.com has hundreds of internal pages. (86 areas of law, each with 5 pages). will your ranking tool match our keywords to our internal pages? or does it only provide us ranks for the main domain? Thank you.
Moz Pro | | Wallin_Klarich0 -
Best way to analyze keyword difficulty for 10,000+ keywords?
I've done quite a bit of searching, but can't seem to find a time efficient way to accurately analyze keyword difficulty for large sets of keywords. All of the keyword difficulty tools out there that I've tried are either 1) not accurate 2) slow (like seomoz's kw difficulty tool only allows 5 entries at a time). Can anyone recommend any shortcuts / tools / processes to analyze kw difficulty for large sets of keywords?
Moz Pro | | nicole.healthline1 -
Why are the rankings of my keywords different to rankings from other programmes such as 'Access my Lan' and 'Firefly'? Does SEOMoz count 'Google Places and Maps' in their rank count? Im thinking this could explain the difference
Why are the rankings of my keywords different to rankings from other programmes such as 'Access my Lan' and 'Firefly'? Does SEOMoz count 'Google Places and Maps' in their rank count? Im thinking this could explain the difference
Moz Pro | | john_Digino0 -
My 2 Target Keywords Rank In Top 10 But Don't Show Up...?
Hi, My 2 target keywords definitely rank in the top 10 in the USA version of Google but they dont show up in SEOMOZ rank checker...I started using SEOMOZ abour a week or so ago and in 2 consecutaive ranking checks they haven't shown up... Market Samurai says they're 4 and 8 respectively, I can see them in the top 10 of Google and various USA proxies show they're in the top 10... Is there a glitch with SEOMOZ or am I doing something wrong? Thanks, James
Moz Pro | | James10