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Our Majestic Trust Flow is 57. Our Citation flow is 47. Our topical trust flow is 100% on point.

All links are 100% organic. We have not solicited a single link.

This isn't a bad backlink issue. It's an architecture issue.

If you launch a duplicate site, Google will sniff it out and neither site will rank because they will treat them as one site with duplicate content. I had an issue like this for 2 legitimate sites with the same content and different brands. When we went with cross domain canonicals, we started ranking in a big way.

Without improving Backlinks, Content Quality and UX, your site will not achieve it's old rankings. The site was getting ranked because of link spam, and when those links spammy links go bye-bye your rankings go with them.

With the new "kinder & gentler" penguin, stick to 1 site and focus on making the current site awesome and acquiring high quality backlinks.

If you've recently added the "noindex" meta, get the page fetched in GWT. Google can't act if it doesn't see the tag.

It's best practice to include +/-100 word Category Descriptions above your product listings. Adding a useful and robust "buyers guide" below the products is also extremely helpful. I'd be less concerned about "duplicate content" warnings from crawlers if your pages are ranking well. We get plenty of warnings from DeepCrawl for pages that are ranking in the top 3 for highly competitive terms.

Thanks to all for the help. Our rankings are climbing back. We should be back to status quo in +/-2-3 weeks after the move.

Google does recognize synonyms and near synonyms. You may, however, try to give Google a little help by using your related terms in h2, h3 and the meta-title. Make the content natural, and try and get the terms above the fold. It's old school, but it still works.

Doing a TF/CF analysis for those terms with a tool like OnPage.org or Vectorfy may also help. There may be subtle differences in vector KWs.

You may also want to check the actual SERP listings for the KWs you aren't ranking for to find out if Google is ranking similar content for those terms. For example, do a search for "button", and "buttons", and you will see very different results. Even though Google, in Adwords KW planner, considers them to be the same term, the SERPs say otherwise.

In a word, yes. However, if these links are new, I'd get the pages re-fetched. Give it a few days and check again.

We have multiple issues with this situation. We rank #1 for "Lace Fabric", #3 for "Lace Trim", and #80 for "Lace". We also rank for "Lace Ribbon", and "Lace Appliques". The Lace Fabric and Lace Trim pages have plenty of backlinks, wherein may lie the problem.

We have a similar issue for "Satin". "Silk Satin", "Polyester Satin", "Satin Trim", "Satin Ribbon", etc.

This is a very annoying and common pattern. Our backlink profile is sterling, and our competitors with inferior backlink profiles and branded search are outranking us. We outrank them across the board for 2 word terms.

Based on my evaluation of TF/CF, PA/DA, Content, etc., we should be on page 1 for "Lace". IMHO, these pages are competing for the head term. Any ideas on how to eliminate this issue to rank for head terms?

Thanks for the punch list. Our rankings turned around some when we submitted the old http sitemap.

1. Images only on HTTP in CDN. HTTPS, No CDN.
2. Yes
3. Yes. (I was a stickler on this one)
4. Yes
5. Yes, Yes, Yes.
6. Yes
7. Yes, we fixed that.
8. Yes. Initially our https redirects were 302 (Not on me, LOL.). We resubmitted our old (http) sitemap file today to crawl so that Google can pick up the change.
9. Yes
10. Yes
11. No disavow file. Our backlink profile is remarkably squeaky clean. TF-57, CF-47

Bonus: Yes.

Tustind:

Sorry - we did it a week ago - 3/14/17.

We just changed the 302s to 301s yesterday. I believe we need to resubmit our old sitemaps for google to index the 301s.

In a word, yes. However, if these links are new, I'd get the pages re-fetched. Give it a few days and check again.

If you launch a duplicate site, Google will sniff it out and neither site will rank because they will treat them as one site with duplicate content. I had an issue like this for 2 legitimate sites with the same content and different brands. When we went with cross domain canonicals, we started ranking in a big way.

Without improving Backlinks, Content Quality and UX, your site will not achieve it's old rankings. The site was getting ranked because of link spam, and when those links spammy links go bye-bye your rankings go with them.

With the new "kinder & gentler" penguin, stick to 1 site and focus on making the current site awesome and acquiring high quality backlinks.