Dropped 50 places for Page Title Change
-
Hey Guys,
I've got a keyword set that is really annoying me. You see on the 19th July I changed my page title for the home page to what I thought would be something more competitive and instead of climbing from rank 9/10 I dropped out of the top 50. So I waited 2 weeks to see if it changed and it just stayed out of the top 50.
After two weeks I changed it back again and I've been out of the top 50 ever since. I havnt made any real significant changes to the site as I've held off waiting for the keyword ranking to return but I dont think it will.
I was trying to improve the keyword phrase "bahamas all inclusive" for the website www.smallhope.com. I'd managed to get on to page 1 rank 9/10 depending.
I changed the title;
from "Bahamas All Inclusive - Andros Bahamas Hotel - Bahamas Vacation - Small Hope Bay Lodge All-Inclusive"
to "Bahamas All Inclusive Vacation - Small Hope Bay Lodge All-Inclusive"
This is really bad for us and I'm not sure what to do.
I had a whole plan in place starting with the Title and moving on to the H1 tags, but now I'm not so sure. I've put everything on hold. If this was you what would you do to get back to page 1?
Thanks,
Adam
-
Just wondering how you are making out with this. I checked Google US and didn't see you rank in the top 50. Curious to hear an update. Hope its going well.
-
What do think about the large amount of words in the image alt tags? I am just curious. I cant help but think it may look a bit spammy. Am I wrong?
-
I think that's it then! Ha that is a weight of my mind, now I have a reason I can create a solution. I just checked my Webmaster Tools data and we went from a stable level of 3000 impressions on the 24th July going straight down to 1000 impressions by the 28th July then picking up slightly and staying around the 1600 level ever since.
I checked the Panda update and they said ~1% have been affected but I've got a lot of duplicate page data on there. I'm going to push forward with a complete change to the text on the front page. Ahh that is a weight off knowing what the problem probably is. Whew....
Thanks for all the help guys its really really appreciated.
Adam
-
There have been several Panda updates since then. There was one on July 24th, 2012 so it's possible that this update picked up your potential Panda issues.
-
Bear in mind theres been alot of recent Google algo changes, your rankings may have changed because of something other than page titles.
BTW - I say that especially applies to the travel industry - ive seen alot of flux for aggregators of late.
-
Ahh I hadnt thought of that, the drop though was about shortly after I changed the title and requested a google reindex of the site. I wonder if the changes caused Google to push through a re-evaluation and penalised it based on the Panda update.
The Panda update was in Fed and my changes we the 19th July, so pretty far apart, but could still be linked.... hmm...
-
I'm guessing this is not really connected to your title change. On what date did you drop from the SERPS? Is it concidental with a known Panda Update?
The reason I am asking is that a quick look for duplicate content on your site, shows this: Google search for a phrase from the site in quotes : 2530 results!
If Google thinks your page is a duplicate of others out there then it has no reason to offer it up to searchers.
I didn't have a thorough look though, but I'm thinking that the drop is not directly related to your title change.
-
Yeah I might at that, just the fact that I'm not in the top 50 though is a very bad sign for the rest of my plan ....
-
Try to continue with your plan
I think Google doesn't have an "undo" button... When I'm optimizing the title I'm also changing the meta description to suit the new title, that way if Google doesn't find an appropriate part of text for the description, it will use the optimized one.
-
With this though its over a couple of months with multiple sources of confirmation. My total organic traffic in GA dropped 20% about a week after the change and my Webmaster tools impressions have halved as well.
Right now checking in multiple sources I'm not even in the top 50 since making a title change and then reversing which is very worrying...
-
I know changing the Alt tags and other on-page optimisation was part of my original plan. Change title, stabilise, change h1 tags, stabilise, change alt tags etc..
Unfortunately the title change bombed my placement, so before I make some more changes I'm trying to start from my initial position and move forward.
Just dont seem to be able to get back to before I set my plan in motion.
-
You need to remember that SEOmoz is constantly changing their ranking algorithm, just like Google is, I think that they have a place to track changes.
-
I lost rank on a product page for too many of the same type keywords. I scaled them back and ranking improved a few weeks later. A program I use indicated this :Your Image Alt attributes seem very long . The average wordcount per Alt tag is 8.8 . Possibly too high.
-
Thanks Leat, I know its odd. I think I've been penalized for spam like behaviour when I changed the title. I'm a little concerned as America is the main source of traffic.
-
Europe, Romania
-
Can i ask you where you are based?
-
I did a manual check and your website is ranking on the 10th position for the search "bahamas all inclusive" on google.com.
Your title in the search is "Bahamas All Inclusive - Andros Bahamas Hotel - Bahamas Vacation..."
Update: I've searched through an US proxy and the website is not even in top 50...strange!
-
Ahh no I'm not after that. I know the rank has dropped and I have had this confirmed in multiple places including webmaster tools and google analytics.
So the rank has dropped.
I need to increase the position for those keywords.
Adam
-
I would try rankchecker it spiders out to find your actual rank. Or Google the keywords and find your sites current rank. I believe SeoMoz does an update kind of like Semrush but not positive.
-
SEOMoz with Google US as the preferred search engine. Not too bothered about the others for now, as I'm hoping they'll fall in to place.... hopefully....
-
Can I ask what you are you using for your rank check?
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
-
Redirect Issue - Drop in ranking after CMS change
Hi Website - https://www.aasprint.com.au/ After we moved the site from wordpress to codeIgniter + angular there has been a huge drop in traffic and ranking. One of the thing we recently realized is the redirection - COULD THAT BE THE ISSUE? On the browser and sitemap the URL doesn't have "/" at the end When checked on redirection tool the URL seems to be redirecting to one with "/" at the end Attached are the screenshots. Also moz bar shows no redirection. However, the issue seems to be flagged by the site audit tool as 301 redirection. Not sure if it's the cause for the drop. What action to take? Any advice would be much appreciated. V7CNtqt j3dJ4TW
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bhisshaun0 -
Prioritise a page in Google/why is a well-optimised page not ranking
Hello I'm new to Moz Forums and was wondering if anyone out there could help with a query. My client has an ecommerce site selling a range of pet products, most of which have multiple items in the range for difference size animals i.e. [Product name] for small dog
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | LauraSorrelle
[Product name] for medium dog
[Product name] for large dog
[Product name] for extra large dog I've got some really great rankings (top 3) for many keyword searches such as
'[product name] for dogs'
'[product name]' But these rankings are for individual product pages, meaning the user is taken to a small dog product page when they might have a large dog or visa versa. I felt it would be better for the users (and for conversions and bounce rates), if there was a group page which showed all products in the range which I could target keywords '[product name]', '[product name] for dogs'. The page would link through the the individual product pages. I created some group pages in autumn last year to trial this and, although they are well-optimised (score of 98 on Moz's optimisation tool), they are not ranking well. They are indexed, but way down the SERPs. The same group page format has been used for the PPC campaign and the difference to the retention/conversion of visitors is significant. Why are my group pages not ranking? Is it because my client's site already has good rankings for the target term and Google does not want to show another page of the site and muddy results?
Is there a way to prioritise the group page in Google's eyes? Or bring it to Google's attention? Any suggestions/advice welcome. Thanks in advance Laura0 -
SEO: How to change page content + shift its original content to other page at the same time?
Hello, I want to replace the content of one page of our website (already indexeed) and shift its original content to another page. How can I do this without problems like penalizations etc? Current situation: Page A
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | daimpa
URL: example.com/formula-1
Content: ContentPageA Desired situation: Page A
URL: example.com/formula-1
Content: NEW CONTENT! Page B
URL: example.com/formula-1-news
Content: ContentPageA (The content that was in Page A!) Content of the two pages will be about the same argument (& same keyword) but non-duplicate. The new content in page A is more optimized for search engines. How long will it take for the page to rank better?0 -
Page titles, Keyword rich or single keyword?
Hi Everybody, My previous SEO company had set the page titles like : keyword | keyword | keyword | keyword | keyword | keyword | keyword | My new one is changing every thing and replacing them with sentences including one or two keywords in each one. Could you please let me know which one is better approach? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AlirezaHamidian0 -
Can too many "noindex" pages compared to "index" pages be a problem?
Hello, I have a question for you: our website virtualsheetmusic.com includes thousands of product pages, and due to Panda penalties in the past, we have no-indexed most of the product pages hoping in a sort of recovery (not yet seen though!). So, currently we have about 4,000 "index" page compared to about 80,000 "noindex" pages. Now, we plan to add additional 100,000 new product pages from a new publisher to offer our customers more music choice, and these new pages will still be marked as "noindex, follow". At the end of the integration process, we will end up having something like 180,000 "noindex, follow" pages compared to about 4,000 "index, follow" pages. Here is my question: can this huge discrepancy between 180,000 "noindex" pages and 4,000 "index" pages be a problem? Can this kind of scenario have or cause any negative effect on our current natural SEs profile? or is this something that doesn't actually matter? Any thoughts on this issue are very welcome. Thank you! Fabrizio
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fablau0 -
Why are new pages not being indexed, and old pages (now in robots.txt) remain in the index?
I currently have a site that was recently restructured, causing much of its content to be reposted, creating new URL's for each page. To avoid duplicates, all of the existing pages were added to the robots file. That said, it has now been over a week - I know Google has recrawled the site - and when I search for term X, it is stil the old page that is ranking, with the new one nowhere to be seen. I'm assuming it's a cached version, but why are so many of the old pages still appearing in the index? Furthermore, all "tags" pages (it's a Q&A site, like this one) were also added to the robots a few months ago, yet I think they are all still appearing in the index. Anyone got any ideas about why this is happening, and how I can get my new pages indexed?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | corp08030 -
Does a page on a site with high domain authority build page authority easier? i.e. less inbound links?
Is this also why people build backlinks to their BBB profiles, Yellowpages Profiles, etc. i.e. why do people build backlinks to other pages that link to them? Wouldn't it be more beneficial to just build that backlink directly to your target?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | adriandg0 -
Page Titles SEO Title
Hi, I run an e-commerce store and within the CMS I define the SEO title, SEO description and SEO keywords for each item. I spoke to a SEO firm who advised me to start every product title with the colour, as this will reduce the duplicate page titles and serve me well in the future. Whats everyones view on this? Does naming something Grey Armani Jeans | Armani Jeans from Designer Boutique stand up better against Armani Jeans Grey | Armani Jeans from Designer Boutique? Any help or tips on how to format the page titles and descriptions would be great. Thanks Will
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WillBlackburn0