Detective needed to investigate a mystery lack of ranking
-
My URL is: www.graduate-jobs.com/graduate-schemesAfter ranking on page 1 for the search term 'graduate schemes' for over 4 months, the page then disappeared completely from the SERPS for over 6. I've been assured it isn't a Penguin/ Panda problem, as this is the only page on our site that has seen this sort of drop. When checking backlink profiles of the ranking pages, our page is as strong if not stronger and it receives a good amount of traffic with decent user metrics.If anyone could take a look at the page and have a guess at why it isn't moving anywhere, it would be really appreciated.Thanks.
-
Hey Joseph,
You are absolutely right.
Our main aim is always to get registrations to the site and build our database and we try and do this by advertising good jobs that make people want to sign-up!
Thanks for all your help on the matter, if you think of anything else, don't hesitate to let me know.
Cheers.
-
..and just building a better site. you always need to try to maximize the value of a click. What do you want them to do when they land on that page? Where do you want them to go? What are they asking for when they come to that page?
Each page - has a purpose. You want them to sign up to the site? building leads to new jobs? Why not have a form where you send them new types of jobs when you have them posted.. Take a look at http://www.shoemoney.com - he thinks like this: sending out a email is like going to the bank.
build your email list.
GOOD LUCK!
-
Hi Joseph,
Thanks for the tip I will definitely check out that tool.
I see what you are saying about modifying my meta info, I think we stuff graduate a bit too much site-wide, which is something I've started working on.
I suppose I (like most people) was hoping it was a technical error with a quick fix but (like most people) I'm now realising it all comes down to good ole' fashioned link building.
Thanks.
-
but when did it happen? what day? it could also not even be you but the sites you got backlinks from.
Take a look here: http://www.linkdex.com and it will be the best way to get this fixed. When you disvow these links, add comments and group things together. i.e. #possible link network - emailed webmaster joes@email.com - for removal.
#link directory - emailed webmaster@somesite.com
You dont have a lot of back links - and if you do disavow the links and need help qualifying them than reach out to me with the list you come up with.. or post them here. I'm sure we can help you qualify them.
-
There is nothing you can do to prevent it and really, you're not loosing a lot either. It may have been just that one back link. Webmasters change their sites. Domains expire. You just need to build links.
This is an awesome tool: http://www.link-assistant.com/buzzbundle/ - and you can learn how to use it here: http://www.matthewwoodward.co.uk/reviews/buzzbundle-review-how-i-drive-traffic-to-my-blog/
I would look in webmaster tools to see when it changed.. I dont know what exactly else could have caused it without really looking into it. What I would do if I were you is change the title and description a little bit. You really don't need to use graduate that much.
-
Hi Justin,
Thanks for your response and I really appreciate the detail and the honesty!
I get what you are saying about the questionable backlinks. None of them were actively obtained by us but that doesn't change that there are some suspicious sites linking to that page in particular. Would you recommend trying to get some of those links removed?
I suppose what confused me was that the Moz PA ranking is much healthier than some of the sites ranking on page 1 of the SERPS. So perhaps a Penguin/ Panda demotion is the most obvious answer (Ouch that hurts to say out loud!)
Thanks.
-
I don't think the backlink profile to that page looks particularly natural and i think thats where your problem lies
OSE shows 19 backlines ahrefs shows 30, but looking through them, you have two infographitcs (with no social shares) a couple of links from .ac.uk (which are good links), directories and a number of very questionable looking links such as www.librerio.com/search/jobs/40
You also have some exact match anchor text
All of the above suggests to me that you have been hit by Panda/Penguin and the loss of links mentioned previously most likely suggests that you had questionable links that have been removed or the sites they were coming from have been shutdown (again a good indicator of poor backlinks)
To me, it looks like you are going to have to do some work on building some good links and adding a bit of content to your site to get your rankings back
Also you are on an exact match domain "graduate-jobs.com" which may be contributing
I'm sure its not what you want to hear, but I think thats where the problem most likely lies.
I hope that helps
-
Hi Joseph,
Thanks for getting back to me. It is a bit worrying to see that amount of backlinks being lost, I wasn't aware of that!
Could you give me any more clues as to why that would be happening/ how to prevent it?
Thanks.
-
Well - you're loosing more back links a day than gaining: https://ahrefs.com/site-explorer/backlinks-new/prefix/www.graduate-jobs.com%252Fgraduate-schemes
link velocity is important but you prob. lost those one or two back links that pushed it to where it needed to be.
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
-
Keyword rankings sudden drop
Hello, I own an online headshop, and as of last week my keyword rankings dropped significantly on some competitive keywords I was ranking for. I noticed the same thing happened to me last month, and then a few weeks later these keywords were ranking again. In fact, they were ranking even higher than before. I also noticed that 2 of my biggest competitors who receive 500k+ clicks a month had a significant drop in their keyword rankings as well. Does anybody know why this happens and how to correct the issue? Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Kobeghods930 -
Sudden drop in ranking
Hi, I have been on page 1 (around 5-7th) for an area specific phrase (liverpool wedding photographer) for most of last year. I wrote a 2500 word article which was about documentary wedding photography which was meant for a landing page of its own, I decided to put it on my home page. A week later I was second position page 1. This was last November and within a week or at most 14 days I was suddenly dropped to bottom page 1 (9th 10th), then a week later half way down page 2 (14th, 15th) and ending at the bottom of page 2. I had a bad SEO company a few years ago who got me a lot of spammy links so I ended up disavowing a lot of links I had. What are peoples opinions on links now? Do I disavow all directory links, and non wedding or photography related links? Did something major happen to the google algorithm in November? The only other thing I can think of which might cause a penalty is using the keyword "Liverpool wedding photographer" as a link from at leat 10 blog posts back to my home page which is optimised for those keywords. This was something I copied from someone who was ranking nationally for phrases. Just looked at their site now and they are still using this technique and are No1 nationally for their chosen phrase???? I do try and get as many 'good' links as I can (featured weddings on wedding blogs and credits for photography work) but I am totally confused. I thought google likes a lot of content? Very gutted as it could not happen at a worse time as January is the busiest month for bookings and I have been nowhere. any help will be greatly appreciated. Best wishes. David.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | WallerD1 -
Help with ranking
Hi Board users! I have a site that I don't understand why its not ranking. Its called JohnnyJet.com It has great domain authority and plenty of links. Looking at google webmaster tools I don't think there is a penalty. I have not done black hat stuff, so I am puzzled. I have a subdomain that stores some of my old content (some of it is duplicate) http://vintage.johnnyjet.com/home.asp The site has been around for ever, and I need help with a site audit to see what it is that I am missing. I know my long tail should rank much better. 2 questions: 1. Can you guys (board members) send me any insights if you take a peek 2. Can you tell me where to go to get an in-depth audit on my site -- I need a deep dive to get to the bottom of this 🙂 Thanks all!!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | coolhand19800 -
Want to Remove numbers from Old Post URL - Will it effect its Ranking?
Hi. I have a number of posts that are ranking in google for several keywords. However the URLs contain numbers, for example 2011, 2014 and 35. I want to remove these numbers to make the URLs more updated. If I use the 301 redirect for old URL to the new one, will I retain the same ranking for these blogposts Or it can effect the ranking. Does anyone have tried this in the past? I would like to get your opinion on this. Thanks in advance.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | techmaish0 -
Black hat : raising CTR to have better rank in Google
We all know that Google uses click-through-rate (CTR) as one of it is ranking factor. I came up with an idea in my mind. I would like to see if someone saw this idea before or tried it. If you search in Google for the term "SEO" for example. You will see the moz.com website in rank 3. And if you checked the source code you will see that result 3 is linking to this url: https://www.google.com.sa/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CDMQFjAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fmoz.com%2Fbeginners-guide-to-seo&ei=F-pPVaDZBoSp7Abo_IDYAg&usg=AFQjCNEwiTCgNNNWInUJNibqiJCnlqcYtw That url will redirect you to seomoz.com Ok, what if we use linkbucks.com or any other cheap targeted traffic network and have a campaign that sends traffic to the url that I show you. Will that count as traffic from Google so it will increase the CTR from Google?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Mohtaref11 -
Our ranking as not returned after penalty, Why?
Hi, We have had a Google action against us for over a year. After many "SEO Company's" we found someone who help us remove (December 2013) the action. Which was due to our bad back link profile. We have 100% improved our content for our website, as Google has requested. We are active within social media, we add relevant content to our blog and we clean up our desk after we finish work 🙂 After looking at Moz tools we have great results, sometimes even better than our competitors. But we are still not getting or improving on our traffic, if anything its decreasing. Is anyone else in the same position? or has anyone recovered from a similar situation? Josh
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | JoshuaKersh0 -
Website Vulnerability Leading to Doorway Page Spam. Need Help.
Keywords he is ranking for , houston dwi lawyer, houston dwi attorney and etc.. Client was acquired in June and since then we have done nothing but build high quality links to the website. None of our clients were dropped/dinged or impacted by the panda/penguin updates in 2012 or updates previously published via Google. Which proves we do quality SEO work. We went ahead and started duplicating links which worked for other legal clients and 5 months later this client is either dropping or staying in local maps results and we are performing very badly in organic results. Some more history..... When he first engaged our company we switched his website from a CMS called plone to word press. During our move I ran some searches to figure out which pages we needed to 301 and we came across many profile pages or member pages created on the clients CMS (PLONE). These pages were very spammy and linked to other plone sites using car model,make,year type keywords (ex:jeep cherokee dealerships). I went through these sites to see if they were linking back and could not find any back links to my clients website. Obviously nobody authorized these pages, they all looked very hackish and it seemed as though there was a vulnerability on his plone CMS installation which nobody caught. Fast forward 5 months and the newest OSE update is showing me a good 50+ back links with unrelated anchor text back links. These anchor text links are the same color as the background and can only be found if you hover your mouse over certain areas of the site. All of these sites are built on Plone and allot of them are linked to other businesses or community websites. These websites obviously have no clue they have been hacked or are being used for black hat purposes. There are dozens of unrelated anchor text links being used on external websites which are pointing back to our clients website. Examples: <a class="clickable title link-pivot" title="See top linking pages that use this anchor text">autex Isuzu, </a><a class="clickable title link-pivot" title="See top linking pages that use this anchor text">Toyota service department ratings, </a><a class="clickable title link-pivot" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;" title="See top linking pages that use this anchor text">die cast BMW and etc..</a> Obviously the first step is to use the disavow link tool, which will be completed this week. The second step is to take some feedback from the SEO community. It seems like these pages are automatically created using some type of bot. It will be very tedious if we have to continually remove these links. I hope there is a way to notify Google that these websites are all plone and have a vulnerability, which black hats are using to harm the innocent... If i cannot get Google to handle this, then the only other option is to start fresh with a new domain name. What would you do in this situation. Your help is greatly appreciated. Thank you
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | waqid0 -
Ranking questions
We have questions about our ranking and would like some advice.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Whiteflash0