Webmaster Warnings?
-
Hi!
If I have ANY issues at all with my site will Google send me any type of warning? Or will I just begin to lose position? I seem to read alot of people hit with the "unnatural link" warning, I was just wondering if there was any other warning they may notify us with if need be.
Thanks!
-
I would think that those numbers could greatly vary. Sometimes a pile of links in WMT can come from weird sources like askives.com. If someone does a websearch on askives and your site is related to their search then all of a sudden there can be 100 new links that appear to your site and they can be gone with the next Google crawl.
You really can't analyze a traffic drop properly until you've got a good amount of data...like more than a day.
-
that is directly from webmaster TOTAL links. When using OSE the total links are much lower.
-
Interesting...how are you aware that you lost 100 links today? What tool did you use?
In losing links, the number is not important...but the quality is. If I lost 100 links because I deactivated a forum signature I wouldn't be too worried. But, if I had a single link from CNN that got taken down that could be devastating.
-
I actually did notice a drop in links, I lost around 100 today, is it possible that was the issue? How would you analyze this to get back were you were? I am in a VERY competitive market, huge companies with huge budgets rank on page 1 for a high % of keywords. I was happy with my lower traffic keywords. Very concerning to lose traffic like this.
-
I wouldn't get too worried about a one day traffic drop...you could speculate all day long about what the issues could be.
A few possible reasons could include:
-a hosting outage
-problems with your analytics code
-accidental noindexing of page(s)
-malware - (check your site at www.sucuri.net).
-loss of a good link or two
-a competitor has surpassed you in the SERPS
In other words, we don't always have to jump to the conclusion that we've been affected by a penalty when there is a traffic drop.
-
Hello!
I have no warnings at all from Google, traffic is down for some reason for me today, Ive never really ranked great for exact keywords Im targeting, but broad long tail was great! Its seems to all really slowed down today? I keep Mozcast up all the time and it doesnt look like there were major changes today from google. What could explain the traffic drop on my long tail broad?
Any help greatly appreciated!
Thank You
-
There are a number of warnings you can get in WMT. Sometimes they will warn you that your wordpress is out of date. I've also seen warnings that tell you you had a possible site outage. (I got that one when my hosting company was down for a morning.)
The scary unnatural links warnings come with a yellow caution sign next to them which tells you they are very important.
-
30% is quite a big drop, but e-commerce sites are more vulnerable to such fluctuations. Obviously, if it stays this way, then it wasn't a fluctuation. Also, yes, they do inform you of issues with duplicate content.
Here's a post on link penalties...
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/identifying-link-penalties-in-2012
-
Seems to be down around 30% today , It is an E-Commerce, large site. If there was a problem with Dup content would they notify me also?
Thanks so MUCH!
-
It depends on the size of the fluctuation and what your site is about.
-
Is it normal for traffic to fluctuate like this? Is it possible I was hit with a penalty? Or is this normal for a newer website? 1.5yrs old?
-
It's under settings in the left navigation menu. It's pretty easy to set-up.
You're welcome!
-
Typically how do you setup it up? I usually check webmaster daily, I was just a little concerned as I saw a slight drop in traffic today.
Thanks!
-
Well, if something's wonky, you will receive an internal notification (in Google Webmaster Tools). If you want to receive email notifications, you can enable that in the settings and you can choose to receive all kinds of notifications or only critical ones.
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
-
EDU Links to my Site Never Show in Webmaster Tools
I have legit links from about a dozen .EDU sites. We do training for Universities. The links never show up in webmaster tools "Links to Your Site' and considering how many we have its amazing our rankings aren't better. It's almost as if google is ignoring them. Any thoughts?
Link Building | | gundogs0 -
Should I disavow spammy links that are showing in Open Site Explorer but not showing in Google Webmaster Tools?
Howdy Mozzers, After carrying out a backlink audit for a client, Open Site Explorer shows a range of outrageously spammy links for guys wanting a bit of assistance in the bedroom area, and so on. Hopping over to Google Webmaster Tools, there is no reported trace of said spammy links (for either of the www/non-www versions of the site). There are also no manual webspam actions found on the www/non-www Google Webmaster Tools accounts for this website. So my question is: do I carry out a pre-emptive strike and go down the disavow process of requesting removal from the spammy sites, and then submit a disavow request to Google after allowing a suitable period of time for the junky/compromised website to (not) respond? Or do I just leave it alone? Thanks in advance for your wise words of wisdom and pearls of clarity.
Link Building | | wh-seo0 -
Strange new links being picked up in Webmaster tools affecting SERPs
Hi, I have a question regarding new links being found by Google, and showing in our latest links file from Webmaster tools. I run this site: http://www.propertysales.com it's a fairly new website with a small (ish) link profile but over the last 3 months I've seen a lot of links being found in Google like this: http://www.financecourier.com/news/story/523316/foreign-carmakers-milk-chinas-cash-cow/full_story.html it's clearly a scrap of a webpage from the FT.com, who we partner with, that has a link to PropertySales.com but the number of links Webmaster tools is seeing is much bigger than we would normally get in any given month. As a rule I would normally ignore scrapper sites as I’ve always assumed Google is smart enough to know which site these are and thus wouldn't affect your SERPs but I’ve also seen a drop in our SERPs over the same month so now I’m thinking these are effecting the sites SEO. Does anybody have any insight into this or advice on the best way to handle this, I looking at going through these site and adding them to our disavow file but this can take a few month to take effect so are they any better options or way to handle this? Thanks for your help in advance. Rufus
Link Building | | Dynamis0 -
Heavy Weight Backlink not Showing in Google Webmaster Tool
Hi Mozzers I got a nice backlink from Huffingtonpost already a couple of months ago from this page to coinstackr.com: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/25/mt-gox-bitcoin_n_4854095.html However, the link doesn't show in the Google Webmaster Tools. Is that common? Cheers, Chris
Link Building | | Diderino0 -
Best way to contact webmasters for link building
So I have my list of domains and contact information for link building. What is the best approach to contact webmasters to link build? Is there any standard way to ask them to add my link on their page? Does anyone have a generic boilerplate email?
Link Building | | BrandmanU1 -
Penguin,No warning message from Google
I'm losing traffic & I have been since April. I'm pretty sure it's Penguin but I have not received any messages from Google. Should I proceed with the disavowal tool to remove some of the spammy directory links? PS Submit Edge is owned by the Devil
Link Building | | KrisPhoto0 -
Total Links vs Google Webmaster Site Links
I am interested why the numbers between SEOmoz and Google are so different. In SEOmoz we only show 17,000ish links from 190ish domains. In Google, we show 200,000+ links from 370 domains. Why is there such a dramatic difference?
Link Building | | webspecdesign0 -
Should we use 'disavow' if we dramatically dropped serps after Oct 5th, but did not receive a warning?
We dramatically dropped serps after Oct 5th, but did not receive a warning about bad links on google webmasters. Is it a good idea to find and collect the worst links and disavow them? As there was no warning we can only guess links were the problem, but it seems likely. However we do not want to send any requests to google if no warning was sent. Can disavow be used in this way, or should we do more manually? (We are hoping remove links + increase very solid links + optimize for key words will help revive serps) Many thanks. James
Link Building | | Quime0