Drop of 11 places - server issues?
-
Hi all,
I have experienced a drop of 11 places for our main keyword since our last Moz rankings report which means page 2 to page 3.
I have also received an error 904 in my weekly crawl report two weeks in a row and think this may be the reason for the drop. Could this result in a drop of 11 places?
Last week I also tweeked the H1 tags on my main landing pages, nothing major just a reordering of the words. Could this result in such a major drop?
Final question is does anyone know of any major algorithm update last week that could have affected rankings so drastically?
Thanks all
Gavin -
I experienced a similar issue recently with a client. A few 904 errors seemed to coincide with a notice in the client's 3d cart CMS that they were short on bandwidth. We also saw a VERY significant drop in rankings across the board. We upgraded the hosting plan and the 904 errors went away temporarily, and a very modest improvement in rankings followed, but not a return to normal. It's now about 2-3 months after we first saw the 904 errors and I've just noticed another one that has come up.
-
A 904 error is a timeout. As such this could be on either end of the crawl or in the middle. If you have You should have remote monitoring to measure server uptime and performance. Check the time of the 904 errors with your monitoring. Also review server logs for that period for other errors.
In some cases we have seen security systems block crawlers - especially at larger companies where web app firewalls are in use. The result can be that the system thinks there's an attack and could tarpit the crawler.
This is just speculation but something to easily rule out by looking at your server's logs and monitoring for the period in question.
-
Hi bjs2010
If it was just the 904 error alone I wouldn't be too interested. However it came at the same time as a rankings drop. This also was the second week in a row that I had received the Crawl error 904.
Would be good to know if others got the crawl error notification though? Is there any way to know when SEO.Moz do their crawl as it could be when our server is running some back ups.
Thanks
Gavin -
We got that 904 error also in last weeks crawl. Never ever had it before and we have great hosting. I´m not sure if this could be a Moz issue as opposed to a server issue. Any others experience a 904?
-
If only! We host the website internally and the IT dept who look after the server say there are no issues with the server or network configuration.
The 904 error is on both our sites which are both located on the same server.
The best solution would be to outsource the hosting.
Cheers
Gavin -
Would it be possible for you to change hosts?
-
Thanks Martijn
The drop in rankings is quite significant and comes at the same time as the crawl errors in my reports.
I have 2 websites on the same server and both weekly reports show '904 Response from Server Timed out Without Completing Page Request' and both sites have shown a drop in rankings.
Thanks for your response.
Gavin
-
Hi Gavin,
Most of the updates from the last time that were noteworthy weren't launched last week. Server issues could be an issue that have let your page drop like this, Google could see that your site wasn't stable and have 'decided' that they will put you down for a while to make sure that visitors won't have any issues with your site.
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
-
Google update this wknd or page title issue?
Hi, I've seen a big ranking drop for many major terms, for a particular site, just on Google. This happened Fri 20th or Sat 21st just gone. I don't see any news on an algorithm update over the weekend.I had changed many of the sites major page title protocols 2 weeks ago but a) I would have expected any negative effect before now and not all at once b) the protocols were carefully crafted to avoid traffic drops for major terms and c) i'm seeing traffic drops for keywords that still start at the beginning of the page title d) im seeing drops for some pages which are still using the OLD page titles. I had even tested the protocol on a number of pages in advance to ensure it wouldn't cause problems. As a bit of background - the title protocols were changed to make them more user friendly and less keyword heavy. CTR from search improved so was hoping for better not worse rankings! Ideas, gratefully appreciated.Andy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AndyMacLean0 -
Researching search volume drop
I am seeing a pretty precipitous drop in search volume traffic (see link). My keyword rankings don't seem to have suffered too much over this period. In fact, my #1 keyword have actually increased slightly in this timeframe. Two questions... Is there some way to assess overall search volume across my tracked keywords (to see if this is just a case of overall searches dropping)? Is there a recommended plan of attack for investigating drops like this - beyond overall search volume, what other data might be important in identifying the cause of this. In short, I'm looking for some logic/structure for how I investigate this, using Moz tools and reports. Thanks. Mark omE1VPc
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MarkWill0 -
Is a Dedicated Server a Worthwhile Investment?
Greeting MOZ Community: Our site is hosted on a virtual private server. Apparently there are dozens of other web sites hosted on the same server. The performance is usually pretty fast, with the site downloading in 1-3 seconds. However, a few times per month, the performance slows down, to say 5-6 seconds. Please see the attached image. I suspect this may have something to do with the other web sites on the server. Currently we pay about $60/month. A dedicated server would cost about $120/month. Would site performance be more consistent on a dedicated server? Could we enjoy potential SEO benefits by having our own server, i.e. could we rank slightly higher if the speed was more consistent and the performance slightly faster? Thanks, Alan 6D7kK61
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan10 -
Google places Ad
Like adwords is their any good way of advertising a business place at Google map? If the answer is yes.Can you please take me through the process and give me rough idea about cost?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | csfarnsworth0 -
Canonical url issue
Canonical url issue My site https://ladydecosmetic.com on seomoz crawl showing duplicate page title, duplicate page content errors. I have downloaded the error reports csv and checked. From the report, The below url contains duplicate page content.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | trixmediainc
https://www.ladydecosmetic.com/unik-colours-lipstick-caribbean-peach-o-27-item-162&category_id=40&brands=66&click=brnd And other duplicate urls as per report are,
https://www.ladydecosmetic.com/unik-colours-lipstick-plum-red-o-14-item-157&category_id=40&click=colorsu&brands=66 https://www.ladydecosmetic.com/unik-colours-lipstick-plum-red-o-14-item-157&category_id=40 https://www.ladydecosmetic.com/unik-colours-lipstick-plum-red-o-14-item-157&category_id=40&brands=66&click=brnd But on every these url(all 4) I have set canonical url. That is the original url and an existing one(not 404). https://www.ladydecosmetic.com/unik-colours-lipstick-caribbean-peach-o-27-item-162&category_id=0 Then how this issues are showing like duplicate page content. Please give me an answer ASAP.0 -
Is my Company Blog Causing issues?
We have a company blog. IE companydomain.com/blog/. Much of the content is unrelated to what we do. So why do we do it? Cover local topics that our customers may be interested in and searching for. Get them in the back door so to speak. Link bait, social sharing etc Develop a marketing culture that's engaged always learning. Customers get to know the people behind the company. Here's my Pickle If i sub domain or separate the site entirely, i won't benefit from all the juice we're generating. If i keep the status quo, since much of the content isn't directly related to my "category", logic tells me that i could be diluting my website in Googles prying eyes. Feedback PLEASE.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | schmeetz0 -
Diagnosing duplicate content issues
We recently made some updates to our site, one of which involved launching a bunch of new pages. Shortly afterwards we saw a significant drop in organic traffic. Some of the new pages list similar content as previously existed on our site, but in different orders. So our question is, what's the best way to diagnose whether this was the cause of our ranking drop? My current thought is to block the new directories via robots.txt for a couple days and see if traffic improves. Is this a good approach? Any other suggestions?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jamesti0 -
Sudden rank drop for 1 keyword
A page of mine (http://loginhelper.com/networks/facebook-login/) was ranking in the top 10 for keyword (facebook login) and has been for at least 2 months, moving between 5th and 10th. Suddenly in the last 3 days the rank for the keyword dropped from 7th to 46th, yet none of the other keywords have been affected (they target other pages) and their ranks have continued to improve. I am trying to figure out what caused this sudden drop in the ranking of 1 page (the page has quality mainly text based content and isn't in the least bit shallow or spammy) I have been thinking perhaps a crawl or server error may be to cause leaving the page temporarily unavailable or with a big load time... Otherwise what could cause one page to drop so much so quickly whilst other pages improved their rank?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Netboost0