Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • SEO Q&A
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • Case Studies
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      What is your Brand Authority?
      Moz

      What is your Brand Authority?

      Check yours now
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • SEO Q&A

        Insights & discussions from an SEO community of 500,000+.

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • Case Studies

        Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. Page Rank Worse After Optimization

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Page Rank Worse After Optimization

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    2
    6
    969
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • dkeipper
      dkeipper last edited by

      For a long time, we had terrible on page SEO. No keyword targeting, no meta titles or descriptions. Just a brief 2-4 sentence product description and shipping information. Strangely, we weren't ranking too bad. For one product, we were ranking on page 1 of Google for a certain keyword.

      My goal to reach the top of page 1 would be easy (or so I thought).

      I have now optimized this page to rank better for the same keyword. I have a 276 word description with detailed specifications and shipping information. I have a strong title and meta description with keywords and modifers. I have also included a video demonstration, additional photos and an PDF of the owners manual.

      In my eyes, the page is 100% better than it ever was. In the eyes of MOZ, it's better also. I've got an A with the On-Page Grader.

      Why is this page now ranking on page 8 of Google? What have I done wrong? What can I do to correct it?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • dkeipper
        dkeipper @DirkC last edited by

        Thanks Dirk -

        I will try out your suggestions and let you know my results.  I appreciate your help.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • DirkC
          DirkC @dkeipper last edited by

          Hi Dustin

          I checked the last example a bit more in detail:

          Webpagetest indicates that his page is even heavier than the one I tested the first time - results here: http://www.webpagetest.org/result/150501_XQ_Q1H/ (load time ok - but page way to heavy)- page speed analyser results are not terrific either. Check also the links on the page - a lot of your css files seemed to be 301 to a new location - it's better to call directly the final location. Optimising shouldn't be too difficult - compressing images, js,..etc should really increase your scores.

          Also on the technical side, probably good to clean the code a bit. You don't really have to pass the W3C validator test, but it seems your page generates a awful lot of errors.

          From a content perspective - looks good. A remark could be that a lot of content is not directly visible when loading the page (read more, tabs). Google announced end of 2014 that they don't really like content that is hidden when the page is loaded (https://www.seroundtable.com/google-hidden-tab-content-seo-19489.html). Don't really think this would cause a drop - but it's something you could consider changing if you modify the HTML code.

          Hope this helps,

          Dirk

          dkeipper 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • dkeipper
            dkeipper @DirkC last edited by

            Hi Dirk -

            It's actually another website, not included in my profile.  
            The page is: http://www.1-800-shaved-ice.com/simply-a-blast-snow-cone-machine.html

            I did the same optimization with some other pages, and we are ranked number 1 on the first page.  These are the pages that have done extremely well.
            http://www.1-800-shaved-ice.com/c-hc-8e.html
            http://www.1-800-shaved-ice.com/swanblocshav.html

            Thanks for your feedback

            DirkC 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • DirkC
              DirkC last edited by

              Hi Dustin,

              If the site is the one mentioned in your profile - it's almost certain that it's a speed/performance issue. I checked one product page - and grade from google for desktop is 49/100 - 67/100 for mobile. Webpage test indicates the page size of 2700K - mainly images, javascript & flash. It should not be to difficult to improve these scores - optimising the images & the js will help a lot.

              rgds,

              Dirk

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • DirkC
                DirkC last edited by

                This can have different reasons - without having the actual example it's difficult to assess. Based on the info you give, adding all this content, video, images, it could be that your page became a lot heavier to load (check the page on webpagetest.org and with pagespeed insights). May be you exaggerated a bit with the optimisation - and is Google considering the page a bit too spammy.

                If possible, can you give the actual url of the page?

                rgds,

                Dirk

                dkeipper 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • 1 / 1
                • First post
                  Last post

                Got a burning SEO question?

                Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                Start my free trial


                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.

                • See all categories

                Related Questions

                • HomeVaultPM

                  Local SEO - ranking the same page for multiple locations

                  Hi everyone, I am aware that issue of local SEO has been approached numerous times, but the situation that I'm dealing with is slightly different, so I'd love to receive your expert advice. I'm running the website of a property management company which services multiple locations (www.homevault.com). From our local offices in the city center, we also service neighboring towns and communities ( ex: we have an office in Charlotte NC, from which we service Charlotte plus a dozen other towns nearby). We wanted to avoid creating dozens of extra local service pages, particularly since our offers are identical per metropolitan area and we're talking of 20-30 additional local pages for each area. Instead, we decided to create local service pages only for the main locations. Needless to say, we're now ranking for the main locations, but we're missing on all searches for property management in neighboring towns (we're doing good on searches such as 'charlotte property management', but we're practically invisible for 'davidson property management', although we're searvicing that area as well). What we've done so far to try and fix the situation: 1. The current location pages do include descriptions of areas that we serve. 2. We've included 1-2 keywords for the sattelite locations in the main location pages, but we're nowhere near the optimization needed to rank for local searches in neighboring towns (ie, some main local service pages rank on pages 2-4 for sattelite towns, so not good enough). 3. We've included the searviced areas in our local GMBs, directories, social media profiles etc. None of these solutions appear to work great. Should I go ahead and create the classic local pages for each and every town and optimize them on those particular keywords, even if the offer is practically the same, and the number of pages risks going out of control? Any other better ideas? Many thanks in advance!

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HomeVaultPM
                  0
                • Kingalan1

                  Will Reduced Bounce Rate, Increased Pages/Session, Increased Session Duration-RESULT IN BETTER RANKING?

                  Our relaunched website has a much lower bounce rate (66% before, now 58%) increased pages per session (1.89 before, now 3.47) and increased session duration (1:33 before, now 3:47). The relaunch was December 20th. Should these improvements result in an improvement in Google rank? How about in MOZ authority? We have not significantly changed the content of the site but the UX has been greatly improved. Thanks, Alan

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan1
                  1
                • JimJ

                  Does having alot of pages with noindex and nofollow tags affect rankings?

                  We are an e-commerce marketplace at for alternative fashion and home decor. We have over 1000+ stores on the marketplace.  Early this year, we switched the website from HTTP to HTTPS in March 2018 and also added noindex and nofollow tags to the store about page and store policies (mostly boilerplate content) Our traffic dropped by 45% and we have since not recovered. We have done I am wondering could these tags be affecting our rankings?

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JimJ
                  1
                • mgordon

                  Onsite Videos- Multiple on a Single Page- How to Optimize?

                  I have a specific page which needs multiple videos.  A primary video of the client (Youtube Video) and two secondary videos with patient testimonials (Wistia Videos). Here is the actual page: https://www.johnbarrasdds.com/houston-tmj-dentist/ My understanding is Google only values the first video on a page.  Is this accurate and either way what is the best practice for how to post the second group of videos and gain SEO value? Thanks!

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mgordon
                  0
                • Online-Marketing-Guy

                  Substantial difference between Number of Indexed Pages and Sitemap Pages

                  Hey there, I am doing a website audit at the moment. I've notices substantial differences in the number of pages indexed (search console), the number of pages in the sitemap and the number I am getting when I crawl the page with screamingfrog (see below). Would those discrepancies concern you? The website and its rankings seems fine otherwise. Total indexed: 2,360 (Search Consule)
                  About 2,920 results (Google search "site:example.com")
                  Sitemap: 1,229 URLs
                  Screemingfrog Spider: 1,352 URLs Cheers,
                  Jochen

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Online-Marketing-Guy
                  0
                • BeytzNet

                  Do Page Views Matter? (ranking factor?)

                  Hi, I actually asked it a year and a half ago (with a slight variation) but didn't get any real response and things do change over time. On my eCommerce website I have the main category pages with client side filtering and sorting. As a result, the number of page views is lower than can be expected. Do you think having more page views is still a ranking factor? and if so is it more important than user experience? Thanks

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet
                  1
                • Kingalan1

                  Effect of Removing Footer Links In all Pages Except Home Page

                  Dear MOZ Community: In an effort to improve the user interface of our business website (a New York CIty commercial real estate agency) my designer eliminated a standardized footer containing links to about 20 pages. The new design maintains this footer on the home page, but all other pages (about 600 eliminate the footer). The new design does a very good job eliminating non essential items. Most of the changes remove or reduce the size of unnecessary design elements. The footer removal is the only change really effect the link structure. The new design is not launched yet. Hoping to receive some good advice from the MOZ community before proceeding My concern is that removing these links could have an adverse or unpredictable effect on ranking. Last Summer we launched a completely redesigned version of the site and our ranking collapsed for 3 months. However unlike the previous upgrade this modifications does not URL names, tags, text or any major element. Only major change is the footer removal. Some of the footer pages provide good (not critical) info for visitors. Note the footer will still appear on the home page but will be removed on the interior pages. Are we risking any detrimental ranking effect by removing this footer? Can we compensate by adding text links to these pages if the links from the footer are removed? Seems irregular to have a home page footer but no footer on the other pages. Are we inviting any downgrade, penalty, adverse SEO effect by implementing this? I very much like the new design but do not want to risk a fall in rank and traffic. Thanks for your input!!!
                  Alan

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan1
                  0
                • HD_Leona

                  Blocking Pages Via Robots, Can Images On Those Pages Be Included In Image Search

                  Hi! I have pages within my forum where visitors can upload photos.  When they upload photos they provide a simple statement about the photo but no real information about the image,definitely not enough for the page to be deemed worthy of being indexed.  The industry however is one that really leans on images and having the images in Google Image search is important to us. The url structure is like such:  domain.com/community/photos/~username~/picture111111.aspx I wish to block the whole folder from Googlebot to prevent these low quality pages from being added to Google's main SERP results.  This would be something like this: User-agent: googlebot Disallow: /community/photos/ Can  I disallow Googlebot specifically rather than just using User-agent:  * which would then allow googlebot-image to pick up the photos?  I plan on configuring a way to add meaningful alt attributes and image names to assist in visibility, but the actual act of blocking the pages and getting the images picked up... Is this possible? Thanks! Leona

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HD_Leona
                  0

                Get started with Moz Pro!

                Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                Start my free trial
                Products
                • Moz Pro
                • Moz Local
                • Moz API
                • Moz Data
                • STAT
                • Product Updates
                Moz Solutions
                • SMB Solutions
                • Agency Solutions
                • Enterprise Solutions
                Free SEO Tools
                • Domain Authority Checker
                • Link Explorer
                • Keyword Explorer
                • Competitive Research
                • Brand Authority Checker
                • MozBar Extension
                • MozCast
                Resources
                • Blog
                • SEO Learning Center
                • Help Hub
                • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                • How-to Guides
                • Moz Academy
                • API Docs
                About Moz
                • About
                • Team
                • Careers
                • Contact
                Why Moz
                • Case Studies
                • Testimonials
                Get Involved
                • Become an Affiliate
                • MozCon
                • Webinars
                • Practical Marketer Series
                • MozPod
                Connect with us

                Contact the Help team

                Join our newsletter
                Moz logo
                © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                • Accessibility
                • Terms of Use
                • Privacy

                Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.