My site fell off the serps for two keywords I tried to optimize the home page for
-
I was doing some keyword research about 45 days ago and stumbled across two keywords that I was ranking in the mid hundreds and decided I wanted to see if I could rank them.
I went in and changed my title to my blog, and the description. Then about a week later I changed my mind and wanted to go for two other keywords so I changed it again.
Then within a day or two, my site completely fell off the serps for those two key words that I changed the title to optimize for.
None of my other rankings were effected for any of the other keywords, in fact most of my keywords have risen because of recent backlinking.
I thought it was just a temporary google bounce because I was playing with my title of my blog or something, but after almost two months I am still nowhere to be found for words that I should easily at least be in the top 1000, especially because I was at about 150 by accident.
Anyone have any ideas on what might have happened?
Thanks.
-
Hey Ryan, thanks for the tips. However as I mentioned I know I haven't done any on page optimization for those terms.
I was already in the serps, then updated my title tags a few times while I was doing different keyword searches and then changing my mind. Then I disappeared from the serps.
So I guess I should have been more clear. I am wondering if there is some sort of google penalty for changing your main title tags around too much. I don't think there is, but if I am not going to get back for those terms no matter what I do, I didn't want to spend time trying to optimize for those if it was pointless.
It is just weird that I was at least in the results and as soon as I was going to optimize and changed the title and description, then bam I was totally gone. Thought maybe someone would have a guess, but if not, I can move forward and optimize for those and give it a month and see if I show back up.
-
I don't understand why you feel your site would rank at all for the two terms you selected. They are not used once in your content.
Simply adding a title to a page does not help your SERP if you do not have supporting content. In fact, I would expect the exact result you are experiencing.
You have many opportunities to improve your page ranking for those terms. Here are some quick changes you can make:
-
Use those exact phrases in your content a few times.
-
Use anchor text elsewhere in your site to link back to your home page.
-
Change your anchor text on your home page to something helpful. "Read more" is not going to help get the results you desire.
-
Work on improving your ALT tags to helpful key word phrases
Without these changes, your site will simply not appear in the top 1000 in my opinion. A final thought. Focus on a long tail key phrase which can land your site on the first page. Improving your ranking from 150 to 40 isn't really helpful. You are still buried in the pile and are unlikely to be found.
-
-
see above for the site. How do I look back at the cache? It has been over a month and still hasn't shown back up in the top 1000
-
It would be so very helpful if you could share your site and the keywords.
On a few occasions I offered generic answers to this type of question, then when the original poster shared their site information, the root issue was something quite different.
-
It's always tough to say without seeing the site. As you know, so many variables are involved. That is strange & it would be helpful to look back at the cache to see which one it picked up before you dropped off those specific SERPs. My guess is you'll be back where you started within a few days.
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
-
How long does it take for historical data to show up when optimizing a new keyword?
How long does it take for historical data to show up (and rank and score) when optimizing a new keyword?
Keyword Research | | DigitalFunctionalism0 -
Finding main keywords associated with a competitors page
A key part of my content creation decision is identifying keywords that have been successful for competitors. Ahrefs has a feature that allows me to see the keywords that have resulted in organic traffic for a particular page. So, for example, I can identify CompanyA as a competitor, find their top pages and, for each one, find the keywords that drove the most traffic to each of those pages. The information reported includes the monthly search volumes associated with each keyword, plus the number of visits driven to the page based on that keyword. That is very interesting to me. I am a long time Moz subscriber and want to find a way to do this here. Is there any way to do this with Moz features? I can't justify both a Moz and AHrefs subscription so I have a tough choice to make if Moz doesnt' support this. I'm hoping I am just missing that here. Thanks. Mark
Keyword Research | | MarkWill0 -
SEO for ecommerce site. Where do I start?!
Hello! New pro member here that's very excited yet overwhelmed about working with a large e-commerce site for photo gear. I've already read the SEOMoz beginner's guide, but we have about 4k products online, and I've been researching and researching but am feeling more confused than ever on where to start. It seems that most SEO help articles I read are based around optimizing a couple of keywords for a site that provides a general service, but where do you begin when you have 4k products? I've been trying to start with the products that get the most traffic and least conversions. But even then it's overwhelming--which keywords do I choose? And with products like Polaroid film where we have several similar products--how do I know which keyword to use for each product page? This is a hugely broad question, but ANY advice on where to start would be so insanely appreciated. I'm a one-woman show completely new to this world. I can't wrap my head around optimizing certain product pages, and keyword research is even more baffling. Any articles you've found helpful? Or advice? I'm floundering!
Keyword Research | | amorby0 -
Best way to find what key phrases to optimize my site for.
What is the best tool to find out what key phrases to optimize my site for? I have been using Google's Adwords keyword suggestion tool for a long time but thought there might be something better out there. Thanks mozzers! Ron
Keyword Research | | Ron100 -
Specific Keyword Ranking Advice
Hi Folks, We're trying to optimize the page (http://alabu.com/goat-milk-soap/) for the keyword "goat milk soap". Our page used to rank #1 before Panda (actually our home page did, not the page I'm trying to optimize on now). Now we're around rank 25. I've followed all the guidelines for on-page optimization I know, and I've done everything I can think of. We're currently executing a link building campaign but that obviously takes time. Does anyone have any advice? Is there anything else I can do to improve our ranking? Thanks, Hal
Keyword Research | | AlabuSkinCare0 -
Keywords and Rank Checker Tool
Two questions about checking the rank of keywords. The easiest way to say this is by example. I have a keyword that SEOMOZ ranks on google in the 32nd position but when I look for that keyword in Google it's nowhere to be found (it's buried deep in the results pages somewhere). Where does SEOMOZ get its keyword results from? How do I non-localize my browser so I can see "global" keyword results? Is there such a thing? thanks in advance.
Keyword Research | | dpdeleon10 -
Bulk keyword competition tool?
The SEOmoz Keyword Difficulty tool is great, but the 5 keyword limit is too small. I need a tool that will allow checking the organic competition level of 100's of keywords (to help in selecting blog topics). Anyone know of such a tool?
Keyword Research | | AdamThompson1 -
Keywords abuse?
WE are using the best keywords all over our eStore: Furnace Filter and Furnace Filters. Is it abusing when we list items like: 10x20x1 furnace filter 10x20x2furnace filter 10x20x4 furnace filter and so on... we have almost 100 different filters on sale. see example: http://www.furnacefilterscanada.com/categories/Furnace-Filter-See-All/ Thank you for your help BigBlaze
Keyword Research | | BigBlaze2050