No longer to be found for "certain" keywords.
-
I'd like to see if anyone could potentially shade a light on this rather strange scenario:
Basically yesterday I noticed that we are no longer to be found for 'certain' keywords that we had page 2-3 ranking. Yet, for other keywords we still appear on page 2-3. These keywords are very competitive and our rankings has constantly improved in the course of 5-6 months.
Now my question is that what could or may have contributed to the fact that for only some keywords we are no longer to be found? Another question is, can Google remove you from their SERPs for certain keywords 'only'? Thank you,
Maximilian. -
Thank you once again. I will get in touch with you. Please PM your contact details. We are located in downtown Manhattan.
-
Strategies for dealing with external duplicate content are overviewed here.
A much bigger concern is duplicating your OWN content. I know it sounds kind of silly, but it is a very real issue, especially since Google's most recent update (Panda). Is there more than one URL for any page on your website? Does http://website.com direct to http://www.website.com? Do you have canonicalization problems related to pagination or something similar?
These issues are discussed in-depth here.
If you think that your issues may be related to on-site or site architecture factors, the best thing you can do is hire a qualified SEO consultant that can assess these issues and make actionable recommendations for correcting them.
-
Anthony, our website has been online since 2002 and we have been getting organic quality backlinks for a very long time. Directory submission was just added literally 4 weeks in an effort to 'add more value'. It was never intended to use it as the only source, but just was an effort to increase the rankings. Who knew it would or could potentially backfire.
On another note, you mentioned that duplicate content may cause this issue. Our content is very reach and well-written and there are a number of sites who have copied/pasted our content. Despite all of our efforts and having had contacted their hosting companies to shut down their website, no changes have been made. Now my question is, do we get affected if "others" have copied our content on their website? Does Google have any algorithmic to define which site has copied which sites data?
Thank you once again for your insightful information.
-
Maximilian -
If Google has devalued some of your links, there's no way to "recover" these links. That's the bad news.
The good news is that this happens to websites every day, and it's not by any means a permanent penalization or anything of that sort. All it means is that the time and effort spent to build these links was squandered.
What can you do to speed up your recovery? Switch the way you think about link building. Directory submissions are useful, but they shouldn't by any means comprise the majority of your link building strategy.
I would suggest reading this article cover to cover. It will teach you the proper mindset you should have when approaching linkbuilding, and it will give you dozens and dozens of ideas to get started with building high quality links from relevant, authoritative domains.
Replace directory submissions with strategies like writing guest blog posts, creating amazing content (linkbait) and subsequently promoting it on social media and social bookmarking websites, and/or creating a widget that would be an invaluable addition to any website in your industry. All of these are covered under the "Content-Based Link Building Strategies" section of the SEOmoz Professional Guide to Linkbuilding that is linked to above.
-
"You have been building low quality links and they have been devalued by Google, causing you to lose hundreds (thousands?) of keyword-rich backlinks."
Anthony, thank you for your response. The above statement could potentially be the source of issue, considering one of our staff members been doing directory submissions (30 per day).
Now you mentioned that Google may have devalued the high-quality banklinks that have had due to gaining low quality backlinks. In your experience, what can be done to resolve this issue? Is this devaluation something permanent or a temporary? What can be done to speed up the recovery?
Thank you in advance.
-
There are tons of reasons why your website might see a drop in rankings for certain keywords. Here are a few:
-
Increased competition in your niche pushed your website down as new websites started to rank above you.
-
You have been building low quality links and they have been devalued by Google, causing you to lose hundreds (thousands?) of keyword-rich backlinks.
-
Your website has been affected by a Google algorithm update. For one reason or another (duplicate content? shallow or nonexistent content on some pages? too many ads / too big of a "footprint"?), your website is being seen as less trustworthy, and this has affected rankings sitewide. (Note, some rankings would be maintained, particularly for keywords with low competition.)
-
You were logged into your Google account when you saw these rankings, and your website was appearing higher than it typically does because of your personalized search data. When you logged out and checked your rankings, you noticed a "drop" in ranking that was not actually real. (Okay, this one is unlikely, but we've all seen it before.)
-
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
-
Keywords in URL
I have an ecommerce store and i am using moz to get it into the best seo situation... my question is this..... I want to know how important it is to have the targeted keyword actually in the product page url.... I working on meta title and description which is good, but if i start changing all my product urls, it has major impact on the work i have to do since i would have to redo all my product links in ads, and all my product urls in emails, etc. So how much of a part do the urls play in seo?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bkhoward20010 -
Difference keyword and co-occurence
Could someone explain me what the difference between a keyword and a co-occurence is ? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Is it better to optimise for several keywords/keyword variations on one page, or create sub categories for those specific terms?
I've done a fair of research to try to find the answer to this, but different people seem to give very different opinions, and none of the info I could find is recent! I'm working with a company that produces a range of industrial products that fit into 6 main categories, within this categories, there are types of products and the products themselves. Prior to my involvement most of the content was added to the product pages and very little was added to the overall category page. The structure works like this: Electronic devices > type of device > products The 'type of device' category could be something like a switch, but within that category are 3/4 different switch types...leaving me with 11 or 12 primary keyword/phrases to aim for as each switch is searched for in more than one way. Should I try to rank for all of those terms using that one category page? Or should I change the structure to something like: Electronic devices > type of device > sub-category/specific variation of device > product This would mean creating a page for each variation to have a more accute focus for a small number of phrases..but it also means I've added another step between the home page and the products. Any advice is welcome! I'm worried I'm overthinking it!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Adam_SEO_Learning0 -
Are "Powered By..." type footer backlinks good or bad for SEO?
Hi guys, We're running a software company which is also selling WP themes amongst other things. We've heard recently that footer backlinks like "Powered by BigBangThemes" might do more harm than good. Some clients usually forget to change them - so we want to make sure we stop including them in case this is true. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | andy.bigbangthemes0 -
Can I Use Multiple rel="alternate" Tags on Multiple Domains With the Same Language?
Hoping someone can answer this for me, as I have spent a ton of time researching with no luck... Is there anything misleading/wrong with using multiple rel="alternate" tags on a single webpage to reference multiple alternate versions? We currently use this tag to specify a mobile-equivalent page (mobile site served on an m. domain), but would like to expand so that we can cover another domain for desktop (possibly mobile in the future). In essence: MAIN DOMAIN would get The "Other Domain" would then use Canonical to point back to the main site. To clarify, this implementation idea is for an e-commerce site that maintains the same product line across 2 domains. One is homogeneous with furniture & home decor, which is a sub-set of products on our "main" domain that includes lighting, furniture & home decor. Any feedback or guidance is greatly appreciated! Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | LampsPlus0 -
Why is "Noindex" better than a "Canonical" for Pagination?
"Noindex" is a suggested pagination technique here: http://searchengineland.com/the-latest-greatest-on-seo-pagination-114284, and everyone seems to agree that you shouldn't canonicalize all pages in a series to the first page, but I'd love if someone can explain why "noindex" is better than a canonical?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0 -
My home page is not found by the "Grade a Page" tool
My home page as well as several important pages are not found by the Grade a Page tool. With our full https address I got this http://screencast.com/t/s1gESMlGwpa With just the www address I got this http://screencast.com/t/BMRHy36Ih https://www.joomlashack.com
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | etabush
https://www.joomlashack.com/joomla-templates We recently lost a lot of positions for our most important keyword: Joomla Templates Please help us figure this out. Whats screwy with our site?0 -
How to Target Keyword Permutations
I have a client that wants to rank for a keyword phrase that has many permutations.. ex. "Alaska Hill Country Resort", "Hill Country Resort Alaska", "Hill Country Alaska Resort" But I'm wondering if I should target these all on the same page or not. I'm assuming all of these permutations are actually valid searches because I did my keyword research for 'exact match' keywords and got results like this.. (let me know if I'm missing something here, or if this sounds right) [Alaska Hill Country Resort] - 230 Local Searches [Hill Country Resort Alaska] - 140 Local Searches [Hill Country Alaska Resort] - 30 Local Searches The phrase we're targeting is their main keyword phrase, so I've chosen their home-page as the page to rank for this phrase. My thought is to optimize for the most popular phrase (ex. "Alaska Hill Country Resort"), and sprinkle in the other phrases throughout the copy. Next I would run a link-building campaign targeting the main phrase first.. then the next phrase, and so on, so that my anchor text is more heavily focused on the more popular terms, but I would also make sure to include the less popular terms. Do you think this is the best way to go about this? Do I really need to make individual pages for each of the permutations, or is it okay to target them all on one page since they are essentially the same keyword?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ATMOSMarketing560