Why sudden change in rankings?
-
I have been working on a domain for site which has only been up for a few months. I have mainly been working on building trust and authority for the site, with only a few links to my keyword phrases, which I was saving for the end, and concentrating on good quality non-spammy type links.
It was progressing nicely until last weekend when I went from the first page on Google to the 3rd and 4th pages.
Was there some kind of update?
-
I did slack off the link pace, waiting to see what would happen when it was digested but thought itmight stay up there as the phrase I'm competing for is quite niche oriented.
-
I think Andy explained it pretty well.
New sites do tend to get a temporal boost, as well as new links (I believe Rand did a great post on SEOMoz about temporal links but I can't seem to find it). The issue may be that you didn't keep up the link pace, so it went back down to where it should be for the time being.
If it is a fairly competitive term that you are talking about I wouldn't be that surprised, as 2-3 months usually won't be enough for a brand new site/domain to rank for the bigger phrases. Give it a few more months of steady link/content building and you should see some positive results.
I'm sure most SEO people here can share a story where they had the temporary boost and crossed their fingers hoping that maybe it isn't temporary only to see it go down a few pages.
-
Just about every site when starting out gets an initial boost - I have seen this dozens of times. You appear quite highly ranked for a while and then suddenly drop.
This is nothing more than Google putting the site where it really belongs. I wouldn't worry about it at all, but this is quite common. If you think about it, Google placing a site first page in just a few short months is pretty much unheard of.
I can't imagine that the addition of links at this early stage would be responsible for the drop as the site is still young.
Just keep concentrating on good (non reciprocal) links from trusted sites and keep the content flowing.
Regards,
Andy
-
For the most part, yes.
-
Are the directories links that your competition ahead of you has as well?
-
Yes, some directory links but they were there before the drop. No paid content, no duplicate content, no canonicalization issues.
-
Were the links you have obtained already directory or paid links? Usually a drop in ranking will mean that Google has penalized you for paid links or duplicate content (especially after the recent Panda update). Make sure that your pages are canonicalized correctly also.
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
-
Sudden ranking Hike For domain
Hello there, I have domain Which got penalized By google Before 2 nd half years & all First Page Ranking Gone Down by 7-8 pages, But Now It got Sudden up after 3 years, So my Question is Will I need Worry or that Can Be Positive Sign For My efforts Given to Website? Will It stay Up?? As i have Updated My website As Told by Moz experts. Thanx, in advance
Technical SEO | | innovative10030 -
Change category of a post
Hi, Finally I decide to renovate my site structure, but I have a question, if I have an old post and I change its category there is some SEO problem? The post permalink is "www.sitename.com/namepost". Last question, it's better to have one category for post or more than one category for post? Thank You
Technical SEO | | Marco3961 -
Secure HTTP Change - No Links in WMT
Website was changed over to secure HTTP about twp months ago. Just looked in Google Webmaster Tools and it only shows about 8 inbound links. We did a permanent 301 redirect for all URLs. There are over 800 links according to Open Site Explorer. Is it just that they are showing only the HTTPS inbound links? Should I add the HTTPS version in WMT? Thanks for any assistance
Technical SEO | | EBI0 -
Google Not Recognizing Domain Name Change
It has been over a month since we have switch https://www.iwdextensions.com
Technical SEO | | lsujoe
to
https://www.iwdagency.com/extensions/ Yet Google is still ranking the old domain name in their search results. https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=iwd extensions Are we doing something wrong or does it take Google more than a month to update their results for this type of change? We have 301 redirected the old url to the new one and submitted a domain name change in GWT. Let me know your thoughts!0 -
Are these redirects damaging my rankings
Hi, just been going through my google webmaster tools and i have found a number of soft 404 errors and was shocked to see these redirects going to my home page. | URL | Response Code | Detected |
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-184886
| --- | --- | --- |<colgroup><col style="width: 45px;"><col style="width: 80px;"><col><col style="width: 120px;"><col style="width: 90px;"></colgroup>
| | 1 | staging1/jupgrade2/component/k2/item/475-gastric-band-hypnotherapy-expert-says-government-are-not-doing-enough-to-fight-obesity | | 7/25/13 |
| | 2 | staging1/jupgrade2/category-menu/item/1068-coronation-street-nick-proposes-to-leanne | | 7/28/13 |
| | 3 | staging1/jupgrade2/category-menu/item/1086-coronation-street-fiz-nearly-gets-tyrone-in-trouble-with-kirsty | | 7/28/13 |
| | 4 | staging1/jupgrade2/category-menu/item/1155-coronation-street-kylie-considers-telling-david-about-her-affair | | 7/28/13 |
| | 5 | staging1/jupgrade2/category-menu/item/1157-coronation-street-fiz-is-worried-when-kirsty-pays-her-a-visit | | 7/28/13 |
| | 6 | staging1/jupgrade2/component/k2/item/750-actress-hilary-duff-is-sued-over-car-accident | | 7/25/13 |
| | 7 | staging1/jupgrade2/component/k2/item/843-what-your-dogs-bottom-scooting-behaviour%E2%80%99-really-meansI would have thought that the developer who upgraded my site would have either had these blocked or directed them to the correct page. i am now guessing that there are going to be hundreds of these appearing and would like some serious advice.normally with old pages i would have them going to the relevant articles or pages but it seems the developer has redirected hundreds of these to my home page, which i guess is going to confuse google. i would like to know if this will confuse google have all these pages going to my home page.i have tried to find out where the developer in my site has redirected the pages as they are not in my htaccess file, i use joomla.can anyone let me know what i should be doing with these to solve the problemmany thanks |0 -
Google is changing the title
Hi! Lately i have seen that Google changed the page titles for some clients, not all... its about 30% of them. For example, the title looks likes this after the Google change: Company name: SEO and Pay per click management But in on that page it looks like this: SEO and Pay per click management - Company name Does anyone know why?
Technical SEO | | DanielNordahl1 -
How to rank lower, fast....
Probably the complete opposite to all the questions asked on here before hehe One of my online stores is ranking in Google at no2 for a service we used to offer but no longer do as we do not have the contract anymore.We need to derank the listing as fast as we can we do not offer this service now. Normally we could just get google to deindex the page but it's the homepage we are ranking. It is ranking due to a good collection of exact match backlinks on. Have been trying to get our page off the first page for a couple of months but it appears that we did too good a job of getting it up there...it's not moving! Anyone have a suggestion please on how we can get off page one asap for this keyword without deindexing the homepage for our store? note: the keyword in question has not appeared on the site for a couple of months, removing that has had no impact on the ranking Thanks
Technical SEO | | Grumpy_Carl1 -
Syndicated Posts Not Ranking, Possible Solutions?
All, We used to allow users of our legal information site to syndicate content that was published in identical form on their blogs and, in some cases, other sites as well. No surprise that post-Panda, we're not ranking for those syndicated posts, they offer very little value. We still boast a very nice library of original content that drives traffic, however, I'm concerned that those lingering syndicated posts are bringing down our overall domain authority/credibility. Right now, syndicated posts account for roughly 25%-30% of overall site content. I'd like your opinions as to whether I should: 1. Delete the syndicated posts and 301 to an original page; 2. Do nothing 3. Do something I've yet to think of Any insight is welcomed! John
Technical SEO | | JSOC0