My websites position has dropped, any ideas why?
-
Hi,
First off im new here, so hello to everyone.
Now to the reason why I have joined.
I am currently trying to rank for 2 terms:
**UK Bank Holidays 2013 (Term 1) **and Bank Holidays 2013 (Term 2)
The page which im trying to rank these terms on is:
http://www.followuk.co.uk/bank-holidays
Now some background history:
On the 29th Dec 2013, term 1 was 5th and term 2 was 7th - rankings achieved through guest blogging.
Last night I changed the h1 tag from 'Bank Holidays 2013' to 'UK Bank Holidays 2013'.
Re-worded the meta description to try and increase the CTR.
And removed the term 'Bank Holiday' from the end of each sub-heading - Ex: 'New Year's Day Bank Holiday' to 'New Year's Day' - I did this because I felt it was to much so in total 'Bank Holiday' term had been removed from 5 sub-headings.
Ok, so I went into WMT and resubmitted for indexing, over night the page got reindexed - the term 'UK Bank Holidays 2013' stayed at the same position (5) BUT the 'Bank Holidays 2013' term dropped into hell at roughly position 250.
I'm thinking of changing everything back and crossing my fingers that term which dropped comes back BUT maybe im being to rash and it might jump back as the page stands.
I did a grade test using SEOMOZ and both terms generate a grade of 'A'.
Has anyone got any ideas? Sorry if the thread is a bit messy im currently crying all over the keyboard as im typing.
Thanks
-
"The guest blogging I did was through the MyBlogGuest system so 99% of the time links are do-follow.
Roughly 15 guest posts have been put up, the anchor text was split from 'UK Bank Holidays 2013' to 'Bank Holidays 2013' so roughly 8 each."
I made an assumption regarding the links you built as being manipulative, and based on your feedback so far it is likely I am correct. Can you post a link to one of the blog articles you wrote?
Regarding your traffic / ranking drop, it could have happened due to the changes you made or your links being devalued as manipulative or other factors. The links are my largest concern at this point.
-
Uh thanks for coming to have a look Ryan much appreciated.
The page itself is roughly 2 months old.
The guest blogging I did was through the MyBlogGuest system so 99% of the time links are do-follow.
Roughly 15 guest posts have been put up, the anchor text was split from 'UK Bank Holidays 2013' to 'Bank Holidays 2013' so roughly 8 each.
I am a little confused with your statement about guest blogging because I thought guest blogging was a good way of generating good links, I have seen a few videos from Matt Cutts and Rand on this subject but maybe I am doing the wrong type of guest blogging.
I understand what your saying about flux and term positions for different locations but I have consistently generated 50 visits a day from the term 'Bank Holidays 2013' and in the last 24 hours this has dropped to 0.
If it is as you say and it's just the way the cookie crumbles im fine with that and I know I need to generate more auth links but my worries are have I effected the ranking from the content changes I made, by the sounds of what your saying probably not.
Thanks again Ryan for looking into this.
-
You are trying to manage SEO as you would a PPC campaign. SEO does not work in this manner.
How old is this web page? New web pages naturally bounce around in SERPs as Google tests the performance.
What kind of "guest blogging" did you do? It is highly likely any links you created to your site via a guest blog was either nofollow, in which case it does not directly benefit your SERP results, or is viewed as a manipulative link in which case the link is more likely to harm your site rather then help it.
Google rankings are not static. They are influenced by your location, which Google site you are using, your browsing history, and much more. You may see yourself in #5 where another person might not see you at all for the same term. I am not suggesting you completely ignore rankings, but neither should you use them as the holy grail. Examine your traffic.
With the above noted, I see your results in Google.co.uk as follows:
uk bank holidays 2013 #5
uk bank holiday #9
uk bank holidays #7
bank holiday 2013 #6
bank holidays 2013 - not in top 50
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
-
Redirecting Old Websites to New Websites
Hi Everyone, We are about to take down a number of websites in favour of a new singular B2B hub and would be looking to redirect all of these sites to the new home. For SEO purposes, what would be the best way to do this? Due to the difference in setups and scale of the site, it would be difficult to correctly match up each page to page between the sites for individual 301 redirects. Could someone advise on the best plan of action? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | chbiz0 -
Most important things for seo a travel website
Hello everyone a website working on travel field with this address : https://goo.gl/4gaoAn Let me know what do you think about it and please give me some advises about it get improve on google rankings. If you be able to take time and give me some advises based on what you see on the website, would be great for me. Also what would work best for me to have a great link building strategy after penguin 4.0 update? and what does my site lack right now? Thanks and waiting to hear from you asap.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BahadorGh0 -
Coupon websites as affiliates
We recently started using shareasale.com for affiliate marketing and have received literally hundreds of applications from coupon websites wanting to become affiliates. Most we have not approved as the quality of the sites is poor. However, a few sites seem more legitimate. Could having these types of sites harm our seo in any way?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | unikey1 -
Robots.txt issue for international websites
In Google.co.uk, our US based (abcd.com) is showing: A description for this result is not available because of this site's robots.txt – learn more But UK website (uk.abcd.com) is working properly. We would like to disappear .com result totally, if possible. How to fix it? Thanks in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JinnatUlHasan0 -
301 Redirect from now defunct website?
Hi guys Quick question about 301 redirection between domains. I currently manage a website, lets call it website A. Website A sells a particular product range, however the decision has been made by the powers that be to pull the plug on the business and sell the products previously sold via Website A via another website within the parent companies control.....lets call it Website B. I need to make it clear to customers of Website A that the company no longer operates but want to pass the SEO equity that has been built up over time to the relevant pages on Website B. My plan was to 1. 301 Redirect all key landing pages on Website A to the most relevant pages on Website B 2. Initially keep the website A homepage live but change the message to say "Website A no longer operates, but Website B can help etc. etc." Remove all sub links from navigation. 3. Monitor referral and direct traffic levels and consider 301 redirecting website A homepage to Website B homepage in the long term. My questions: Does this sound like the best approach? If not, what alternatives are there? Will Website A look like a link farm for Website B? I dont want this obviously!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DHS_SH0 -
Rankings dropped - Why?
At the end of November a client site dropped significantly in the rankings. The drop effected almost all the keyphrases we monitor. Historically the homepage has always ranked higher than the sub-pages - however now it seems Google is no longer ranking the home page, and instead ranking the sub-pages, just far far lower down. Any ideas what could cause this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cottamg0 -
How to move website to new domain?
We have a website that has run under the same domain name for the past 10 years. We have built up a decent amount of SEO "mojo" (and traffic) over time, however, the original domain name no longer applies to the business model. A little over 1 year ago we started using a new brand name for the website and created a landing page for that domain name. Everything on that landing page links over to pages on the original domain name (to preserve the SEO value that we have built up over the years). We would like to move all (or most) of the pages/content to the new domain name. Would using 301 redirects be the safest, most effective way of doing this? I have heard of other people doing it this way, and often they will see their traffic drop for a few weeks before it eventually comes back. Anyone else had experience with this? What worked? What didn't? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seo-mojo0 -
Website Restructure - Good or Bad for SEO?
Due to the fact that we aren't in the #1 position, (dropped from #5 to page 2 - You have to love Devs and IT), our heads have hired a SEO Audit/Consultant company to review everything we are doing. I would like to post some of the things they are telling us to do, in which I don't 100% agree with and would like some other professional feedback. Especially since their site isn't marketed very well. http://www.trupanionpetinsurance.com Disclaimer: (this site was a complete nightmare when I started a year and a half ago. Yes, there are many issues that still need to be addressed.) Website Restructure I agree we totally need to restructure our website. I have no idea what the previous SEO guy was thinking. The new SEO company is telling us that the structure is a big part of SEO. I don't believe so, but besides a little loss in 301 juice, is there any other downfalls? Are there any real benefits? Similar question asked the other day (and answered by me): http://www.seomoz.org/q/don-t-want-to-lose-page-rank-what-s-the-best-way-to-restructure-a-url-other-than-a-301-redirect
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Trupanion1