Detective needed to investigate a mystery lack of ranking
-
My URL is: www.graduate-jobs.com/graduate-schemesAfter ranking on page 1 for the search term 'graduate schemes' for over 4 months, the page then disappeared completely from the SERPS for over 6. I've been assured it isn't a Penguin/ Panda problem, as this is the only page on our site that has seen this sort of drop. When checking backlink profiles of the ranking pages, our page is as strong if not stronger and it receives a good amount of traffic with decent user metrics.If anyone could take a look at the page and have a guess at why it isn't moving anywhere, it would be really appreciated.Thanks.
-
Hey Joseph,
You are absolutely right.
Our main aim is always to get registrations to the site and build our database and we try and do this by advertising good jobs that make people want to sign-up!
Thanks for all your help on the matter, if you think of anything else, don't hesitate to let me know.
Cheers.
-
..and just building a better site. you always need to try to maximize the value of a click. What do you want them to do when they land on that page? Where do you want them to go? What are they asking for when they come to that page?
Each page - has a purpose. You want them to sign up to the site? building leads to new jobs? Why not have a form where you send them new types of jobs when you have them posted.. Take a look at http://www.shoemoney.com - he thinks like this: sending out a email is like going to the bank.
build your email list.
GOOD LUCK!
-
Hi Joseph,
Thanks for the tip I will definitely check out that tool.
I see what you are saying about modifying my meta info, I think we stuff graduate a bit too much site-wide, which is something I've started working on.
I suppose I (like most people) was hoping it was a technical error with a quick fix but (like most people) I'm now realising it all comes down to good ole' fashioned link building.
Thanks.
-
but when did it happen? what day? it could also not even be you but the sites you got backlinks from.
Take a look here: http://www.linkdex.com and it will be the best way to get this fixed. When you disvow these links, add comments and group things together. i.e. #possible link network - emailed webmaster joes@email.com - for removal.
#link directory - emailed webmaster@somesite.com
You dont have a lot of back links - and if you do disavow the links and need help qualifying them than reach out to me with the list you come up with.. or post them here. I'm sure we can help you qualify them.
-
There is nothing you can do to prevent it and really, you're not loosing a lot either. It may have been just that one back link. Webmasters change their sites. Domains expire. You just need to build links.
This is an awesome tool: http://www.link-assistant.com/buzzbundle/ - and you can learn how to use it here: http://www.matthewwoodward.co.uk/reviews/buzzbundle-review-how-i-drive-traffic-to-my-blog/
I would look in webmaster tools to see when it changed.. I dont know what exactly else could have caused it without really looking into it. What I would do if I were you is change the title and description a little bit. You really don't need to use graduate that much.
-
Hi Justin,
Thanks for your response and I really appreciate the detail and the honesty!
I get what you are saying about the questionable backlinks. None of them were actively obtained by us but that doesn't change that there are some suspicious sites linking to that page in particular. Would you recommend trying to get some of those links removed?
I suppose what confused me was that the Moz PA ranking is much healthier than some of the sites ranking on page 1 of the SERPS. So perhaps a Penguin/ Panda demotion is the most obvious answer (Ouch that hurts to say out loud!)
Thanks.
-
I don't think the backlink profile to that page looks particularly natural and i think thats where your problem lies
OSE shows 19 backlines ahrefs shows 30, but looking through them, you have two infographitcs (with no social shares) a couple of links from .ac.uk (which are good links), directories and a number of very questionable looking links such as www.librerio.com/search/jobs/40
You also have some exact match anchor text
All of the above suggests to me that you have been hit by Panda/Penguin and the loss of links mentioned previously most likely suggests that you had questionable links that have been removed or the sites they were coming from have been shutdown (again a good indicator of poor backlinks)
To me, it looks like you are going to have to do some work on building some good links and adding a bit of content to your site to get your rankings back
Also you are on an exact match domain "graduate-jobs.com" which may be contributing
I'm sure its not what you want to hear, but I think thats where the problem most likely lies.
I hope that helps
-
Hi Joseph,
Thanks for getting back to me. It is a bit worrying to see that amount of backlinks being lost, I wasn't aware of that!
Could you give me any more clues as to why that would be happening/ how to prevent it?
Thanks.
-
Well - you're loosing more back links a day than gaining: https://ahrefs.com/site-explorer/backlinks-new/prefix/www.graduate-jobs.com%252Fgraduate-schemes
link velocity is important but you prob. lost those one or two back links that pushed it to where it needed to be.
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
-
Linking Websites/ Plagiarized Content Ranking Above Original Content
Hey friends! Sooo this article was originally published in December 2016: https://www.realwealthnetwork.com/learn/best-places-to-buy-rental-property-2017/ It has been consistently ranking in positions 2-3 for long tail keyword "best places to buy rental property 2017" (and related keywords) since January-ish. It's been getting about 2000-2,500 unique views per week, until last week when it completely dropped off the internet (it's now ranking 51+). We just did a site redesign and changed some URL structures, but I created a redirect, so I don't understand why that would affect our ranking so much. Plus all of our other top pages have held their rankings -- in fact, our top organic article actually moved up from position 3 to 2 for much more competitive keywords (1031 exchange). What's even weirder is when I copy the sections of my article & paste into Google with quotes, our websites doesn't show up anywhere. Other websites that have plagiarized my article (some have included links back to the article, and some haven't) are ranking, but mine is nowhere to be found. Here are some examples: https://www.dawgsinc.com/rental-property-the-best-places-to-buy-in-the-year-2017/ http://b2blabs.com/2017/08/rental-property-the-best-places-to-buy-in-the-year-2017/ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/best-places-buy-rental-property-year-2017-missy-lawwill/?trk=mp-reader-card http://news.sys-con.com/node/4136506 Is it possible that Google thinks my article is newer than the copycat articles, because of the new URL, and now I'm being flagged as spam? Does it think these are spam websites we've created to link back to our own content? Also, clearly my article is higher quality than the ranking articles. Why are they showing up? I double checked the redirect. It's good. The page is indexed... Ahhh what is going on?! Thanks for your help in advance!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Jessica7110 -
How can i Rank this website
here is my website www.onlinehackingtricks.com with fresh content and with proper on page seo but if i will do some off page seo then google will give penality to me because my one website got deindexed so how can i rank this?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | SEORAMAN0 -
Does type of hosting affect SEO rankings?
Hello, I was wondering if hosting on shared, versus VPS, versus dedicated ... matter at all in terms of the rankings of Web sites ... given that all other factors would be exactly equal. I know this is a big question with many variables, but mainly I am wondering if, for example, it is more the risk of resource usage which may take a site down if too much traffic and therefore make it un-crawlable if it happens at the moment that a bot is trying to index the site (factoring out the UX of a downed site). Any and all comments are greatly appreciated! Best regards,
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | uworlds
Mark0 -
Do I need to undo a 301 redirect to dissavow links from the source domain?
A client came to me after being hit by Penguin and had already performed a 301 redirect from site A to Site B. Site B was subsequently hit by the penalty a number of weeks later and we are planing on performing link removal for Site A. Only the webmaster tools account for Site B exists, none is still available for site A. I assume that I cannot dissavow links to site A from Site B's webmaster tool account (even though website A's links show up in the GWT account). So do I need to undo the 301 and then create a new GWT account for site A in order to disavow the links pointing to site A, or can I submit from Site B's GWT account since they are 301'd to site B? Thanks! Chris [edited for formatting]
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | SEOdub0 -
Webiste Ranking Differently Based on IP/Data Center
I have a site which I thought was ranking well, however that doesn't seem to be the case. When I check the site from different IPs within the US it shows that the site is on page 1 and on other IPs it shows that it's on page 5 and for some keywords it shows it's not listed. This site was ranking well, before but I think google dropped it when I was giving putting in too much work with it (articles and press releases), but now it seems to have recovered when I check with my IP, but on other data centers it still shows it prior to recovering. It was able to recover after not building links to for a period of time, it showed it moved back up from the data center I'm connected to, but it still shows the possibly penalized results on other data centers. Is it possible that site is still penalized? So the question is why does it show it recovered in some data centers and not others? How do I fix this? It's been about 2 months since it's recovered from some data centers. Is this site still penalized or what's going on? There are no warnings in web master tools. Any insights would be appreciated! This isn't an issue with the rank tracking software, I've tested this on a multitude of IPs with varying differences. Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | seomozzy0 -
Negative SEO - Case Studies Prove Results. De-rank your competitors
Reading these two articles made me feel sick. People are actually offering a service to de-rank a website. I could have swore I heard Matt Cutts say this was not possible, well the results are in. This really opens up a whole new can of worms for google. http://trafficplanet.com/topic/2369-case-study-negative-seo-results/ http://trafficplanet.com/topic/2372-successful-negative-seo-case-study/ This is only going to get worse as news like this will spread like wildfire. In one sense, its good these people have done this to prove it to google its just a pity they did it on real business's that rely on traffic.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | dean19860 -
Need clarification on what is a landing page vs. doorway page
Hello everyone - I just became a PRO member today and wanted to say hello and ask this question... I am launching a new product, but 6 months before I created 4 different domains with landing pages to "prime" my SEO for the keywords I am trying to pursue. Now that I have launched my new product, it resides on the main domain name (let's call it "MainDomain.com"). Here's my dilemma... I want to create landing pages on each of the different domains for my PPC and optimized organic search traffic. For example, on one of the other domains (let's call it "LandingDomain1.com"), I have created a page to optimize for the keyword "event planning software" and sending my PPC traffic for "event planning software" there as well as my email campaigns. This page has original content that I have written for it (it's not duplicate content used elsewhere), but it also has navigation and links pointing to MainDomain.com, which is where we convert and collect registrations. My question is, will this activity be considered a doorway page even though I'm using it for a landing page for a particular audience? And, if it could be considered a doorway page, would I be better off moving all these optimized landing pages to my MainDomain.com and then doing a 301 redirect from those other domains to the MainDomain.com. Your input is much appreciated ... thanks.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | DenverDude1 -
Why is this ranking first in Google Places for this term....?
"Best Bar In Chicago" - http://www.google.com/search?gcx=w&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=best+bar+in+chicago They have only 5 Google reviews, and their local directory reviews are suspect. One of them goes to rateclubs.com and it's not even a page for their business, while one of them doesn't have user reviews, it's just an editorial review. The other one at superpages.com doesn't even link back to their site, it links to their restaurants.com profile. What is going on here? I've been trying to figure this out for a while as their first place ranking has been solidified for quite some time now. I can also tell you that a few of the bars listed below them have a MUCH higher profile and are better known. You can see that just by the reviews.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | MichaelWeisbaum0