Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • SEO Q&A
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. Why is my client's site not ranking anymore? Like big time!

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Why is my client's site not ranking anymore? Like big time!

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4
    9
    2104
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • rhoadesjohn
      rhoadesjohn last edited by

      Ok, I'm reaching out to all of you Moz'rs for some help with this one.

      My client's site has dropped off the face of google in a real short period of time.  It went from page 1 (avg rank 3 to page 6 (avg rank 50) and below in the matter of 2 weeks.

      Here's some facts:

      1.  DA is a 22 and homepage PA is a 31.  It outranks all other sites in its competitive set.

      2.  The homepage used to be the page that displays for keyword searches, now its the FAQ page, which has a lower PA of 23.

      Why has the home page seemingly vaporized?  And, why is the FAQ showing as the first result?

      What should I start checking.  I feel paralyzed, not sure where to start.

      More info:

      a.  There are no alerts present in Webmaster Tools.

      b.  For some reason the homepage (domain.com) was 301'd to domain.com/home.html.  Domain.com is indexed by Google, however, domain.com/home.html is not.  If this is the issue, what is the best way to handle it?

      Thanks in advance for your help!

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • MarieHaynes
        MarieHaynes @rhoadesjohn last edited by

        A lot of sites saw a drop in mid November but there was no announced update.  You can read a good discussion of what some site owners saw in the comments on this post:

        http://www.seroundtable.com/google-update-nov15-17689.html

        My gut instinct is that this was a refresh of the Panda algorithm, but Google no longer announces these refreshes so no one can know for sure.

        But, there really isn't an easy answer to your question as there isn't an obvious solution.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • rhoadesjohn
          rhoadesjohn last edited by

          Unfortunately, my analytics doesn't go back to October 3rd.  However, the sharp drop in rankings occurred between November 19th and November 26th, then again in the beginning of December.

          Checkout the attached image.

          I'm at a complete loss on what happened during those time periods.

          Nothing in WMT for manual spam actions.  And, I have been cautiously building links to the site.

          FdoQmB9

          MarieHaynes 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • MarieHaynes
            MarieHaynes @rhoadesjohn last edited by

            Does your analytics data go back as October 3?  If the drop happened October 4, then I would indeed be worried about Penguin.

            Have you been building links to this page?  More specifically, have you built keyword rich anchors to this page?

            Do you see any manual spam actions in webmaster tools? (WMT --> Search Traffic --> Manual Actions)

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
            • rhoadesjohn
              rhoadesjohn last edited by

              Many thanks for the timely responses.  I didn't want to overload the detail in the first post.

              *To be more specific with my issue, there's 1 particular keyword (a very important one), that the homepage has dropped out of the rankings for.  There are many sites with much lower DA and PA above this site.  It went from 1st page to almost non-existent in the matter of 2 weeks.

              Other keyword queries are still showing the homepage on 1st page results.  So I guess this probably answers a few questions.  I should have specified that in my original post.  Can you tell I'm freaking out?

              1.  The site is not new.  It's been up for a few years now.  I've only just begun to take over SEO/Web Marketing duties.

              2.  It is not blocked by robots.txt, nor does it have a canonical tag

              3.  The title tag hasn't been touched since I got involved with the site.

              4.  I'm still unsure why domain.com was 301'd to domain.com/home.html.  I didn't do it and the clients were clueless when I asked the question.

              5.  I'm using Google Analytics, but the data only goes back to the beginning of October, because I setup Analytics when I got started.  I came onboard after they saw a swift drop in rankings for that important keyword.

              6.  The site does have some questionable linkage from an "SEO" service they paid for that lasted about 2 years.  But I'm hesitant to start disavowing links.

              MarieHaynes 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • danatanseo
                danatanseo last edited by

                I totally agree with Marie. First and foremost, be calm. Don't freak out and start changing a whole bunch of things. Make sure your client knows what's going on. Far better for them to hear it from you than discover it on their own. Make a plan. First, document everything that has recently changed. Hopefully you've done that already. Start with that 301 redirect. You already know it's a problem, whether it's caused this or not.

                Has anything else changed? Meta tags, specifically title tags? I have seen a site drop from a #1 branded search position and disappear for up to a day because the title tags were updated. Then it reappeared back in it's original spot. It's possible that your clients site is in a Google dance, but my gut says that's not it. Start with the 301...and while you're at it, check and make sure that the non.www version of the homepage is properly redirecting via 301 as well as any other potential URL versions that also produce the homepage and that may have inbound links.

                Good luck and please let us know what happens. Hang in there!

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • MarieHaynes
                  MarieHaynes last edited by

                  I definitely agree that Penguin is a huge possibility.  But, I think it could be dangerous advice to send a site owner on a link removal/disavow mission when we don't know for sure.  There are many other possibilities.  It could be a Panda issue.  It could be that it was a new site and the previous high rankings were a honeymoon effect.  It could be that the /home.html page is blocked by robots.txt or has a canonical tag that is confusing Google.  It could be that they changed the title tag on the page so that it is no longer appropriate.  It could be that the site was hit with malware and users are clicking away because of virus warnings.

                  (btw...the thumb down was not from me.  I respect that you are trying to help but just wanted to comment to make sure that the site owner (or someone else reading this post) doesn't go off disavowing links without getting to the cause of the problem first.)

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
                  • MarieHaynes
                    MarieHaynes last edited by

                    While it could be Penguin, I don't think we can make that call on the data given to us in the question.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
                    • MarieHaynes
                      MarieHaynes last edited by

                      Take a look at your organic traffic only.  If you use Google analytics, go to Aquisition --> All Traffic, then choose google/organic.  Can you tell what date the drop happened on or started on?

                      Now go to Behavior --> Site Content --> Landing pages and click on each of the top pages.  Is there an obvious drop for each page or just the home page?

                      How old is the site?

                      Can I ask why you did the 301 from domain.com to domain.com/home.html?  Is there any chance that the /home.html page has either a noindex tag or is blocked by robots.txt?  Is there a canonical tag on the /home.html page?  If so, what does it say?

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                      • 1 / 1
                      • First post
                        Last post

                      Got a burning SEO question?

                      Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                      Start my free trial


                      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.

                      • See all categories

                      Related Questions

                      • SDCMarketing

                        Change Google's version of Canonical link

                        Hi My website has millions of URLs and some of the URLs have duplicate versions. We did not set canonical all these years. Now we wanted to implement it  and fix all the technical SEO issues. I wanted to consolidate and redirect all the variations of a URL to the highest pageview version and use that as the canonical because all of these variations have the same content. While doing this, I found in Google search console that Google has already selected another variation of URL as canonical and not the highest pageview version. My questions: I have millions of URLs for which I have to do 301 and set canonical. How can I find all the canonical URLs that Google has autoselected? Search Console has a daily quota of 100 or something. Is it possible to override Google's version of Canonical? Meaning, if I set a variation as Canonical and it is different than what Google has already selected, will it change overtime in Search Console? Should I just do a 301 to highest pageview variation of the URL and not set canonicals at all? This way the canonical that Google auto selected might get redirected to the highest pageview variation of the URL. Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated.

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SDCMarketing
                        0
                      • Wagster

                        Could another site copying my content hurt my ranking?

                        Earlier this week I asked why a page of mine might not be ranking locally.  (https://moz.com/community/q/what-could-be-stopping-us-from-ranking-locally). Maybe this might be part of the answer – another firm has copied huge chunks of my website copy: **My company: **https://idearocketanimation.com/video-production-company/ The other company: http://studio3dm.com/studio3dm-com/video/ Could this be causing my page to not rank? And is there anything I can do about it, other than huff and puff to the other firm? (Which I am already doing.)

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Wagster
                        0
                      • FrederikTrovatten22

                        ScreamingFrog won't crawl my site.

                        Hey guys, My site is Netspiren.dk and when I use a tool like Screaming Frog or Integrity, it only crawls my homepage and menu's - not product-pages. Examples
                        A menu: http://www.netspiren.dk/pl/Helse-Kosttilskud-Blandingsolie_57699.aspx
                        A product: http://www.netspiren.dk/pi/All-Omega-3-6-9-180-kapsler_1412956_57699.aspx Is it because the products are being loaded in Javascript? 
                        What's your recommendation? All best,
                        Fred.

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | FrederikTrovatten22
                        0
                      • Bill_at_Common_Form

                        Does DMCA protection actually improve search rankings (assuming no one's stolen my content)

                        Hello Moz Community, I had a conversation with someone who claimed that implementing a DMCA protection badge, such as those offered at http://www.dmca.com/ for $10/mo, will improve a site's Google rankings.  Is this true? I know that if my content is stolen it can hurt my rankings (or the stolen content can replace mine), but I'm asking if merely implementing the badge will help my rankings. Thanks! Bill

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bill_at_Common_Form
                        0
                      • DJ123

                        Is it normal to initially rank low in the SERPs, then over time gain rank?

                        We just released a very targeted page for a specific item about 18 hours ago. For the main keyword as well as multiple variations, we currently are ranking around # 40 to # 50 depending on what the exact query is. Is it normal to initially rank lower in the SERPs and then as the page ages, gain? Thank you for your insights!

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DJ123
                        1
                      • mark_baird

                        Do Q&A 's work for SEO

                        If I create a good community in my particular field on my SEO site and have a quality Q&A section like this etc (ripping of MOZ's idea here sorry, I hope it's ok) will the long term returns be worth the effort of creating and man ageing this. Is the user created content of as much use as I think it will be?

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mark_baird
                        0
                      • Motava

                        Other domains hosted on same server showing up in SERP for 1st site's keywords

                        For the website in question, the first domain alphabetically on the shared hosting space, strange search results are appearing on the SERP for keywords associated with the site. Here is an example: A search for "unique company name" shows the results: www.uniquecompanyname.com as the top result. But on pages 2 and 3, we are getting results for the same content but for domains hosted on the same server. Here are some examples with the domain name replaced: UNIQUE DOMAIN NAME PAGE TITLE
                        ftp.DOMAIN2.com/?action=news&id=63‎
                        META DESCRIPTION TEXT UNIQUE DOMAIN NAME PAGE TITLE 2
                        www.DOMAIN3.com/?action=news&id=120‎
                        META DESCRIPTION TEXT2 UNIQUE DOMAIN NAME PAGE TITLE 2
                        www.DOMAIN4.com/?action=news&id=120
                        META DESCRIPTION TEXT2 UNIQUE DOMAIN NAME PAGE TITLE 3
                        mail.DOMAIN5.com/?action=category&id=17‎
                        META DESCRIPTION TEXT3 ns5.DOMAIN6.com/?action=article&id=27‎‎ There are more but those are just some examples. These other domain names being listed are other customer domains on the same VPS shared server. When clicking the result the browser URL still shows the other customer domain name B but the content is usually the 404 page. The page title and meta description on that page is not displayed the same as on the SERP.As far as we can tell, this is the only domain this is occurring for.So far, no crawl errors detected in Webmaster Tools and moz crawl not completed yet.

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Motava
                        0
                      • digisavvy

                        There's a website I'm working with that has a .php extension. All the pages do. What's the best practice to remove the .php extension across all pages?

                        Client wishes to drop the .php extension on all their pages (they've got around 2k pages). I assured them that wasn't necessary. However, in the event that I do end up doing this what's the best practices way (and easiest way) to do this? This is also a WordPress site. Thanks.

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | digisavvy
                        0

                      Get started with Moz Pro!

                      Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                      Start my free trial
                      Products
                      • Moz Pro
                      • Moz Local
                      • Moz API
                      • Moz Data
                      • STAT
                      • Product Updates
                      Moz Solutions
                      • SMB Solutions
                      • Agency Solutions
                      • Enterprise Solutions
                      Free SEO Tools
                      • Domain Authority Checker
                      • Link Explorer
                      • Keyword Explorer
                      • Competitive Research
                      • Brand Authority Checker
                      • Local Citation Checker
                      • MozBar Extension
                      • MozCast
                      Resources
                      • Blog
                      • SEO Learning Center
                      • Help Hub
                      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                      • How-to Guides
                      • Moz Academy
                      • API Docs
                      About Moz
                      • About
                      • Team
                      • Careers
                      • Contact
                      Why Moz
                      • Case Studies
                      • Testimonials
                      Get Involved
                      • Become an Affiliate
                      • MozCon
                      • Webinars
                      • Practical Marketer Series
                      • MozPod
                      Connect with us

                      Contact the Help team

                      Join our newsletter
                      Moz logo
                      © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                      • Accessibility
                      • Terms of Use
                      • Privacy

                      Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.