Im I being hit by hummingbird?
-
Hello,
Our website is a private equity firm database, privateequityfirms.com. We rank well for a number of private equity definitions and terms and have been increasing rank in those terms but unfortunately we have been losing ranking in our main keyword and url "private equity firms" .We have ranked as high as 3rd under wikipedia in recent months. The only real changes we have made are too the sitemap that is auto generated every time some thing is changed in the database.
Does anyone have any ideas what is going on? im i being hit by hummingbird.
Thank you!
-
Hey Doug,
First off thanks for the great answer and useful links. Our organic traffic has been hurting the last two months. When I checked webmaster tools I had no messages and when I checked the links to your site it is saying no data available. Anything you would suggest to try?
Thanks again
-
Thank you to the both of you. The reason I rewrote the question is that, I was ranking in the top six for in December and it says Humming bird came into play around Aug 20 so i didn't think that was the cause.
-
I'm with Peter. As I wrote you Yesterday in the question you posted: http://moz.com/community/q/all-keywords-increasing-rank-except-url-keyword-whats-going-on
-
Don't think it was Hummingbird.
Have you checked Google Webmaster Tools? Any messages there/manual actions?
I had a quick look at your backlink profile in AHrefs and noticed that something seems to have happened in December It looks like you've lost a whole bucket load of links. See this:
https://ahrefs.com/site-explorer/overview/subdomains/www.privateequityfirms.com
I also checked your domain using SEMRush and noted that in December you lost rankings for a number of keywords so I'd check your assumption that it's just your main keyword that's been affected.
What does your google organic traffic look like over the last couple of months?
So, if you've not already done so I'd check your Google Webmaster tools and take a look at what might have been happening with your backlink profile.
-
Hi Nick
If you are ranking well for a number of private equity definitions and terms and have been increasing rank in those terms, then I would consider that a win. That are you are losing rank for "private equity firms" is possibly down to Google understanding the intent of search queries better and deciding that your site is better served and more authoritative for the other terms.
I know that sounds strange as your domain is exact match, but Google won't be ranking because of that. As your site offers a service via subscription to private equity firms then that takes your site one step away from Google providing a result for that query which probably hampers your site compared to other sites that possibly rank higher.
I hope that helps,
Peter
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
-
Hit by an unnamed Google update on November 30th - Still suffering
Hi, Moz Community. Just decided to sign up for a free trial because I'm absolutely at my wits end here. Here's my site: cheapgamesguru.com I run a small PC gaming blog monetized by affiliate marketing. I do all the writing, SEO, etc. myself. The content I write is, from what I can tell, fully complying with Google's guidelines, and in and of itself is pretty informative and high-quality. My site was started in December of 2015, and it was doing very well for a good 10 or 11 months - until late November of 2016. Then something happened. My traffic started plummeting - I went from getting nearly 300 organic users a day (Not sessions - actual unique users) to 80, then 40, and now I'm lucky to get over 15 a day. I do not do ANY black hat SEO whatsoever. I have not taken part in any shady link building schemes, nor do I try to trick Google in any way. I just write good content, do good keyword research (Targeting only low-hanging fruit and low-difficulty keywords using KWFinder), and do my best to provide a good user experience. I run no ads on my site. Glenn Gabe wrote about a potential Google update on November 29th, but the stuff he said in his article doesn't seem to affect me - my mobile site is perfectly fine, according to Google's own metrics and testing tools. Here's the article in question: http://www.gsqi.com/marketing-blog/november-30-2016-google-algorithm-update/ At first, I thought it was possible that this was a result of my competitors simply doing far better than me - but that doesn't seem to be the case, as their rankings did not actually move - mine simply pummeted. And many of their sites are far worse than mine in terms of grammar, spelling, and site speed. I understand backlinks are important, by the way, but I really don't think that's why my site was hit. Many competitors of mine have little to no backlinks and are doing great, and it would also not make much sense for Google to hit an otherwise great site just because they have few backlinks. A friend of mine has reached out to Glenn Gabe himself to see if he can get his input on my site, but he's had a busy schedule and hasn't gotten a chance to take a look yet. I recently obtained a backlink from a highly relevant DA 65 site (About a month ago, same niche as my site), and it now shows up in Search Console and Ahrefs - but it hasn't affected rankings whatsoever. Important Note: I'm not only just ranking poorly for stuff, I'm ranking in position 100-150+ for many low-competition keywords. I have no idea why that is happening - is my site THAT bad, that my content deserves to be ranking on page 15 or lower? Sorry for the long question. I'm struggling here, and just wanted to give as much information as possible. I would really appreciate any input you guys can give me - if any SEO experts want to turn my site into a case study and work with me to improve things, I'd also be open to that 😉 I kid, of course - I know you guys are all busy. Thanks! P.S. I've attached a picture of my SEMRush graph, for reference, as well. mhgSw
Algorithm Updates | | polycountz0 -
Recommended action for site hit by penguin ?
What is more advisable, though there surely could be debate on this? Back in '07 till sometime around a year ago it seems our site got hit by google's updates, no manual action though, and have seen in past few months disavowed what we could find as well as deleted a lot of links. We are also working on getting word out on the brand as well and trying to get on some business websites to have articles and offer some discounts. Our keyword rankings seem stuck in limbo the past year or so though. Some main keywords for example seem stuck around page 8 when they used to be on page 1. Question is, can what seems to be a penguin update be recovered from? Is Google likely to refresh the algorithm? Also could starting a new site be more worth the investment - starting fresh with natural links, etc And if googles system could pick up that the site is run from same ip, etc. would they care? Also the keyword competition one of Moz's tools said around 46% if that makes a difference for one of the main keywords. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | xelaetaks0 -
Penguin hit | Immediate?
Last year we fell off google rankings fairly quickly (mid-2013), out of the blue. We thought it was Penguin; but after looking at Analytic data of organic google visits; there seems to be no drastic loss of traffic at any time. Our site's loss of traffic is a gradual decline, not immediately noticeable, as in this video (~33:00 minutes in ). If there is no drop in organic google traffic that's noticeable, can I safely assume our drop in rankings wasn't due to an algorithm update?
Algorithm Updates | | godreamvacations0 -
Have I been Hit by a Penguin? No Warning in Webmaster / Some Pages still Rank
Hi all, I have recently signed up to MOZ as I have seen a large drop in the turnover of a site I work with as well as a slump in visitors. I know part of this slump is the transition from google product search from being free to paid and chewing through our adwords budget quicker. The other part though seems a little more tricky, I have always been under the impression from reading online that an algorithm update would see a site destroyed for most terms and a notification generated in webmaster tools, however the site still seems to still rank for some terms, others however it has fallen off the face of the earth for. As you can see in the attachment webmaster tools is showing much decreased visibility, and MOZ agrees with this. Key terms that have lost rank have done so by around 4-10 positions. The content on the site has all been hand written by myself, however some of the pages are a little "stale" so I am currently running through re-writing every product page on the site (1000 products or so) all my product pages grade a minimum B with 99% A on the Moz page grader. I am keeping my fingers crossed that fresh content should assist in getting google interested again? However my real questions is, Is this Penguin? or is this just stale content? dmDdMr5.jpg pYkzck0.jpg 9f4mgM9.jpg
Algorithm Updates | | speedingorange1 -
What our next step after hitting by Penguin 2.0
Hi Everyone, Any idea about what the next step after hitting by Penguin 2.0 We go for more link building or content optimization or some thing else..?
Algorithm Updates | | lucidsoftech0 -
Why have organic hits to my site suddenly started to fluctuate widely?
Hits to my website have been gradually growing over the last 2 years to a point where there was 1300 organics a day. Recently the hits crashed to 300 a day and stayed there for a couple of days. They then bounced back to 1300 a day for a few more days before crashing down to 300 again. This has happened a few times now. Oscillating between two points. Its like the site is crossing a threshold of something, back and forth. I have looked at different parts of my site and every part is down by approximately the same percentage. Anyone out there have any ideas?
Algorithm Updates | | easymatt0 -
If you got hit by a google update what you do first?
I have not been known the Panda. My site statistics knows it. I manage to endure and get back where i felt everytime with change of design, ad placement, content... I am very curious: if i did nothing, my site will turn back? why i kicked in every big update? Simply if you get hit by update, without any act, could your site healed?
Algorithm Updates | | MaxCrandale0 -
Penalty or Algorithm hit?
After the Google Algorithm was updated my site took a week hit in traffic. The traffic came back a week later and was doing well a week AFTER the algorithm change and I decided that I should do a 301 redirect to make sure I didn't have duplicate content (www. vs. http://) I called my hosting company (I won't name names but it rhymes w/ Low Fatty) and they guided me through the supposedly simple process.. Well, they had me create a new (different) IP address and do a domain forward (sorry about bad terminology) to the www. This was in effect for approximately 2 weeks before I discovered it and came along with a subsequent massive hit in traffic. I then corrected the problem (I hope) by restoring the old IP address and setting up the HTACESS file to redirect all to www. It is a couple weeks later and my traffic is still in the dumps. On WMT instead of getting traffic from 10,000 keywords I'm getting it only from 2k. Is my site the victim of some penalty (I have heard of sandbox) or is my site simply just lower in traffic due to the new algorithm (I checked analytics data to find that traffic only in the US is cut by 50%, it is the same outside the US) Could someone please tell me what is going on?
Algorithm Updates | | askthetrainer0
