undefined
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
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • Case Studies
    • 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.

    What is your Brand Authority?
    Moz

    What is your Brand Authority?

    Check yours now
  • 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.

    • SEO Q&A

      Insights & discussions from an SEO community of 500,000+.

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • 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.

    • Case Studies

      Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

    • 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. Technical SEO
  4. How Long To Recover Rankings After Multi-Day Site Outage?

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.

How Long To Recover Rankings After Multi-Day Site Outage?

Technical SEO
3
7
938
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.
  • smaavie
    smaavie last edited by May 27, 2014, 12:40 PM

    Hi,

    A site we look after for a client was down for almost 3 days at the start of this month (11th - 14th of May, to be exact).

    This was caused by my client's failure to verify their domain name in accordance with the new ICANN procedures. The details are unimportant, but it took a long while for them to get their domain name registration contact details validated, hence the outage.

    Very soon after this down time we noticed that the site has slipped back in the Google rankings for most of the target keywords, sometimes quite considerably. I guess this is Google penalizing this client for their failure to keep their site live. (And they really can't have too many complaints about this, in my opinion).

    The good news is that the rankings show signs of improving again slightly. However, they have not recovered all the way to where they were before the outage, two weeks ago.

    My question is this ... do you expect that the site will naturally re-gain the previous excellent rankings without us doing anything? If so, how long do you estimate this could take?

    On the other hand, if Google typically penalizes this kind of error by 'permanently', is there is anything we can do to help signal to Google that the site deserves to get back up to where is used to be?

    I am keen to get your thoughts, and especially to hear from anyone who has faced a similar problem in the past.

    Thanks

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • GPainter
      GPainter @smaavie last edited by May 28, 2014, 8:14 AM May 28, 2014, 8:14 AM

      Sorry doesn't look to have that feature, i don't tend to use it for that but moth majestic and ahrefs do.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • smaavie
        smaavie last edited by May 28, 2014, 8:13 AM May 28, 2014, 8:13 AM

        Thanks Chris,

        I appreciate these links.

        I can't see an option for view 'lost' links in Open Site Explorer, but ahrefs.com has been very useful so far.

        Cheers!

        GPainter 1 Reply Last reply May 28, 2014, 8:14 AM Reply Quote 0
        • GPainter
          GPainter @smaavie last edited by May 28, 2014, 5:00 AM May 28, 2014, 5:00 AM

          Hiya,

          You can use open site explorer

          or https://www.majesticseo.com/

          and the  final or

          https://ahrefs.com/

          in most of the programs you will see "lost" links these are links that have dropped so you can go to webmasters in an attempt to regain them etc.

          Good luck!

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • smaavie
            smaavie last edited by May 27, 2014, 4:52 PM May 27, 2014, 4:52 PM

            Thanks for your answers Chris and Kevin, I really appreciate it.

            Chris, please forgive my ignorance, but how should I check back links? What tools do I need and what should I be looking for?

            Many thanks

            GPainter 1 Reply Last reply May 28, 2014, 5:00 AM Reply Quote 0
            • KevinBudzynski
              KevinBudzynski last edited by May 27, 2014, 3:44 PM May 27, 2014, 3:44 PM

              A site down for 2-3 days (from an isolated incident) shouldn't drop you much at all in organics (according to a 2010 video by Matt Cutts).  Longer than that, you could be in trouble. Chris is right, look at your link profile and I would update content a bit.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • GPainter
                GPainter last edited by May 27, 2014, 12:44 PM May 27, 2014, 12:44 PM

                Are you sure it's Google, have you also check back links as sometimes it's not just Google crawling your site but other robots and if they find its not working you may get removed as well which in turn can lower your DA, The one thing you need to be with Google is patient so I tend to give most things a month or so having said that no harm in doing some social etc. making sure Google knows you're site is still there and there to stay make your self active a bit.

                good luck!

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • 1 / 1
                1 out of 7
                • First post
                  1/7
                  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

                • eglove

                  Does my "spam" site affect my other sites on the same IP?

                  I have a link directory called Liberty Resource Directory. It's the main site on my dedicated IP, all my other sites are Addon domains on top of it. While exploring the new MOZ spam ranking I saw that LRD (Liberty Resource Directory) has a spam score of 9/17 and that Google penalizes 71% of sites with a similar score. Fair enough, thin content, bunch of follow links (there's over 2,000 links by now), no problem. That site isn't for Google, it's for me. Question, does that site (and linking to my own sites on it) negatively affect my other sites on the same IP? If so, by how much? Does a simple noindex fix that potential issues? Bonus: How does one go about going through hundreds of pages with thousands of links, built with raw, plain text HTML to change things to nofollow? =/

                  Technical SEO | Mar 31, 2015, 11:06 AM | eglove
                  0
                • pugh

                  Mobile site ranking instead of/as well as desktop site in desktop SERPS

                  I have just noticed that the mobile version of my site is sometimes ranking in the desktop serps either instead of as well as the desktop site. It is not something that I have noticed in the past as it doesn't happen with the keywords that I track, which are highly competitive. It is happening for results that include our brand name, e.g '[brand name][search term]'. The mobile site is served with mobile optimised content from another URL. e.g wwww.domain.com/productpage redirects to m.domain.com/productpage for mobile. Sometimes I am only seen the mobile URL in the desktop SERPS, other times I am seeing both the desktop and mobile URL for the same product. My understanding is that the mobile URL should not be ranking at all in desktop SERPS, could we be being penalised for either bad redirects or duplicate content? Any ideas as to how I could further diagnose and solve the problem if you do believe that it could be harming rankings?

                  Technical SEO | Aug 27, 2013, 6:26 AM | pugh
                  0
                • Justin45

                  Changing images on site without losing ranking

                  A number of images on my site rank very well under google image search but need to be replaced with updated versions. If I keep the file name and pixel dimensions identical will switching the image effect my rankings? Thanks!

                  Technical SEO | Mar 15, 2013, 3:20 PM | Justin45
                  0
                • Bandicoot

                  How long does it take for rank to return after 301?

                  Hello all -- just looking for those who have implemented site-wide 301 redirects due to a domain change. I am about 2 weeks into mine and am seeing minimum 5, maximum 21 spot drops in many of my targeted terms. My pages have strong GPR, with most being 3 or higher. Anyone out there been able to track a ballpark of when rank will return? The 301 redirects were implemented correctly, with 1 to 1 setups in most cases. Google has updated the listings with the new domain name, but I'm taking a huge rank hit. Any experience on how long I can expect (I know it's different for every situation) would be great! Thanks.

                  Technical SEO | Oct 19, 2011, 2:12 PM | Bandicoot
                  0
                • bThere

                  Subdomain and Domain Rankings

                  I have read here that domain names with keywords might add a boost to your search rank For instance using a completely inane example monkey-fights.com might get a boost compared to mfl.com (monkey fighting league)  when searching for "monkey fights" There seems to be a hot debate as to how much bonus the first domain might get over the second, but leaving that aside for the moment. Question 1. Would monkey-fights.mfl.com get the same kind of bonus as a root domain bonus? Question 2. If the answer to 1 above was yes would a 301 redirect from the suddomain URL to root domain URL retain that bonus I was just thinking on how hard it is to get root domains these days that are not either being squatted on etc. and if this might be a way to get the same bonus, or maybe subdomains are less bonus prone and so it would be a waste of time Thanks

                  Technical SEO | Oct 18, 2011, 8:56 AM | bThere
                  0
                • Weerdboil

                  Delete old site but redirect domain to a new domain and site

                  I just have a quick query and I have a feeling about what the answer is so just wanted to see what you guys thought... Basically I am working on a client site. This client has a few other websites that are divisions of their company. However these divisions/websites are no longer used. They are wanting to delete the websites but redirect the domains to their name main website. They believe this will pass on SEO benefits as these old division sites are old and have a good PR and history. I'm unsure for DEFINITE, which way is correct?

                  Technical SEO | Jun 10, 2011, 9:24 AM | Weerdboil
                  0
                • GriffinHansen

                  What are the pros and cons of moving one site onto a subdomain of another site?

                  Two sites. One has weaker sales. What would the benefits and problems for SEO of moving the weak site from its own domain to a subdomain of the stronger site?

                  Technical SEO | Apr 14, 2011, 6:01 PM | GriffinHansen
                  0
                • Christy-Correll

                  Impact of 401s on Site Rankings

                  Will having 401s on a site negatively impact rankings? (e.g. 401s thrown from a social media sharing icon)

                  Technical SEO | Aug 29, 2011, 8:13 PM | Christy-Correll
                  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
                • 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.