Positions dropping in SERPs after Title and Snippet change
-
Hi!
I switched to a better title and meta description today for our page. Instead of ranking us better and displaying the new title - google let us fall from Position 10 to Position 16 (still dip laying the old title and meta description). Why is that? (I only changed it for the homepage)
Cheers
Marc
-
Hi Zoe,
thanks a lot for your reply.
I checked the ranking position through pws=0 and also by Moz's Ranktracker. In Moz it showed up ok but with &pws=0 it seemed to have dropped over several positions.
Please see my response to Cyrus if you're interested in what might have caused the drop.
I did not know that Google does not update meta data in real time.
Thank you very much !
Marc
-
Hi Cyrus,
thanks for your detailed answer. As I found out the main cause was human stupidity
I just saw that somehow Wordpress did not publish the changes unless I deleted the cache in WP. Thereafter the homepage looked kind of destroyed because of a false setting in WP. Maybe this might have caused the drop although the page looked ok to me before deleting the cache...
Thank you very much.
I took learned a lot from your posting!
Marc
-
There are a few possible reasons Google might adjust rankings after seeing a change in your title and meta descriptions. Among them: (keep in mind these are only possibilities)
1. The algorithm determines that the page is less relevant to the target query keywords
2. The title change deviates from earlier anchor text pointing at the page, meaning the page might not be as relevant to the query
4. After changing your title+description, you experience a lower CTR in search results. In theory this could lower your rankings. But because you describe the old title/description still showing in SERPS, this is less likely
5. The drop in rankings is temporary, or is unrelated to any changes you made.
If Google is still showing the old title/description, #5 is a strong possibility. You may want to check Google's cache of the page to see if it's picking up on the changes. Depending on the site this can take anywhere from a few hours to several weeks.
If nothing else, you can always change the title/description back to the original version and test what happens.
-
Hi,
How are you checking the rankings? Through looking at the SERP, or through a tool like Moz? If it's just been changed today, I'd say this is probably coincidence, depending on what you've changed it to. Google doesn't update meta data in real time, and so you'll probably not see a change for a couple of hours-up to a week, depending on how often Google re-indexes your site.
This is more likely to be caused by something else, from the sound of it!
Hope this helps,
Zoe
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
-
Proper Title Tags for ecommerce
In terms of E-commerce title tags. We are a manufacturer of our own clothing products. We are new to the SEO landscape so if this question is an obvious answer, then i apologize for wasting any one times in advance. We Manufacture our own clothing. Each item has a name. The names are American womens names such as amanda or lori or jenniffer etc. When we create the title tag for them should we include the name of the item itself at the beginning or end. For example should it be Item Name - Keyword - Keyword - Brand Name(aka manufacturer) or Keyword - Keyword - Item Name - Brand Name (aka manufacturer) The reason we ask this is because we think it would be a waste to rank for actual American names such as Jennifer and Jessica. All that we have read on Moz suggests that it seems to be better to have pertinent keywords in the beginning of the title as opposed to the end. In terms of our brand name we already rank number 1 for every combination of our brand. So we would like to start picking up traffic for the different product types we sell and there respective synonyms. Not sure if i am making any sense. Sorry in advance, and any help is very very much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Imagination0 -
Weird title tag in SERps (see attachment)
Hi Mozzers Does anyone know why my clients title tag appears like it does in the image attached? It seems as though Google is pulling the parent page url and putting that at the front. All other title tags are normal. Anyone any ideas and is it anything to be worried about? Thanks Anthony @Anthony_Mac85 9KhTgk5
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Tone_Agency0 -
Rank drop in June
Since fixing a major duplicate content issue in Dec 2012, our traffic saw steady and dramatic growth through the summer. It has started to settle down now and rankings have started to decline. I have a bad feeling that something is wrong but for the life of me I cannot figure it out. Our Moz rank is pretty high but some of our biggest keywords have gone from #2 to #9 in a fairly short time period which makes me very nervous. I am not even sure where to look at this point. Any suggestions are welcomed as I am kind of at a loss now but worry I am missing something basic. www.threeguysgolf.com
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | astaelin0 -
Sudden drop in PageRank to Unranked
Howdy, A clients website has just dismorning (8/FEB/13) gone from index page PR:4 to Unranked including all inner pages on the domain. There is no contact on GWT or penalty email from Google. All organic rankings seem to be fine, and i read about the GWT backlink glitch earlier. Should I expect the worst? Thanks.. Mark
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | webprolive0 -
Why are Title Tags wrong in SERP
The title tag for this page is the following: "Best Mothers Day Gifts, Unique Mothers Day Gift Ideas | UncommonGoods" However, when you search Mothers Day Gifts UncommonGoods the title tags show up differently. What's up with this? Can I fix it? Is it a problem?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | znotes0 -
SEO Strategy for URL Change
I'm working with a company who will likely have to change their URL because of a trademark dispute. They will be able to maintain the new URL for some period but will soon need to drop the existing URL all together. Aside from the usual keyword considerations when choosing a URL, are there any SEO strategies I should consider as we execute this change?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jon_KS0 -
Why traffic to my link has dropped suddenly?
Hi I would like to know why the traffic for the website link http://theindustrymeasure.com/2010/07/15/rediffmail-login has dropped suddenly on google.I used to get around 5000 page views on this page and then suddenly dropped to 15-20 . I still get good traffic from yahoo (around 500). Just before the drop I noticed that I started to get spammy trackbacks from Many questionable sources. I have not approved any of these trackbacks. The trackbacks are regular frequency of. 1 per day. is there any action which I can take to ensure that I get back my traffic. Traffic to other links are fine , only this page seems to have dropped off ever since the spam attack. As per seomoz tool I have a grade a for keyword rediffmail
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ShoutOut0 -
Rich Snippets Displayed in SERPs?
I've recently deployed rich snippets for a site that includes reviews on individual company profile pages. We passed the Rich Snippet Testing Tool and notified Google of our pages. It's been 2 months since we deployed this and still nothing. Does anyone have any feedback on the average time it takes Google to recognize these markup and include in on the SERPs? Or any articles that reference which industries they will include reviews in the SERPs for and which ones they won't? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DustinSEO0