Sudden big drop for keyword ranking this month -Numerous possible factors... which is most likely?
-
Hi
I have a fairly new site (domain around 1 year and 6 months old) and in December it was sitting on Google's second page for our main keyword "cv writing service"
In late December we had a couple of stories picked up by the press and got some really good contextual links from a handful of well known media sites with DA60 and above.
Naturally I thought this would have a positive effect on our position for our keyword so I checked and was shocked to see that the site is now sitting on page 4... A drop of 2 pages
Also my site has dropped one point in DA on the Moz open site explorer
I have some possible theroies for the drop but would really appreicate if anyone could point me in the right direction for the possible cause of this drop and what I need to focus on to fix tihs issue.
Theories....
-
I made some big changes to the copy of my homepage and aboutapge a few weeks before the stories were picked up - although the copy is still similar content and optimised for my keywords
-
I had some early SEO work done by a freelancer in the early days and I now realise that a lot of the links are very weak and on quite poor looking sites (although they are not flagged as spammy in OSE, I think they are spammy)
-
The story that got picked up by the media was slightly off topic - it was about jobs rather than CV's - could this make google think that my site is not relevant?
-
Prior to these stories being picked up - we took a short break from link building for a few months due to resource issues
So if anyone knows if any of these factors are likely to have caused the drop I would be grateful to know!
Thanks
Andrew
-
-
Yes - I guess I did know that deep down It's just strange that it dropped like that as I didn't remove any content.. and even stranger that it suddenly moved back up...
Maybe my site is just a bit too thin and that's why it's fluctuating so much at the moment???
Anyway - thanks for your help... I should probably get back to content creation now
-
If you have ahrefs paid subscription, you can download all links, group them by domain. Then you can check those domains in moz's OSE for spam scores. Usually you'd know good domains, cause they are well known (or at least known in your industry). And the amount of the rest should be that large.
But this is what makes the difference:
Realistically I know I need more content on the site
If you think so yourself - that's what's "wrong"
-
Thanks very much Dimitri
Strangely I'm now back on the second page today, although in a slightly lower position than before
Could I pleas just clarify something if you have time to answer one more question...
The majority of my links (and my competitor's links) don't actually show in OSE (even the really good ones - I think maybe because I'm UK) so how would you recommend spotting links that need to be removed? switching to ahrefs and then using the Moz bar on the individual pages maybe? And how bad does a link have to be before you remove/disavow? some look a bit spammy but still have high DA's etc
Or should I maybe just focus on building more content and links than spending time removing bad ones if I haven't actually been notified of any penalties? Realistically I know I need more content on the site
-
Hi there.
I would recommend looking at backlink profile in OSE and ahrefs to see the spam score and difference between number in total links (in ahrefs) and number in links-which-matter (in OSE). This will get you an idea of how spammy/bad your backlink profile is. Also do competitor comparison. This will tell you how far behind you are.
As for DA drop - DA is relative number, if it went down, it doesn't mean anything until you compare with competitor DA changes. If theirs went down the same or more - good for you. Read this on this matter - https://moz.com/community/q/da-pa-fluctuations-how-to-interpret-apply-understand-these-ml-based-scores
And also do audit and competitor analysis on content. You might think that your content is super awesome, but still, look at what your ranking competitors have, what keywords they are using, how often they are using them and so on.
Hope this helps.
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
-
Site DA and rank is not increasing
Hy, My site https://cocpureapk.com/ DA is Still 1. I am Publishing the content regularly, Site age is 6 months But Still DA and PA are 1 and rank is still not increasing.. Why its not increasing. Is there any way to increase DA and rank Of my site?
Link Building | | ikzayahot0 -
How Many Keywords & How Will They Take to Rank?
Hi Guys Just taken on a new site with around 80 keywords with no links because the site is new. Each page is optimised correctly, very user friendly with completely unique content for each and every page. I'm interested to know what would be your online marketing "plan" for such site to begin ranking. Thanks Gary
Link Building | | GaryVictory0 -
What is the importance of root domains linking to your website in Google's rankings? I notice our competition has a much higher number on keywords I'm analyzing. Thank you!
I've noticed our competition has a much higher number of "root domains" linking to their page than we do. Is this simply a result of more websites linking to them? How long does it normally take to build up these numbers/rankings? (I'm assuming it's a concerted effort, which I'll be researching.) Thank you!
Link Building | | mjfinet0 -
Should I work with current site or start a new site with more keywords?
I have been working with my site for some time. Sadly, I am moving lower and lower in ranking. I am wondering if I should just transfer my site to a new URL (this time including keywords). I don't understand the whole disavow link thing. I hired someone about 2 years ago, when I lost my ranking due to malicious software. Well, it turns out that, she submitted my link to weird sites that I don't even know what they are. It is like sites with thousands of websites just listed. Things have never been half of what they were and I am really just growing frustrated. I understand that having an a URL for awhile is helpful, but I appear to have lost many of my good linking sites. Any thoughts?
Link Building | | tiffany11030 -
Keyword variation.
Hello dear community, I'm just starting to really understand how seo and in-page optimization works that to SEOMoz. I have done alot of seo for my other pages in the bad way expecting great results which acually hurt me more than help 😞 So right now I'm working on application which takes screenshots of your desktop and upload small files on the portals you select. I have done the website (template and most of the content) but I would like to know when I'm going to start and build some links, what are some of the best keywords I should choose? I do understand already than this is not an exact math, but any kind of help would be awesome! I would like to focus more around "screenshot" keyword and not that much on file upload. I know I may ask kind of much, but anything is better. With great respect, Akhlis
Link Building | | akhlis0 -
Looking for Feedback on Rankings Dropping
Hi, I am looking for some guidance on figuring out a problem I am having with one of my clients. Their site is http://www.macton.com. They have seen a pretty significant drop in rankings for "hoist systems" "industrial turntables" and "railroad equipment." Below is my analysis and thoughts. Please let me know if you have any input you can provide me with. Hoist Systems Rankings started dropping significantly July 2nd. Their average position was around the 2nd - 3rd page. They're now in position 100. Some things I noticed is that Google is now ranking the page /freight_rail/portable-car-hoist-freight for this term, whereas a few months ago it was ranking /rail_equipment/car-hoist. I'm not sure why Google has started to rank this new page for this term when there is no reference to that keyword in the page and the other one is better suited. Industrial Turntables Rankings started dropping off in January and they have been up and down and even fell off for a bit in March. They took a deep dive May 28 - Jun 11 and are slowly picking up. I noticed that Google is also changing which page it is choosing to rank for this term. Currently it is ranking /rail_equipment/locomotive-turntables, previously it was ranking the homepage around May 28th, and before that it was /equipment/industrial-testing. Some things we thought would help this was to create a whole new page just on industrial turntables in order to rank better for this term. Another thing that I think would be highly beneficial is to do some more aggressive link building. Their top anchor text is all brand related, and very few include their target keywords.To my knowledge, I don't think they have a penguin issue, although I could be mistaken. Can anyone provide input and/or guidance on my analysis? Any suggestions?
Link Building | | TopFloor0 -
Page Rank Update
I was hit by Google’s latest Page Rank update. I know “don’t be obsessed with Page Rank”, but it concerns me. I thought that I was developing a very good link profile and actually was hopeful that it would go to a PR-5 and it dropped to a PR-3. www.simply-bags.com I have another site www.keepsakes-etc.com and have done very little link building and it also dropped to a PR-3. Can anyone give me some honest feedback about my concern?
Link Building | | b4tv0 -
Nich phrase ranking
I'm trying to get a page ranked for a niche phrase. There are a few established players in the industry but no competition for this phrase beyond that. Open site explorer reports that main competitor for the phrase this page points to has 538 links but they are all internal with no extermal links. DA is 45 and PA is 25 My client has25 links for the phrase this page points to from 10 unique external domains in addition to internal links. Domain is only 3 months old. DA is 20 and PA is 30. Right now I'm buried in back pages and feel I should be higher. Should my strategy be to build trust and authority or concentrate on more keyword specific links?
Link Building | | waynekolenchuk0