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.

    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
    • 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. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
  4. Newly designed page ranks in Google but then disappears - at a loss as to why.

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.

Newly designed page ranks in Google but then disappears - at a loss as to why.

Intermediate & Advanced SEO
5
9
1.4k
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.
  • MichaelWhyley
    MichaelWhyley last edited by Feb 4, 2016, 7:51 AM

    Hi all,

    I wondered if you could help me at all please? We run a site called getinspired365.com (which is not optimised) and in the last 2 weeks have tried to optimise some new pages that we have added. For example, we have optimised this page - http://getinspired365.com/lifes-a-bit-like-mountaineering-never-look-down

    This page was added to Google's index via webmaster tools. When I then did a search for the full quote it came back 2nd in Google's search. If I did a search for half the quote (Life is a bit like mountaineering) it also ranked 2nd. We had another quote page that we'd optimised that displayed similar behaviour (it ranked 4th). But then for some reason when I now do the search it doesn't rank in the top 100 results. This, despite, an unoptimised "normal" page ranking 4th for a search such as: Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered.

    So our domain doesn't seem to be penalised as our "normal" pages are ranking. These pages aren't particularly well designed from an SEO standpoint. But our new pages - which are optimised - keep disappearing from Google, despite the fact they still show as indexed.

    I've rendered the pages and everything appears fine within Google Webmaster Tools. At a bit of a loss as to why they'd drop so significantly? A few pages I could understand but they've all but been removed. Any one seen this before, and any ideas what could be causing the issue? We have a different URL structure for our new pages in that we have the quote appear in the URL. All the content (bar the quote) that you see in the new pages are unique content that we've written ourselves. Could it be that we've over optimised and Google view these pages as spam?

    Many thanks in advance for all your help.

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • DonnaDuncan
      DonnaDuncan last edited by Feb 5, 2016, 1:22 PM Feb 5, 2016, 1:22 PM

      I think part of the problem you're seeing Michael is due to Google's preference for fresh content. It's more prevalent in some industries but I have noticed the rankings boost you get from it is temporary. It degrades over time.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • EricaMcGillivray
        EricaMcGillivray @MichaelWhyley last edited by Feb 4, 2016, 5:49 PM Feb 4, 2016, 5:49 PM

        Hi Michael,

        Glad to see you got help! 🙂 If you're happy with the responses, would you mind marking this question as answered?

        Thanks!

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • MichaelWhyley
          MichaelWhyley @Andy.Drinkwater last edited by Feb 4, 2016, 11:57 AM Feb 4, 2016, 11:57 AM

          Thanks, I'll give it some time and as you say look at my site and try to figure out why one is ranking and the other is not.

          thanks again

          EricaMcGillivray 1 Reply Last reply Feb 4, 2016, 5:49 PM Reply Quote 0
          • Andy.Drinkwater
            Andy.Drinkwater @MichaelWhyley last edited by Feb 4, 2016, 11:52 AM Feb 4, 2016, 11:52 AM

            Hi Michael,

            Then I would guess you want to be optimising for something like "Inspirational quotes from Edmund Hilary" or "Inspirational quotes from Albert Einstein"? There is a much bigger discussion to be had here that could reach more people.

            Perhaps give the page some time and see if there are opportunities to create some internal links. Look at the stats from your other page and see why this is ranking, but the new one isn't. I am sure if you performed a mini audit, you would see lots of options that could help with this.

            -Andy

            MichaelWhyley 1 Reply Last reply Feb 4, 2016, 11:57 AM Reply Quote 0
            • MichaelWhyley
              MichaelWhyley @Andy.Drinkwater last edited by Feb 4, 2016, 11:42 AM Feb 4, 2016, 11:42 AM

              Hi Andy,

              Many thanks for replying, really appreciate it.

              That's a fair comment - I must admit that we thought we had enough content in there, but maybe not by the sounds of things. This page - http://www.getinspired365.com/genius - which is an old style page and been around for a few years - seems to rank 3rd in Google when you type in that quote (Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered) but this has even less content than our new style pages and is also not optimised in any way. Having said that, we can certainly try to add more content to the page to see if that helps things.

              And yes that makes complete sense. So the purpose of this page is for people to find the quote (and be inspired by it in some way - although this quote isn't the best!), and then find out some additional information about the person that said the quote, and also have links to more Edmund Hillary quotes, and links to other inspiring people. So it's not meant to be spammy in any way - certainly not our intention. Our intention is to provide people interesting quotes, in a visually nice way whilst being able to learn a little bit more about that author. Optimise wise we try and optimise on the quote itself, as that is the focus for us and what we are about. We'll try and add more content and see if that makes any difference.

              Many thanks

              Andy.Drinkwater 1 Reply Last reply Feb 4, 2016, 11:52 AM Reply Quote 0
              • MichaelWhyley
                MichaelWhyley @GastonRiera last edited by Feb 4, 2016, 11:36 AM Feb 4, 2016, 11:36 AM

                Hi Gaston,

                That's really helpful. Thanks.

                The new pages are only around 2 weeks old - the ones that have appeared then dropped. The ones that still appear ranked are a few years old. So I guess we could know more in 3-4 weeks to see what our true position is.

                I will have a read of those three links you've sent to me and see if there's anything that applies to us/could be affecting us. Many thanks for your reply.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • Andy.Drinkwater
                  Andy.Drinkwater last edited by Feb 4, 2016, 11:27 AM Feb 4, 2016, 11:25 AM

                  Hi Michael,

                  The first thing I would say, is that the page is somewhat lacking in actual content. There are only 168 words on there and this to me would suggest a thin page in Google's eyes.

                  You then have to ask yourself, who am I trying to attract to the page and what do I offer them when they get there? Do I answer a question in enough detail that Google is going to rank me well for it?

                  Is the page about Mountaineering or Edmund Hilary? What is the purpose of the page? What phrase are are you trying to optimize for?

                  I hope this makes sense?

                  -Andy

                  MichaelWhyley 1 Reply Last reply Feb 4, 2016, 11:42 AM Reply Quote 1
                  • GastonRiera
                    Gaston Riera last edited by Feb 4, 2016, 11:02 AM Feb 4, 2016, 11:02 AM

                    Hi,

                    How old are the pages that you are tracking? Have you considered that SERPs will fluctuate for a few weeks since google indexed them?
                    Also, you should take into consideration that January has been a really windy month in the SERPs, that's because there have been many updates on the Google Algorithm.
                    Check them out here:
                    Google Algorithm Change History - Moz.com
                    Algaroo.com
                    Mozcast.com

                    You should also take consideration, as you've said, that your pages aren't optimized over SEO. 
                    I'd recommend you that learn about the major updates that have been over january and analize wether your site may be not suitable for google to rank you better.

                    Hope it helps.
                    GR

                    MichaelWhyley 1 Reply Last reply Feb 4, 2016, 11:36 AM Reply Quote 1
                    • 1 / 1
                    1 out of 9
                    • First post
                      1/9
                      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

                    • seoanalytics

                      Fresh page versus old page climbing up the rankings.

                      Hello, I have noticed that if publishe a webpage that google has never seen it ranks right away and usually in a descend position to start with (not great but descend). Usually top 30 to 50 and then over the months it slowly climbs up the rankings. However, if my page has been existing for let's say 3 years and I make changes to it, it takes much longer to climb up the rankings Has someone noticed that too ? and why is that ?

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Sep 2, 2021, 12:48 PM | seoanalytics
                      0
                    • s_EOgi_Bear

                      Google Rich Snippets in E-commerce Category Pages

                      Hello Best Practice for rich snippets / structured data in ecommerce category pages? I put structured markup in the category pages and it seems to have negatively impacted SEO.  Webmaster tools is showing about 2.5:1 products to pages ratio. Should I be putting structured data in category Pages at all? Thanks for your time 🙂

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Mar 18, 2019, 5:01 PM | s_EOgi_Bear
                      0
                    • Hall.Michael

                      How to setup multiple pages in Google Search?

                      How to setup multiple pages in Google Search? I have seen sites that are arranged in google like : Website in Google
                                     About us.        Contact us
                                     Services.         Etc.. Kindly review screenshot. Is this can achieved by Yoast Plugin? X9vMMTw.png

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jul 24, 2015, 12:50 PM | Hall.Michael
                      0
                    • BeytzNet

                      Do Page Views Matter? (ranking factor?)

                      Hi, I actually asked it a year and a half ago (with a slight variation) but didn't get any real response and things do change over time. On my eCommerce website I have the main category pages with client side filtering and sorting. As a result, the number of page views is lower than can be expected. Do you think having more page views is still a ranking factor? and if so is it more important than user experience? Thanks

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Feb 2, 2015, 7:52 PM | BeytzNet
                      1
                    • JDatSB

                      Why are bit.ly links being indexed and ranked by Google?

                      I did a quick search for "site:bit.ly" and it returns more than 10 million results. Given that bit.ly links are 301 redirects, why are they being indexed in Google and ranked according to their destination? I'm working on a similar project to bit.ly and I want to make sure I don't run into the same problem.

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Mar 20, 2014, 3:45 PM | JDatSB
                      1
                    • bjs2010

                      Why does Google add my domain as a suffix to page title in SERPS?

                      Hi, If I do a search in Google - for one our products on our site, our site comes up - but it would appear that google is adding our domain name as a suffix to our title in the results... Anyone else seen this? Can I do anything about it? I would prefer it not to appear. Thanks!

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jun 21, 2013, 12:39 PM | bjs2010
                      0
                    • Joes_Ideas

                      Will changing Google Places address hurt rankings?

                      I have a client transferring ownership of their service business (photo booth rental). The current listed address will change, so my main concern is preserving the rankings during the transition. Should I change the Google Local listing to a new physical address, or change it to "serve a surrounding area"? It seems best to set as "serving a surrounding area", but I know Google is really weird about making local listing changes. I've seen and heard about countless listings falling completely off the map after being updated. Any advice appreciated.

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Apr 25, 2013, 11:40 PM | Joes_Ideas
                      0
                    • Peter264

                      NOINDEX listing pages: Page 2, Page 3... etc?

                      Would it be beneficial to NOINDEX category listing pages except for the first page.  For example on this site: http://flyawaysimulation.com/downloads/101/fsx-missions/ Has lots of pages such as Page 2, Page 3, Page 4... etc: http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aflyawaysimulation.com+fsx+missions Would there be any SEO benefit of NOINDEX on these pages?  Of course, FOLLOW is default, so links would still be followed and juice applied. Your thoughts and suggestions are much appreciated.

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Dec 6, 2011, 3:18 PM | Peter264
                      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.