Local site rankings have dropped off first page but Universal went up.
-
My site was performing first page locally on 6 of 20 keywords, and universally on 3 of 20 keywords. We started a link building campaign and optimization about 3 weeks ago. When I looked at the rankings today I was happy to see that 16 of 20 keywords were in the top 20 rankings universally, but not happy to see that only 1 of the 25 words were ranking locally now. I lost my local ranking on 5 very important keywords. I realize that you can not rank first page for both local and organic but its as if I traded my first page local ranking for a universal ranking that appears lower on the page. Maybe someone could point me in the right direction.
-
In this article they suggest that local/blogs about your area carry more weight in local results: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2065673/Link-Building-for-Local-Search
So, what kind of link building did you do? Citations? Blog posts?
This goes along with what Miriam said, but did you include a name, address and phone in the link building? If so, did you use the same address for all of them?
Are you using schema location data on the site you are optimizing? Do you have the meta tag for the geo location in the header?
-
I was trying to find some information or data that shows a correlation between global linking and a drop in local search results. Could you forward me any information you have on it? Thanks.
-
Hi Whmgatx,
I'm no expert at linkbuilding, but I would suggest you make double sure that nothing that was done could have caused a penalty of the Google Places/Google+ Local pages. For instance, make sure that as part of your optimization work, no one on the team over-optimized a listing, created a duplicate listing or created new listings that share items like phone numbers. Just a thought.
-
I'm guessing here since I don't have any data about your campaign, but your link building could have affected the SERPs in that way.
Linking your site from global oriented sites or sites scattered on hosts or ccTLDs around the globe, could have that effect, versus boosting your local rankings if you focus your link building campaign on relevant local sources.
Off course. there may be other factors, but from what you mention it could be the case.
Did you have a noticeable higher percentage of local link partners before starting your campaign? -
It looks like the keywords changed drastically on the 13th. My site was last indexed on the 11th so I am assuming that it can't be onsite issues ?
I guess my next step would be to find out what links have been indexed from the 13th on? Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for your help!
-
Getting served local results can be hit or miss on some phrases. It is possible that local results just weren't generated when the rankings were generated, so it had no data to go on. So, what I'd suggest doing is check your webmaster tools to get an idea of where the keyword has been ranking over the past week, and compare that to prior to your link building. When you click on the keyword in your webmaster tools it should have a list saying where it has ranked, and not just the average ranking position.
Also, I have a bunch of phrases that generate both universal and local results on the first page. I primarily work in the automotive vertical, and I see it with internal pages optimized for used cars, and having a Google Places optimized for used cars as well. The internal page only exists because the home page wasn't converting those customers very well, but it's a nice bonus to take up 2 of the top 5 spots.
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
-
50% Drop in ALL Traffic Post June Update
We've had 50% drop in Google and Direct traffic post June Google update. Why would direct suddenly plummet as well? Could it be something with Google tag manager or our new cookie policy and cookie management system? Any help would be greatly appreciated as I am a disabled person and trying to figure out what is going on with our site
Reporting & Analytics | | inhouseninja0 -
Mobile first indexing but can you force Google to index your desktop url instead?
Hi Guys So I just wanted to know if there is an option to force google to index your desktop version instead of the mobile version after the mobile first indexing by Google. Cheers Martin
Reporting & Analytics | | martin19700 -
How can you tell if Google has already assessed a penalty against your site for spammy links?
Is there any way to tell for sure if there is a penalty? My client has a ton of low quality back links, and I think they are in danger of a Penguin penalty. Any way to know? The links are there for a business reason.... their clients mention them in the footer, with a backlink. It is not a link scheme. but folks are generally not clicking on a footer link, and so there is a pro/con of leaving it as it. Any way, to diagnose whether a Penguin penalty has already hit?
Reporting & Analytics | | DianeDP2 -
500 errors and impact on google rankings
Since the launch of our newly designed website about 6 months ago, we are experiencing a high number of 500 server errors (>2000). Attempts to resolve these errors have been unsuccessful to date. We have just started to notice a consistent and sustained drop in rankings despite our hard sought efforts to correct. Two questions... can very high levels of 500 errors adversely effect our google rankings? And, if this is the case, what type of specialist (what are they called) has expertise to investigate and fix this issue. I should also mention that the sitemap also goes down on a regular basis, which some have stated is due to the size of the site (>500 pages). Don't know if they're part of the same problem? Thanks.
Reporting & Analytics | | ahw0 -
X2 Google Analytics affect page rank ?
Hi there, If you had 2 Google Analytics Accounts one to the main site and another to the blog, could this affect the page position in Google? We've suddenly noticed a drop in our KWs and it was shortly after we added another Google Analytics Account. The blog has 68% Bounce rate and the main site has always been about 48%. Any help would be much appreciated. Many thanks Paul
Reporting & Analytics | | webdesigncwd0 -
Analytics tagging parameters effect on site SEO
One of the effective tools used in analytics tagging is the use of analytics parameters that starts with '?' or '#'. Example on site tagging: Main link: www.domainname.com./category/sub-category/ www.domainname.com./category/sub-category/?lid=topnav www.domainname.com./category/sub-category/?lid=sidenav All three links link to the same landing page, with an extra parameter. Using email or campaign tagging: www.domainname.com./category/sub-category/ www.domainname.com./category/sub-category/?utm_source=launch&utm_medium=email&utm_term=html&utm_content=getscoop&utm_campaign=hwdyrwm2012 With that we create many tagged links based on the campaign internal strategy. How do these effect indexing, and link juice? How do thy effect SEO in general?
Reporting & Analytics | | RAPPLA0 -
Organic bounce rate after site re-launch
3 months ago a client of mine re-launched theoir web site (after having a lot of work done on it). Since then, many of the SEO indications are good - more non-paid keywords sending search visits, more organic visits overall, more URLs receiving entrances via search, etc. The issue is that their bounce rate has been increasing pretty much EVERY week since. Has anyone seen a similar issue and what could a potential solution be for this? Thanks everyone!
Reporting & Analytics | | CathalOMaoilfhinn0 -
I have recently switched from a html site to a Wordpress based one...
Obviously all my indexed links have changed. How can I avoid loosing page rank?
Reporting & Analytics | | HeadlandMachinery0