Homepage no longer showing in Google.co.uk
-
Hi guys,
Has anyone ever had this before? My clients website was appearing 4 & 5 in Google.co.uk for the keyword 'voltage optimisation'.
Since moving up in the rankings after furiously optimising the website we have now gotten to position 3 in Google.co.uk but the homepage ranking has disappeared and now is just displaying our 'what is voltage optimisation' page. I'm guessing Google feels that this page is more useful to someone searching 'voltage optimisation' but my client wants answers?!
It's almost like Google have said, "if you want to take position 3 were only going to list one of your pages" because everytime we drop back down to position 4 our homepage appears position 5.
-
LOL. Sounds like an opportunity for an upsell to me
I'd look for some variants where the home page does rank 1 and say "well, here's something we managed to arrange for you....."
-
Thanks for your responses, I didn't think there would be a straight forward answer and it is most likely that Google feels that this is the most relevant page for that particular search query which is what I have told them. They are wanting suggestions on how to replace this page with the homepage?! They just don't understand how it use to be there along with other page and no it isn't. Interestingly if you search in https://www.google.ie the SERP's display the same as .co.uk use to display.
-
Generally I find that what happens with a new website is that I start off with several category pages that rank for a number of main keywords. As the site develops and we look to increase rankings you tend to build specialist pages that then overtake the main category pages. So here is an example of what you see in Moz
In this case we were optimising for a type of steel called S690QL1. To start with it ranked in SERPS on the page for High yield steel. As we optimised the site further we saw the page S690QL replace the high yield steel page in rankings (on june 20th). Then on August 29th S690QL1 then replace the S690QL page and it now looks to be at number 3.
So you should be able to see something similar in your "analyse a keyword" on moz pro.
-
It is normal for Google to optimise there own serps to deliver the most relevant pages, as such your "what is voltage optimisation" is clearly deemed the more relevant for users searching. From my experience the home page tends to be displayed mainly when surrounding branded search.
-
Maybe google is testing the two landing pages to see which is better for the user? I am assuming here that Google has signals that indicate whether a site/page is useful or not to the people using the query to find them. I've noticed this sort of thing happen to my sites and it always settles down in the end.
As for your client - I'm in-house now, but when I was agency-side I would have found a questioning client tricky. I think though, that honesty is the best policy - even if you have to say "I don't know why Google is behaving this way. I am looking into possible reasons why this could be happening, but I may never find the answer. I am monitoring your site and am continuing to optimise your homepage for the keyword, 'voltage optimisation'."
Sometimes clients can be difficult, but they have to understand that some of the things Google does are a complete mystery, and that's just the way it is.
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
-
Google indexing is slowing down?
I have up to 20 million unique pages, and so far I've only submitted about 30k of them on my sitemap. We had a few load related errors during googles initial visits, and it thought some were duplicates, but we fixed all that. We haven't gotten a crawl related error for 2 weeks now. Google appears to be indexing fewer and fewer urls every time it visits. Any ideas why? I am not sure how to get all our pages indexed if its going to operate like this... love some help thanks! HnJaXSM.png
Technical SEO | | RyanTheMoz0 -
My Website stopped being in the Google Index
Hi there, So My website is two weeks old, and I published it and it was ranking at about page 10 or 11 for a week maybe a bit longer. The last few days it dropped off the rankings, which I assumed was the google algorithm doing its thing but when I checked Google Search Console it says my domain is not in the index. 'This page is not in the index, but not because of an error. See the details below to learn why it wasn't indexed.' I click request indexing, then after a bit, it goes green saying it was successfully indexed. Then when I refresh the website it gives me the same message 'This page is not in the index, but not because of an error. See the details below to learn why it wasn't indexed.' Not sure why it says this, any ideas or help is appreciated cheers.
Technical SEO | | sydneygardening0 -
Top Landing Page has disappeared from Google Search Console but still shows at the top of Google
Hi, One of the top landing pages in my website has disappeared from GSC Search Analytics results. But I do get a good traffic from that page until now. What might be the reason for GSC to stop showing it on the results?
Technical SEO | | eduapps0 -
Google UK and the slog of Link building
Background:
Technical SEO | | Brinley
I have a number of sites built using the open eCommerce software zen cart. One of these sites was penalised by the original Penguin algorithm back in April 24, 2012. The reason for the panalty was that two ecommerce sites in Hong kong had a link to the above site in the footer of their 2000 & 4000 product website. I have no idea why the site had these links and even though I did contact them a few months before the Penguin massacre asking them to remove the footer link I was technically unaware of the ticking time bomb that they presented. The result, as is now engrained in SEO history, was that the site was moved to sit alongside Googles equivalent of the restaurant at the end of the universe and stayed there for 2 years until April 2014.
As I had never indulged in link building for the simple reason that I found it laborious I was obviously infuriated with the resulting loss of revenue but that was balanced with an understanding that I had not kept pace with the changing landscape of SEO according to Google. The quest I am now on is to increase my 3 sites profile on the web without getting another spanking from Google in the near future. The problem I have is that white hat today may well be black hat tomorrow. (I can recall the days when Google said links are good and everyone went out and asked other websites to link with them and look where that led.) So do I ignore actively cultivating links as some suggest and look to produce good content (which is quite difficult when you make mugs and candles by the way.) or do you go out and look to intentionally build links by studying competitors links, reviewing link opportunity or get bloggers to review products. For a small lifestyle entrepreneur like myself, the ever changing seo landscape and the amount of time & effort it requires is slowly and inevitably pushing us back out to that restaurant mentioned earlier. If only Google had a little brother that was designed purely for small businesses - like it was in the good old days before the dinosaur that is big business grunt and thought hmmm! whats that?
And if there were such a thing I would add a caveat that it would be illegal to generate pointless amount of cyber content because the web is becoming something akin to a landfill. Which leaves me nowhere really - but I think I am okay with that. Waiter !!0 -
URL not indexed but shows in results?
We are working on a site that has a whole section that is not indexed (well a few pages are). There is also a problem where there are 2 directories that are the same content and it is the incorrect directory with the indexed URLs. The problem is if I do a search in Google to find a URL - typically location + term then I get the URL (from the wrong directory) up there in the top 5. However, do a site: for that URL and it is not indexed! What could be going on here? There is nothing in robots or the source, and GWT fetch works fine.
Technical SEO | | MickEdwards0 -
Google webmasters showing links from my own IP
Was looking at Google webmasters earlier today and I noticed that links are shown from my own IP address. Really weird. Any clue on how to fix that?
Technical SEO | | EricMoore0 -
Hit by Google
My site - www.northernlightsiceland.com - has been hit by google and Im not sure why. The traffic dropped 75% last 24 hours and all the most important keywords have dropped significantly in the SERP. The only issue I can think of are the subpages for the northern lights forecasting I did every day e.g. http://www.northernlightsiceland.com/northern-lights-forecast-iceland-3-oct-2012/ I have been simply doing a copy/paste for 1 month the same subpage, but only changing the top part (Summary) for each day. Could this be the reason why Im penalized? I have now simply taken them all down minus the last 3 days (that are relevant). What can I do to get up on my feet again? This is mission critical for me as you can imagine. Im wondering if it got hit by this EMD update on 28 sept that was focusing on exact match domains http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4501349-1-30.htm
Technical SEO | | rrrobertsson0 -
Google Penalize?
Hello, I read an statement somewhere which stated: "2 identical URLs linked to 2 different popular key phrases next to each other (on the same website/domain) will lead to a Google penalize. Google knows, that both terms are popular. This means, Google will ignore the links to your site (you'll not have any benefit) and the site you have your links on loses authority." What are your thoughts on this statement? Thank you.
Technical SEO | | micfo0