Why a drop in certain keyword but not others?
-
Hi.
I am looking into a potential clients SEO issues and reasons why their rankings for specific keywords that they ranked for have dropped but others stayed the same or sometimes have improved.
They received a manual spam action that was revoked after some disavow and so on. In May of this year they noticed a huge drop in more generic terms.
The main keyword that was ranked 6th, dropped to 35th yet other keywords rose slightly.
I have noticed this issue for another potential client as well. They ranked 1st for their brand name, then received a spam action that was revoked. Now they do not rank for their brand name but do for other long tail keywords?
Any ideas the best way to investigate this or root out the issue and build to improve rank for more generic keywords?
Thanks
-
Thanks for your response.
Anchor text is where my thoughts lie.
I think there could be something here as they do have lots of exact match anchor terms for their brand name. plus one of the dropped keywords is that term. Not phrase but one word term.
Say their brand name is Gym Shack. They have dropped considerably for the term Gym whilst maintaining or improving for Gyms in England or MMA Gyms.
This is where I am leaning towards.
What can be done here if Google is devaluing the term Gym? Is it the links that need removing or does the focus need to shift somehow?
Thanks
-
These type of scenarios are very hard to diagnose without specific details such as the text of the penalty and what the site is but let me give you a few reasons:
-
Anchor text way over done for the brand or for a main keyphrase. This can result in lowered rankings on that keyphrase while maintaining authority on others.
-
Specific penalty addressing these anchors, particular links that have now been devalued totally, etc. If you had a lot of links to "keyphrase 1" anchors and then Google devalued & penalised those links, you'd rank for other terms but not those.
If the brand name is fairly generic, overcooked anchors would be my first guess - but again, it's just a guess. There are probably 6-10 different potential causes of this.
-
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
-
Ranking for Keyword
Hi, In the last couple months my client has dropped for several main keyword (not all but some). I suspect this has to do with algorithm updates in March. I am trying to better target the site for this keyword as I discovered it is only mentioned in the home page title on their site at this time. The homepage did not have a good H1 tag, so I added the keyword to that as well. It's in the menu and item page meta descriptions (ecommerce site) and I added it to the homepage meta description. I also suggested to the client that we place it and variants of it in various places throughout the site (where it makes sense). I have a couple questions: Is having an H1 tag at the bottom of the page a concern? It's there because there are various product banners and other information at the top and I didn't want to disrupt the flow of the site. It is above the footer of the page. Does there need to be text underneath? -Is there anything else I can do to improve my rankings for this keyword? I haven't really dealt with this before and any input is appreciated. I also suggested they should try to improve their site overall with more descriptive product descriptions and trying to get backlinks from vendors and relevant contacts.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | AliMac260 -
70% organic traffic drop in October?! Algorithm change?
I oversee content for a client and this past month there was a 70% decrease in traffic. We noticed the hit start on September 29th, and has never rebounded. Any suggestions what this could be (i..e latest Google algorithm update) and or tools I should use to look into it? Nothing is showing up as an alert on Moz analytics and need to address with my client asap.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jfeitlinger0 -
Two sites, heavily cross linking, targeting the same keyword - is this a battle worth fighting?
Hi Mozzers, Would appreciate your input on this, as many people have differing views on this when asked... We manage 2 websites for the same company (very different domains) - both sites are targeting the same primary keyword phrase, however, the user journey should incorporate both websites, and therefore the sites are very heavily cross linked - so we can easily pass a user from one site to another. Whilst site 1 is performing well for the target keyword phrase, site 2 isn't. Site 1 is always around 2 to 3 rank, however we've only seen site 2 reach the top of page 2 in SERPs at best, despite a great deal of white hat optimisation, and is now on the decline. There's also a trend (all be it minimal) of when site 1 improves in rank, site 2 drops. Because the 2 sites are so heavily inter-linked could Google be treating them as one site, and therefore dropping site 2 in the SERPs, as it is in Google's interests to show different, relevant sites?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | A_Q0 -
Keyword in alt tag and future G Updates
Hello, I notice that it is common practice to put the page's keywords directly into an alt tag. I don't see how this helps the user and how it helps the user using screen readers and such. Do you think future G updates will slightly penalize pages with alt tags that are just the page's keywords and not a helpful phrase? What do you recommend to put in alt tags in light of future G updates?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW1 -
My ranking dropped 3 pages on 18 november 2012
Hi There my site ranking dropped suddenly today for my main keywords such as security companies in london and security services in london from first page to 4th-5th page. these keywords were ranked on homepage http://www.armstrongsecurity.co.uk/ other keywords from some internal pages, such as this one http://www.armstrongsecurity.co.uk/security-services/event-security-london.html theygot hit slightly and went couple of listings down the road for event security london, event security companies london as well. same slight hitting happened on this page for main keywords http://www.armstrongsecurity.co.uk/bodyguard-for-hire-london.html can anyone help me, how to get the rankings back? my site authority is around 60 which is far better than most sites ranking higher than me now. these are some problems that i understand so far. keyword rich anchor text link profile for my main keywords over optimised pages let me know if anything you might find suspicious on my site that i can fix either on site or in my link profile. looking forward to your help. thanks gill
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | spciuk0 -
What Google considers to be a branded keyword?
We can set our own keywords as branded in SeoMoz campaign, but Google would not necessarily see them like branded. After reading the Blog post at http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-wpmuorg-recovered-from-the-penguin-update I had a question: Are there known rules (or at least guesses) what Google considers a branded keyword/anchor text? I guess the first one would be your website domain. So bluewidget.com for example would be a branded keyword for bluewidget.com website. How about Blue Widget or Blue Widget Company?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | SirMax0 -
My page rank dropped by 20 places 1 day before it was cached....any connection?
Hi I've been rather silly and been linking out to other websites for reciprical links. I added about 20 and just discovered some were bad neigbourhoods. On Sunday my rankings tanked but the page was only cached the following day on the Monday. Just wondering if there is any connection. I genuinely did not know that linking out could was bad and have removed all reciprical links as a precaution.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BelfastSEO0 -
Drop in non-branded organic search April 1
I saw an intense drop in non-branded organic search for major pages on my site on April 1st this year. The homepage wasn't affected and it's not an annual thing. I've attached a screen shot showing the drop. I'm new to the company and recently learned that they had hired a pretty black hat company last year and I'm worried that this is Panda...although the timing seems wrong. Has anyone experienced panda effects between the two updates? I'd love to get some feedback!! 1ry2a.png
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | CIEEwebTeam0