Steady Decline in Domain Authority since December 2014
-
We have a site that was at a 32 domain authority in December, and our competition as usually been about a point or two behind us. But since December, we have fallen a point or two after each index and are now at the point of 26 and our competition is up to a 33. The competition did fall a point or two but were able to regain what they lost.
We publish original content blogs over 600 words per blog targeted at our audience twice a week and post to all of our social media channels and have guest blogged linking back to our site. We also updated the look of our site to be mobile responsive to comply with Google's mobile indexing. I did find some spam feed burners linking to our site over 4,000 times and have since disavowed those links.
Has anyone experienced a decline in domain authority in the past few months and have you been able to turn it back around? Is there something that we should look at fixing or something we are missing that could help bring our numbers back up?
-
Thanks for your feedback, I realized after I posted my question that it was pretty vague description of what we are doing. But thanks for answering, this will help me for sure.
-
It is impossible for anyone to give meaningful feedback with the information provided.
We have no information about the quality of your blogging on your own site, the structure of your website, how your site update was done, where you are guest blogging, the quality of your guest blogging.... and all of that same information about your competitors.
Read Rand's blog post about Why Good Unique Content Needs To Die.
Has anyone experienced a decline in domain authority in the past few months and have you been able to turn it back around?
Domain authority for most sites goes up and down, up and down, down and up. Stay focused on doing a better and better job of winning the ecstatic approval of your visitors.
Is there something that we should look at fixing or something we are missing that could help bring our numbers back up?
Your focus should be on quality. Numbers are for entertainment. Quality is what defeats your competitor - or what your competitor uses to defeat you.
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
-
What would be causing our linking domains and inbound links to decline?
I am noticing a decline in the number of our linking domains and inbound links from month to month. It isn't drastic but looking like a trend. Any reason why this would happen? I'm not sure where to start. Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | amanda_feagle0 -
Vanity URL vs domain URL
Hi guys, Our CEO is having an interview with a known broadcaster on radio. During the interview he will mention a specific URL www.example.com/marketingcampaign that we want track on Google Analytics, therefore behaving like a vanity URL redirecting to the actual URL www.example.com/resources/primary-keyword-2018. Would this work the same way a vanity URL in terms of tracking or not such as following guideline here ? I am asking because vanity URLs are supposed to be completely different domain name that gets purchased and in our case it is the same domain name just with a different URI. thanks guys!
Reporting & Analytics | | Taysir0 -
Redirecting one domain to another using utm tags
I have two live websites, which have both been live for over 10 years, so we have plenty of backlinks to both...domain1.com & domain2.com. Domain 1 and all urls is being merged into domain2.com. So 301 redirects will be setup for every page of the site....domain1.com/abc-1234/ to > domain2.com/abc-1234/ In Google analytics for domain2.com we want to be able to see which visits we have received as a result of a redirect from domain1.com. It is possible to see these visits that come in via organic, referrals and social etc, as those will come to us with the referral as domain1.com. However, with direct traffic, i.e. if someone types domain1.com into their search bar, these visits will be assigned as direct and we are not able to tell in GA if those users have typed in domain2.com, or domain1.com to get to our webpage. There are some suggestions in forums of adding utm_source tracking to all redirects (and add canonicals to those urls pointing to the non utm_source version), but my concern is that Google is going to have to go through one extra step to reach the page on the redirected domain. So without the utm source code Google will follow this route
Reporting & Analytics | | Sayers
domain1.com/123/ to domain2.com/123/ With the utm source code Google will follow this route
domain.com/123/ to domain2.com/123/?utm_source... then see's canonical, so moves to domain2.com/123/ So essentially I am giving Google one extra step to follow before it gets to the equivalent page on the new site. Is this an issue, and/or are there any other ways to track this redirection without adding extra parameters to the url?0 -
Alternative domains redirected with 301 to the main domain
Hi everyone I've got a website which gained a Panda penalty back in March 2012 which was because of the implementation of a range of spammy practices (keyword stuffing in titles, indexed category and tag pages, duplicate domains). I've fixed the titles and deindexed any pages that could be seen as thin or duplicate so I'm confident that any onsite Panda issues have been fixed. As mentioned above the client had also created over 40 alternative domains to the website and pointed them to their main website folders (hence duplicating the website and content 40 times over). These domains have now been redirected via 301 redirects to the main website to ensure that any links they have gained are captured. The reason for the redirection is that we initially took the domains down and saw a drop in traffic and this seemed to be the most likely reason. While Moz and Majestic are not showing any significant links to these domains (which is why they where originally taken down), past experience has told me that these tools don't always pick up all referring domains. Primary domain workingvoices.com 5 Example Alternative Domains presentationskillslondon.com workingvoiceslive.biz workingvoices.co.uk livingvoices.co.uk working-voices.net Question 1: At the same time we took down the alternative domains (and experienced the drop in traffic) we removed duplicate instances of Google Analytics code from the webpages. All the guidance that we could find stated that duplicate instances of code shouldn't affect your Analytics numbers, hence we assumed it was the taking down of the alternative domains, but maybe the guidance we found was wrong? Question 2: It is 3 months later and these alternative domains are still indexed by Google, and Panda hasn't run since October 2014 so we haven't experienced a recovery yet. Redirecting the domains will remove any issue of a Panda penalty, but now of course I am worried about Penguin - the last thing I want to do is trigger that can of worms! This whole saga has been pretty complicated and I think I need some fresh sets of eyes. What does everyone think? Could the initial drop have been due to the duplicate Analytics code being removed? Could the redirecting domains trigger Penguin? Should we take the alternative domains down and be done with them? Any other thoughts! Looking forward to hearing your opinions! Damon.
Reporting & Analytics | | Digitator0 -
Spike in 404 Errors from a redirecting domain
All, The non www version of a site I own redirects to the www version. Recently, WMT began showing a big spike in 404 errors (1,000+) on the non www version of the site. Site traffic is off about 15% since the spike in 404 errors. There was also a brief period about two weeks ago, where the site went down due to an issue with the code that has now been resolved. Any ideas how WMT is showing 404 errors on redirected pages? Thanks, John
Reporting & Analytics | | JSOC0 -
Large recent drop in "Domain Authority" and backlinks through OSE
Hello, I've noticed that our sites domain authority has dropped enormously this past week according to Open Site Explorer. It also shows us as having lost about half of our backlinks. Google webmaster tools doesn't show a corresponding drop in links and we haven't done anything to our domain recently. Anyone have any ideas what might have happened? Our site is at: http://www.GoldMaxUSA.com Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | JFritton0 -
Difference between page/domain authority
could anyone explain the difference between Page Authority and Domain Authoity to me or give me a link to a site where it is explained? Sorry if It's really obvious and I'm just too stupid to find out, but I've searched and haven't found anything.
Reporting & Analytics | | mtueckcr0 -
Google: show all images indexed on a domain
Is there a way to display all images that google has indexed on a domain / subdomain? I'm basically looking for something like a site:-command for google image search.
Reporting & Analytics | | jmueller0