Sudden drop in rankings
-
I've been working on a site since it launched in April and the rankings for all targeted keywords have been creeping up in that time. For example the site was position 5 for "satchel" and 6 for "satchels".
I've just had the latest rankings report from SeoMoz and it is showing "not in top 50" for both keywords and big drops on most other keywords. What is the likely explanation for such a big drop?
The website is Z atchels.com
-
Thanks for your help in tracking this down!
-
If the report is not appearing correctly, my recommendation would be to contact the SEOmoz help desk for assistance. They could further analyze your issue from the back-end and if there is a bug, they can capture the details so it might be fixed.
Good luck.
-
As you can see it is set to use Google UK.
-
Any chance the setting was changed to use Google.com instead of .co.uk?
-
Thanks, I'm pretty pleased with the site and the client is certainly happy with their sales so far!
-
Hmm, it looks like the SeoMoz rank checker is reporting rankings incorrectly for Google.co.uk then.
I've taken a look at google.co.uk and you are right the rankings are pretty much the same as they were before. SeoMoz Rank Tracker tool is reporting the positions correctly but the Campaign rank tracking is way off.
-
You stated "no changes have been made to that page in the past couple of weeks". It is entirely possible a change you made a couple weeks ago is just now impacting your ranking. Your site DA is low and you may only be crawled once every couple weeks.
I again need to ask, what search engine exactly are you using? When I check Google.co.uk you are presently ranked #9 for "handmade leather satchels" which seems reasonable. You are also ranked #19 for "satchels". Is there a possibility you were ranked his in google.co.uk and you are presently checking google.com?
-
They ranked position 6 for handmade satchel on 23/8/11 which is when the rankings were updated on SeoMoz. On the last update on 30/8/11 it is not in the top 50.
All of the keywords I have mentioned are being tracked by SeoMoz and were ranking highly up to and including the 23/8/11 update but dropped significantly in the 30/8/11 update.
-
My main question is when? When was the last time you can confirm it ranked at those levels? Was it back in April? Or can you confirm it was ranking at that level in the last week or two then suddenly dropped?
Which search engine had these results? How do the results compare with other search engines?
-
It is set up to track rankings as a SeoMoz campaign I've just double checked and satchel and satchels were actually around the 13 mark, now they are not in top 50. Handmade leather satchel was rank 6 and is now not in top 50.
-
great, thanks, let me know what the resolution on this is. Ryan had asked when the last time it was ranked at 5 or 6 was, do you recall?
-
When was the last time you checked and noticed your site as rank #5/6?
I was under the impression that it was better to have a single link to a page than multiple routes?
I would agree with that statement, but if you do provide multiple links to the same page on your site, then I would follow all the links. There are a few instances where you could nofollow an internal link such as if you have a "print" copy of a page, or perhaps for tag/category pages. In those cases it's an all or nothing thing.
-
They don't do anything at the moment that a 17" Macbook would fit in but if they do in the future then I will let you know!
-
The page that was ranked was the site homepage. No changes have been made to that page in the last couple of weeks and very few changes have been made to the rest of the site.
I have changed the 302, I hadn't realised that the redirect that Magento applies by default is a 302!
The delivery and payment information links are no followed as their are multiple links to that page from the homepage. The main link doesn't have a nofollow on it. I was under the impression that it was better to have a single link to a page than multiple routes?
-
The site is new but has had a lot of PR which has gained links from high profile blogs and sites like Grazia and various UK national newspapers. I suppose one reason for the drop could be that these links are ageing?
-
I just realized, I need a satchel...Thanks..
PS,
the site looks very good and is designed smoothly..Good work.
-
If you were ranked #5 and are not presently ranked in the top 50 there are numerous possible causes. A few of the more popular ones are:
-
the page previously ranked has been removed from your site
-
the page previously ranked has been altered in such a manner that it had a negative impact on SEO
-
the site has been altered in a negative manner. For example, another page might be cannibalizing the keyword
-
the site has suffered a manual penalty from Google or whichever search engine is involved
-
the site has suffered an algorithmic penalty such as Panda
-
the site has lost backlinks
EDIT: I looked at the site. A major issue which should be fixed right away is the non-www address is 302'd to your www address. You should change it to a 301, then check your site to ensure that no pages are 302'd. No link juice is passed from a 302 redirect, whereas over 90% of the linking page's value is passed from a 301.
Also, remove all the nofollows from your home page links. You are nofollowing links to your own facebook and twitter page. Those are trusted pages under your control so the links should be followed. You are also nofollowing links to your "Delivery and Payment Information" page. That page has backlinks and unique content which some users may find helpful. Let your internal juice flow naturally.
I like your site's overall design but you do have some opportunities to perform better.
-
-
First, I may be in the wrong business.....I did not realize satchels were such an important item in the world. I am amazed at the number of high DA, high PA sites on page 3, 4, 5 of Google organic for satchel or satchels. So, it makes me wonder how you were ranking in slot 5 or 6 under these terms at all. The reason being that your DA is 29 and your PA on the home page is 36.
Your site is great, you've done a lot right, but you have DKNY on page 5 or 6, Hayden Harnett with DA of 54 and PA of 46 on page 4, shop.nationalgeographic.com...with DA of 92 and PA of 31 on page 3....
I think the bigger question for me would be, "How, with a new site were you up there to begin with?" Even assuming you had a site and all is the same but you rebuilt/remodeled, with your DA and PA, I just don't see how you could move that far ahead that quickly.
It really is an interesting, perplexing, issue. If you find out it would be great to share with all.
Good luck (any good satchels for 17" MacBook Pro, let me know....).
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
-
Rank Tracker For IRAN?
Hello dear. I have a client in IRAN and I want to track Persian keywords.But the MOZ tracker keywords doesn't support that country. Please help and advise me how can I use track keywords in IRAN?
Moz Pro | | allyunit1 -
Crawl Errors and Notices drop to zero
Hi all, After setting up a campaign in Moz the crawl is successful and it showed the Errors and Warnings in crawl diagnostics (each one had about 40-50), but after a few days the number dropped to zero. Only the "notices" seems to stay normal, with a slight drop since the campaign set up, but not dropping to zero. I set this campaign up in a colleague's account and the same thing happened shortly after set up. I didn't find any Q&A already posted so any insight is appreciated!
Moz Pro | | Vanessa120 -
Tracking keyword rankings on sub pages
Hello, What is the best way to track keywords on sub pages of a website through seomoz? Do we need to create a separate campaign for each sub page? Thanks for all the help!
Moz Pro | | DerekDenholm0 -
Apparent discrepancy on overseas Google results in Rankings
Probably a very noob question this ... I'm based in the UK and have just set up a campaign which includes Google US. There seems to be a discrepancy between some of the rankings found by SEOMOZ and what I see when I simulate the actual search using Adwords > Ad Preview. For example, a particular term shows "not in the top 50" for Google US on the rankings page of my campaign in SEOMOZ. But my US colleagues say that when they run the search they see us on page 1. And when I simulate the search via Adwords Preview, I also see our site ranking well on page 1. I'd like to understand why the discrepancy 🙂 Thanks for any advice. Gord
Moz Pro | | Gord690 -
How do i add many keywords to rank checker
I want to use the Rank checker for a bunch of keywords, but i don't want to set tracking to them, It's just a one time only check i want to perform, but im not sure how to add many keywords (it's about 150 keywords i want to check). So if anyone knows how to do this, with SEOmoz Rank Checker tool or another tool in SEOmoz, please let me know. Thanks in advance.
Moz Pro | | Petersen110 -
Cannot see Bing rank in Campaign
Hi guys I have included Bing en-GB in my engine list for rankings on one of my websites, however, the actual rank placements are not showing at all in the results, even though a search in Bing shows my site is top on some of the keywords and near top on some of the others. Am I doing something wrong here? Thanks Nick
Moz Pro | | Total_Displays0 -
Ranking better
Hello there, I am after some specific guidance on how to rank well for the keyword ‘Translation Services’. I have managed to get the site www.pstranslation.co.uk to page 2 of google UK for this key term. The difficulty is I seem to have run out of steam now on how to get higher rankings. After spending a considerable amount of time creating content and gaining links I managed to get the site from around page 15 on google uk to page 4 then to page 2. That’s where it seems to have stopped. I (think I) have got the onsite SEO pretty well nailed. I have got some good linkable content (http://www.pstranslation.co.uk/infog_languages.html,http://www.pstranslation.co.uk/language_resources_indus.html) and have plans to produce a more. Experience working within the language industry tells me that a top 3 position on page 1 for this keyword can very lucrative so my main focus of SEO is to rank well for this key phrase. There is a very good chance you reply will simply be get more (better) links and if it is that’s fine but is there anything else I can do? Am I missing a very obvious trick anywhere? Looking forward to your reply.
Moz Pro | | bigtimeseo0