Domain Authority and Links drastically decreased in less than a month
-
I'm fairly new to SEO, and am left completely perplexed about why our two SEO client's links and DA decreased so drastically in so little time.
Looking at their stats on Moz, between May and June, their DA's went down by 3-5 (which, they were fairly low to begin with), and external links were halved! This is rather concerning to me as building their external links has been my focus for the past few months for both of them.
There are a number of tweaks that I could make to site structure in terms of meta descriptions and page title length (though I can't fix that as the clients want to keep the titles as is), however there are no critical errors. I have also placed a lot of filters on both of their Google Analytics pages as they were getting what I just now realized was a ton of spam, though I don't see how that would affect anything.
I just can't imagine what lead to all of those external link suddenly dropping. I imagine the drastic drop in those lead to the DA decrease, but again, I'm very new, so I'm not certain.
Any help at all would be greatly appreciated. I have been panicking quite a bit since I've seen this!
-
Sure thing, those posts from May were probably after the last release of the index (May 5th). Hopefully you will see your site's DA return to a similar level, or even higher with the next release of the Index (scheduled June 23rd). Here are a few additional threads with more explanation. Nothing to worry about, you're not alone.
http://moz.com/community/q/what-s-the-story-on-mozscape-updates
http://moz.com/community/q/what-causes-total-external-links-to-fluctuate-so-much
http://moz.com/community/q/significant-drop-in-external-followed-links -
Ah, I had read about that change in a similar post from May, and thought it had been resolved. Thank you for the quick response. Will try to turn off the panic now!
-
Other users have experienced similar things with the most recent MozScape index since it was smaller than previous ones. There should be a new update coming in about two weeks, that will be a good opportunity to measure results and compare with previous Indexes. Since your client's sites don't have many links to begin with, even small variations in the index could cause major shifts in the site's DA. Check out this thread below for an explanation, it sounds like you're experiencing a similar situation.
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
-
Lower Impression higher clicks and CTR Compared to Previous Month?
I'm looking at our monthly traffic report and noticed that impressions were down in October compared to September but Clicks and CTR increased. I'm thinking it's because certain keyword increased in rank thus increase chances of a click through? Anyone else have any idea? Thank you in advance. Here is the data below: September:
Reporting & Analytics | | davidwang
Total clicks: 5071
Total impressions: 83429
Avg. CTR: 6.08%
Avg. Position: 28.4 October:
Total clicks: 5695
Total impressions: 79366
Avg. CTR: 7.18%
Avg. Position: 28.90 -
E-commerce with domain and subdomain for products
Hi, I have two pages: (main) page with a lot of traffic e.g. www.bags.com/yellow-bag-hp, and I have second subdomain e.g. www.shop.bags.com/yellow-bag-hp . This two domain has different CMS systems. Sites from main page have higher DA and PA and I can’t delete it, and I also can’t delete sites from a subdomain (shop) because this other CMS for eCommerce. What do you recommend for resolve this situation. Maybe create new URL: www.bags.com/shop and put on it all products, e.g.: www.bags.com/shop/yellow-bag-hp, and redirect all old pages to this one, or something else?
Reporting & Analytics | | Tormar0 -
What determines the page order of site:domain?
Whenever I use site:domain.com to check what's index, it's pretty much always in the same order. I gather from this, the order is not random. I'm also reasonably certainly it isn't related to any page strength signals or ranking results. So, does anyone know why the pages are displayed in the order they are? What information does the order of the pages tell me? Thanks, Ruben
Reporting & Analytics | | KempRugeLawGroup1 -
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 -
Google analytcics sub domain dot or not?
Buongiorno from 16 degrees C wetherby UK famous for the Wetherby Whaler Chippy 😉 OK... on this site http://www.philpotts.co.uk/ I've set up sub domain tracking as so:
Reporting & Analytics | | Nightwing
Parent site:
http://www.philpotts.co.uk/ Sub domain
http://shop.philpotts.co.uk/ So my question is please: should a dot be placed in the sub domain line as in : _gaq.push(['_setDomainName', '.philpotts.co.uk']); Some advice places a dot in setDomainName other advice doesnt 😞
Any insights welcome, Grazie,David0 -
Tracking Subdomains without access to Primary Domain
Hi, I have look after mutliple sub domains on a website and want to implement GA sub domain tracking across them. I do not have however have access to the primary domain as thats controlled by a larger organisation. I'm wondering how to set this up so it tracks correctly? Do I set the domain name in my property to the primary domain, or the main subdomain? For example I have test1.example.com (which is basically a homepage), test2.example.com, test3.example.com and test4.example.com which are various sections. As stated, I don't control the root example.com so Do I use setdomainname test1.example.com in the tracking code or setdomainname example.com. Apply filters etc and then setup profiles for each subdomain? Hope this makes sense. Thanks.
Reporting & Analytics | | breaktheseal0 -
Tracking analytics on several domains
Hello, I am looking for some advice. I am working with a real estate client. They have a main website, and then several separate agent websites. The agent sites share some content with the main site, as well as having some unique content. My question is what is the best way to track visitors? Should I have separate Google Analytics accounts for each site, or should I use one account and separate profiles?
Reporting & Analytics | | ukao0 -
Embed elements on my page help decrease my bounce rate?
I've embed elements on my page (vídeos, presentations) and i was wondering if when someone uses them it counts for the bounce rate. Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | lnjaine0