seo search engine optimization link building agencyseo search engine optimization link building agencyseo search engine optimization link building agencyseo search engine optimization link building agency
  • SERVICES
    • Managed SEO
    • Link Building
    • White Label SEO
    • Content Writing
    • SEO Audits
    • PPC Management
  • TOOLS
    • Backlink Checker
    • Site Audit
    • Broken Link Tool
    • Robots.txt Tester
    • Sitemap Validator
    • Site Speed Tester
    • Title Tag Checker
    • AI Content Writer
    • SEO Training
  • WHY US
    • Case Studies
    • Our Process
    • Our Team
    • Our History
    • Acquisitions
    • Become a Writer!
  • BLOG
  • CONTACT
GET STARTED
✕
Top 30 Online Marketing Tools for 2021
Top 30 Online Marketing Tools for 2022
November 5, 2021
Do Website Rankings Remain After Backlinks Disappear?
Do Website Rankings Remain After Backlinks Disappear?
November 6, 2021

Why Your Google Rankings Dropped & What To Do About It

Last Updated by Sam Edwards on November 5, 2021
Why Your Google Rankings Dropped & What To Do About It

A drop in your Google ranking can can be both frustrating and frightening.

It’s especially terrifying if you have no idea why the drop in rankings happened.

With over 200 ranking factors, there are a multiplicity of reasons why a site’s ranking might suffer an abrupt plunge.

Luckily, a majority of rankings issues can be remedied with a bit of time and effort.

Let’s look at some of the most common issues that could cause a site’s ranking to plummet.

Table of Contents

  • Your Site is New
  • Canonicalization Issues
  • Server Problems
  • Detection of Malware
  • Algorithm Changes
  • Spammy Links
  • Major Changes to Your Backlink Profile
  • You Lost a Good Backlink
  • You Acquired a High Authority Backlink
  • A Decline in Content Quality
  • Something Changed in Your robots.txt or .htaccess File
  • A Competitor Emerged
  • Decrease in Indexed Pages
  • Randomization or “The Google Dance”
  • Google Penalties

Your Site is New

New sites get a lot of love from Google. And a lot of hate. It’s complicated.

When your site launches, Google will have never heard of it, and it won’t have your site indexed, which means you can’t show up in any search results. When Google first indexes your site, it might give you an artificial ranking boost (since Google’s algorithm naturally favors new sites temporarily), leading you to believe you’ve earned those ranks all on your own. After that introductory period, your rankings will probably drop again as Google tries to make better sense of who you are and how authoritative you are. To put it concisely, volatility is expected and normal for new sites.

Canonicalization Issues

Problems with canonicalization are somewhat similar to issues with duplicate content. These problems crop up when Google has indexed a page from your site with multiple different URLs. Canonicalization issues can occur when two versions of a domain name are indexed or when a single domain name is indexed with both HTTPS and HTTP. Unfortunately, this type of problem is easy to encounter through no fault of your own. Anyone who links to your site with an incorrect version of the URL can cause canonicalization trouble for you. If this happens, it’s important to reach out to the webmaster of the site with the bad link and attempt to have it changed.

Canonicalization issues

Using canonical checking tools like Moz or Ahrefs can help eek out potential issues with duplicate content on-site.

Server Problems

Google is typically quite forgiving of short-lived server problems on your site: If your website is down for maintenance or experiences a day or two of availability problems, your ranking should be unharmed. However, if the search engines have trouble accessing your site for several days, it could have a negative impact on your ranking. If you’re planning to take your site down for maintenance, you should make changes on your server so that a 503 code is generated; this indicates to the search engines that the outage is temporary.

Detection of Malware

The presence of malware on your site won’t directly harm your ranking, but the impact it has on the traffic you get from search results is just as significant. If Google observes the presence of malware on your site, it will add a warning for users next to your listing in the search results. Various tools are available for finding and removing malware on your website. Once you succeed in dealing with the infection, Google will be able to remove the malware warning from your search results listing.

Algorithm Changes

If you’ve been playing by the rules with your website, and your site hasn’t been experiencing any technical problems, your drop in ranking may be due to an algorithm change by the search engines. In an effort to improve the overall quality of their results, Google and the other engines have made many adjustments to the way they index and rank web content. Google’s Penguin and Panda updates are two of the most well-known algorithm adjustments, causing sweeping changes in the SEO community. While most of these algorithm tweaks result in a more gradual impact on rankings, an overnight drop could occur if your site is particularly affected by the changes. If this happens to your site, your only recourse is to work on improving your website’s SEO and attempt to make your website stronger and better.

Algorithm changes

Source: Advanced Web Rankings

The most likely culprit is actually the simplest explanation. Google has released a new algorithm update or a new data refresh that reevaluated the rankings of businesses for a particular query (or the way that the evaluation takes place). As a result of the update, you’re ranking lower.

Google releases updates from time to time, though only a handful warrant widespread attention. For example, Panda 4.1 and Penguin 3.0 were massive algorithm updates in the past year that received great amounts of attention and instigated major shakeups in page rank, but these aren’t the only type of updates that Google unveils. Google regularly applies data refreshes to its index in order to keep its ranking predictable and in line with its current standards—so one of these data refreshes, while small in scale, could easily disrupt your previous rank.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much you can do to reverse the effects of one of these updates. If it’s a data refresh, there’s practically nothing you can do. If it’s a larger update, and Google has made adjustments to some of its ranking factors, learn which factors were affected, and adjust your strategy accordingly to compensate for those changes.

Spammy Links

Even if you rigidly adhere to best practices when building links, it’s possible that a bad link got into your backlink profile. You might have built a link hastily, or on a site that isn’t quite relevant enough for your brand, or someone else entirely might have built it, putting the incident entirely outside of your control. In any case, if Google sees an irrelevant, unhelpful, or low-authority link pointing back to your site, that could be all it takes to throw your rankings for a loop. You can check out your backlink profile using Open Site Explorer or a similar tool, and remove any suspicious links with a simple request to the webmaster hosting it.

Your backlink profile is a collection of links on the web that help Google analyze your authority on the web. If the constitution of that back link profile suddenly changes, your rankings could drop as a result. If you’ve slipped up and posted an irrelevant link, or a link on a low-quality source, or any kind of link that could be considered spam, you could see a drop shortly thereafter.

Major Changes to Your Backlink Profile

Backlink profile changes aren’t always at the fault of the webmaster, however. It’s possible that one or more of your existing high-quality links were removed by an external webmaster. If your link profile is diverse enough, this shouldn’t be enough to move you, but if several of your links or a majority of your links disappear overnight, you could easily experience a significant ranking drop accordingly.

Additionally, negative SEO attacks are rare, but possible. In a negative SEO attack, a competitor or other malicious entity would intentionally post bad, spammy links to your domain in an effort to lower your authority. If you are concerned about this, or if you just want to audit your current backlink profile, try using Moz’s free tool, Open Site Explorer, to check your external links. If you wish for an even better tool, we also suggest Ahrefs.com.

You Lost a Good Backlink

You lost a good link

Losing one (or in this case) thousands of backlinks will definitely have an impact.

Conversely, if you had an especially powerful link pointing back to your site that suddenly disappeared, the authority it passed will disappear with it. For example, let’s say you earned a link on a major authority with a .edu domain.

That webmaster decided to turn the link into a nofollow link, or decided to remove it entirely. It’s to be expected that your domain authority, and thus your rankings, would then drop, especially if you’re new to the game.

You Acquired a High Authority Backlink

Believe it or not, but powerful, high domain authority links can create a drop in rankings for specific or overall keywords for a given page. Here’s one example:

You’ll notice an immediate Google rankings drop after a high authority backlink was pointed to the page, then subsequent rankings volatility and–eventually–rankings settling a number of weeks later.

If you’re performing your outreach properly, you’ll obviously want to diversify you backlinks between high and low authority websites, focusing on sites with high(er) authority that are niche-relevant. But, be very aware, new backlinks, especially on low authority sites that are new(er) (<3 years old) can cause massive rankings swings that may take months or more to settle.

Not all links are created equal. It doesn’t mean you’re being penalized by Google. It’s simply a byproduct of the SERPs looking to readjust where your page now stands relative to other sites on the web.

So, whenever we have a new marketing client with a new website come to us and want to immediately go after the highest authority links and then they complain of immediate rankings drops, we gently remind them that anytime you make significant changes to a site (on-site content, inbound links, content consolidation, etc.), you will need to expect rankings volatility to occur. 

The next time you see an absolutely killer link come from the links of BusinessInsider, Business.com, Inc, Forbes, etc., brace yourself for some turbulence.

A Decline in Content Quality

This isn’t a common cause of sudden drops in traffic, since a decline in content quality usually happens over time, but it is possible that your latest ranking report was influenced by a gradual change in your content approach. Google favors long-form, highly detailed, original content with heavily researched elements and understandable wording. If your posts are getting less detailed, more rushed, or otherwise less useful for your readers, it could trigger a signal to Google that you aren’t as authoritative as you used to be. If you’re concerned, run a content audit to evaluate the strength of your latest material, and refresh your approach for modern best practices in content marketing.

Even the best content marketers aren’t always perfect. Writing well-written, appropriate, in-depth, relevant topics on a weekly or daily basis is quite a challenge, and a couple of slips in that consistency are all it takes to cause a temporary slide in your online rankings.

There are some usual culprits for this. First and foremost, if you post a piece of content that’s a duplicate of one you’ve already posted, or a copy from something that already exists on the web, you could have inadvertently triggered a slight content-based penalty. Scan your site for any pieces of duplicated content, and get rid of them or use redirects to mask one iteration in favor of the other.

Irregular posting of content could also interfere with your page rank. If you usually post three times a week, and you stop for a month, Google’s algorithm could detect the change and dock you for the lapse of new content. This is where guest blogging services can prove helpful.

If you’ve recently changed topic focus or hosted an abnormal guest blog, the sudden alteration in authority could slightly interfere with your rank as well. For example, if you usually write about hamburgers, and you suddenly start posting about steak, your keyword rank for hamburger could potentially see some downward momentum.

Something Changed in Your robots.txt or .htaccess File

Something changed in your robots.txt file

Even small changes in your Robots.txt file can have a massive impact on your Google rank.

Your robots.txt file is an instruction file in the back end of your site that lets search crawlers know various things about your site.

For example, you can tell crawlers to ignore certain pages, or certain versions of pages.

Similarly, you may also have issues with your .htaccess file or or NGNIX rules for redirects may have changed. The .htaccess file and the NGINX rules control redirects for pages and posts on your site. Here is an example:

Example .htaccess file.

Changes in your .htaccess file can create 404 pages, redirect loops and redirect posts and pages that may have been previously ranked. In some cases, webmasters may not be editing these files directly (using a third-party plugin), may have their webmaster editing it and in worst case scenarios, these files can sometimes be hacked, creating redirects to sites that are unwanted and nefarious.

If you’ve accidentally updated the .htaccess robots.txt file to tell Google not to index mass portions of your site (it happens more often than you think), you’ll obviously lose significant ground in the SERPs. Read up on best practices for your robots.txt file, and double check yours—just to be safe.

A Competitor Emerged

Let’s face it. You aren’t the only company in your industry currently jockeying for a top spot in Google’s search results. If a new competitor emerges in the field with a great new site and tons of interesting, original content, you could easily get swept off your position. Older competitors, too, might launch new strategies and new initiatives that make them more attracting to Google’s ranking algorithm. If this is the case, you’ll have to step up your efforts to match theirs, or find a new niche or new angle to allow you a better competitive edge.

Competitors can be sneaky, and even niche companies can face the emergence of a highly similar rival. Search engine rankings take time to build, so it’s unlikely that a new competitor could completely catch you off guard, but it isn’t unheard of. Take a look at the new company profiles of the businesses now outranking you. Have any of them made massive changes recently in order to improve their ranks? Have any of them been rising up slowly from the back pages? If so, it’s possible they have simply overtaken you because they’re spending more time and effort building their authority on the web by using a outsourced link building or cheap SEO service.

In order to fight back against this emergence, you’ll either need to step up your effort to match and exceed theirs, or shift your focus to specialize in a different niche and overtake them in a tangential strategy.

Decrease in Indexed Pages

Decrease in indexed pages

Performing a Google “site search” should provide a total number of indexed pages. If that has fallen, then you have a problem.

Google produces its ranks based on the information it crawls on the web. If there isn’t enough information on your site for Google to crawl, the result will be a lower rank. Ordinarily, all of your internal pages should be crawled and indexed by Google’s bots, but there are cases when some of your pages suddenly stop being indexed, and your rank suffers as a result.

Pages could be de-indexed as a result of a manual penalty, but it’s more likely that something easily fixable is causing their disappearance. Check your pages for any 404 errors, nofollow tags, or any other quality that could make them invisible to search engines. You can also log into Webmaster Tools and check your site for any crawl errors or de-indexed pages—this is a great way to analyze your current sitemap and fix any glaring errors preventing your pages from being seen.

Randomization or “The Google Dance”

Randomization, which is sometimes referred to as “the Google Dance,” is the phenomenon that refers to websites randomly jumping around in the search engine rankings. This is perhaps one of the most difficult ranking issues to explain. Basically, it simply refers to a random shuffling of rankings that usually doesn’t last long, so if this is the reason why your website’s ranking dropped, then the good news is that it will likely return back to its high ranking again sooner or later.

As you can see, there are multiple factors that could play a part in your site’s sudden decline in search results. Whether a Google penalty, server problems or an algorithm change is the culprit, it’s important to identify the root of the problem. Once you’ve figured out the underlying cause of the issue, it’s easier to take the necessary steps to fix the issue and make your site more visible in the search engines. There are various reasons why your website might not be showing up in the search engine rankings. Then again, perhaps your ranking was relatively high, and then it suddenly dropped for no apparent reason. Discerning the reason why your website dropped in the search engine rankings is important because diagnosing the problem lets you know what you need to work on to get your website back up in the rankings. Below are 10 of the most common reasons why your website ranking may have suddenly dropped.

Google Penalties

Google penalties

A manual link review by the Google webspam team can cause your rankings to fall overnight.

In an effort to weed out bad content and present users with higher-quality search results, Google has cracked down hard on websites that violate their guidelines. Older SEO techniques that used to be commonplace can now send your site plummeting in the rankings. There are a wide variety of transgressions for which Google will penalize a site; the following list includes some of the most common mistakes:

  1. Keyword stuffing: In the early days of SEO, it was typical to stuff your keywords as densely as possible into your content. Of course, this resulted in some badly-written content that was clearly created for search engines instead of humans. Keyword-stuffed pages won’t get you far in the rankings today; the better strategy is to incorporate your keywords in a natural manner, without sacrificing the quality of the content.
  2. Artificial link-building: Buying links, renting links and participating in too many link exchanges are just a few of the sketchy link-building practices that could earn you a Google penalty. Google frowns on any artificial means of building your link network. If you need to boost your backlink profile, it’s best to do it the old-fashioned way. Reaching out to the webmasters of other reputable sites in your niche and guest-posting on well-known blogs are great ways to build a solid set of links to your site.
  3. Duplicate content: Google doesn’t want its users to see the same content repeated within a list of search results. To avoid the possibility of this poor user experience, they may penalize sites who have identical content across multiple pages. Using tools like Copyscape can help you ensure that all your content is completely original.
  4. Duplicate metadata: Similar to the problem of duplicate content, duplicate metadata can also hurt your rankings with the search engines. Google won’t penalize you for having duplicate metadata alone, but they view it as a signal that your site may have a duplicate content issue. Many content management systems and blogging platforms make it easy to commit this particular transgression by accident. Take care to enter unique, original metadata for each of your site’s individual pages.
  5. Thin content: Google likes to see pages that are rich in information and filled with original content. Pages that exist primarily to serve ads are likely to earn a penalty; similarly, e-commerce sites that copy their product descriptions directly from the manufacturer or another website might also find themselves in trouble.
  6. Abusing anchor text: Using your keywords in the anchor text of your links used to be standard recommendation among SEO experts. The algorithm changes involved in Google’s 2012 Penguin update changed all that, and this practice is no longer advised. Your anchor text should contain genuine phrases, and it should flow naturally with the rest of your content.

It takes time to recover from a Google penalty. If you’ve been hit with one, the first thing to do is to clean up the problem: Rewrite any thin or keyword-stuffed content, get those bad links removed if you can, and use the Google Disavow Tool on links you can’t remove on your own. Once you’ve made your best efforts to remedy the problem, you can file a reconsideration request with Google and hope for a positive outcome.

Want to figure out why your rankings have dropped or perhaps you are looking to rank for competitive keywords?

We can help! We’re the SEO company that other agencies come to help them with their clients!

An advanced SEO audit is likely to uncover the issue so you can know how to get your website back on track.

  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Sam Edwards
Sam Edwards
Chief Marketing Officer at SEO.co
In his 9+ years as a digital marketer, Sam has worked with countless small businesses and enterprise Fortune 500 companies and organizations including NASDAQ OMX, eBay, Duncan Hines, Drew Barrymore, Washington, DC based law firm Price Benowitz LLP and human rights organization Amnesty International.

He is a recurring speaker at the Search Marketing Expo conference series and a TEDx Talker. Today he works directly with high-end clients across all verticals to maximize on and off-site SEO ROI through content marketing and link building. Connect with Sam on Linkedin.
Sam Edwards
Latest posts by Sam Edwards (see all)
  • How to Use Google Autocomplete to Perfect Your SEO & Content Strategy - July 4, 2022
  • Link Reclamation: How to Reclaim Lost Backlinks - June 20, 2022
  • Lead Nurturing: How to Nurture Leads & Close Sales - June 13, 2022
Share
3
Sam Edwards
Sam Edwards
In his 9+ years as a digital marketer, Sam has worked with countless small businesses and enterprise Fortune 500 companies and organizations including NASDAQ OMX, eBay, Duncan Hines, Drew Barrymore, Washington, DC based law firm Price Benowitz LLP and human rights organization Amnesty International. He is a recurring speaker at the Search Marketing Expo conference series and a TEDx Talker. Today he works directly with high-end clients across all verticals to maximize on and off-site SEO ROI through content marketing and link building. Connect with Sam on Linkedin.

Related posts

How to Use Google Autocomplete to Perfect Your Content Strategy
July 4, 2022

How to Use Google Autocomplete to Perfect Your SEO & Content Strategy


Read more
How to Optimize for "People Also Search For" or "People Also Ask"
June 27, 2022

How to Optimize for “People Also Search For” or “People Also Ask”


Read more
Link Reclamation: How to Reclaim Lost Backlinks
June 20, 2022

Link Reclamation: How to Reclaim Lost Backlinks


Read more

Google Index

  • Google Index
  • Google Sandbox
  • Google Dance
  • How Google Works
  • Google Rankings Drops
  • Google Penalties
  • Google Alternatives
  • Improve SEO

Inc 5000 Logo

Our Services

  • SEO Services
  • Link Building Services
  • White Label SEO
  • Content Writing Services
  • Amazon SEO
  • PPC Management
  • Public Relations
  • Brand Mentions
  • SEO Site Audits

SEO Resources

  • SEO for Beginners
  • Link Building Guide
  • Local SEO
  • Online Marketing
  • Digital Marketing
  • Content Marketing
  • SEO Reseller
  • Backlink Checker
  • Keyword Research
  • Google Ranking Factors

About SEO.co

  • About Us
  • SEO Team
  • SEO Blog
  • SEO Clients
  • SEO Tools
  • Markets Served
  • Locations Served
  • Client Login
  • Contact

Contact Us

Email: info@seo.co
Call: +1 (877) 545-4769
Address: 1425 Broadway Suite 22689
Seattle, WA 98112
White Label SEO Agency
  
Outwrite. Outrank. SEO.
© 2022 SEO.co. All Rights Reserved
Privacy Policy | Sitemap
PPC.co // DEV.co // Website.Design
An Invest.net Partner
    GET STARTED
      We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept All”, you consent to the use of all the cookies. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent.
      Cookie SettingsAccept All
      Manage consent

      Privacy Overview

      This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
      Necessary
      Always Enabled
      Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
      CookieDurationDescription
      cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
      cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional11 monthsThe cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
      cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
      cookielawinfo-checkbox-others11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
      cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
      viewed_cookie_policy11 monthsThe cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
      Functional
      Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
      Performance
      Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
      Analytics
      Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
      Advertisement
      Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
      Others
      Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet.
      SAVE & ACCEPT