Let’s discuss some of the usual problems that could lead to a downfall in a website’s search engine ranking and the approaches to be taken to resolve them.
Your Website is New(ish)
The biggest issue that arises concerning decreases usually has to do with sites that are newly created.
New sites get a lot of love from Google. And a lot of hate. It’s complicated.
Upon the launch of your website, Google will be completely unaware of it, neither will it have indexed your site, leaving you unable to appear in any search engine outcomes.
When Google indexes your website, the Google algorithm can give you an initial lift in standings, meaning it almost looks as if you got the position without help. This is just Google’s application working in your favor as it has a habit of temporarily favoring newly added sites.
Once that initial period is over, your position in the rankings may decline as Google attempts to gain more knowledge on your website and how trustworthy it is.
If your website has been active for less than five years, you can expect more fluctuation in traffic than a site that has been popular for a longer duration.
In brief, volatility (besides referred to as Google dancing, which we discuss further below) is considered standard for newly-launched websites.
You’re Not Diversified in Your Google Ranking Factors
The second most ordinary motivation for a drop in Google positions is when one positioning factor is accorded extreme consideration while disregarding all the others. For example, it is possible to have an excessive number of internal connections and content that has been over-maximized for search engines.
Are you aware that the essential component of Google’s ranking system is a mixture of various elements?
It’s not backlinks!
If a website hones in on generating backlinks to the neglect of other areas of SEO, they will most likely experience a decrease in their rankings. Having too many backlinks can give the impression to Google that they are not organic, which could be a problem if your standing with the search engine has dropped drastically.
We give an in-depth analysis of the most reliable Google ranking indicators in our complete list.
Canonicalization Issues
Canonicalization issues are comparable to difficulties arising from having duplicate content.
Issues arise when Google has identified a page of your website with a selection of incompatible URLs.
Problems can arise when search engines index multiple versions of one domain name or if a single domain is indexed both with HTTPS and HTTP.
Unfortunately, there is a high likelihood of this problem arising without any involvement from you.
If somebody connects to your website by using a flawed form of the URL, they can cause you some trouble regarding canonicalization.
Should this take place, it is essential to make contact with the webmaster of the website with the problematic connection and make an effort to have it altered.
Host Server Problems
Google is usually tolerant of temporary server hiccups on your site: If your webpage is shut down for maintenance or has some network availability issues for a day or two, your ranking should be intact.
If search engines cannot reach your website for extended periods of time, it can detrimentally influence your ranking.
If you want to shut down your website for maintenance, you should adjust the settings on your server so that it sends out a message signifying a 503 code; this informs the search engines that the closure is only temporary.
Detection of Malware
Malware does not directly affect your position in search results, yet it can still have a considerable influence on the amount of web traffic you receive through search engines.
If Google detects malware on your website, there will be an alert for visitors placed next to your search engine result. If the dilemma gets too severe, Google may prohibit the whole domain from being used.
You have a selection of methods you can choose from to track down and get rid of any malicious software on your website.
When the infection has been dealt with, Google will take away the malware alert on your search results page.
Algorithm Changes
If you have been following all the necessary steps with your website and there have been no technical issues, the decline in your position in the rankings may be a result of an updated algorithm from the search engines. The consequences of Google algorithm changes are typically an lowering of SEO rankings and this can cause a severe decline in Google rankings for some.
Google and other search engine providers are trying hard to enhance their output by making adjustments to the way content from the internet is indexed and ranked. It’s not just about backlinks and site speed.
Google’s updates can make prompt and abrupt alterations to a website’s position in the search engine results, regardless of the niche sector. It’s difficult to encounter an entrepreneur who has not experienced a decline in their Google algorithm rankings due to an update.
The alterations to algorithms might lead to a slow change in position on search engines, yet a sharp decline in rankings could materialize unexpectedly in cases where your website is heavily affected by the alterations.
If this situation arises for your site, the best thing to do is to focus on boosting the SEO of your webpage and strive to improve its quality and performance.
Spammy Links
Although you remain faithful to the recommended methods when structuring connections, it could be plausible that an inferior link crept its way into your site’s linking background. Posting links on sites that are spammy can definitely impede your SEO endeavours and may be the cause of your reduction in Google’s standing. Declining placement can be grave if you don’t try to recoup. If the position of your website in Google is not kept up to date, you could be missing out on a great deal of natural website visits.
Where do spammy links come from? You could have quickly set up a connection, or perhaps the site is not very pertinent to your company, or maybe another person full constructed it, creating a scenario that is beyond your control. In any situation, if Google identifies an inappropriate, unbeneficial, or low-credibility link to your website, that could be all it takes to adversely affect your rankings.
You can assess your backlink situation with Open Site Explorer or an analogous program and quickly eliminate any dubious links by simply asking the webmaster that has it. Do not be reluctant to request that the connection domain take out links to your website.
Your backlink profile consists of links located on different websites that assist Google with evaluating your recognition online.
If the composition or structure of that grouping of links changes abruptly, your rankings might decline due to this. In the event that you’ve made an error and shared a connection that is unimportant, or one from an inferior quality source, or any kind of link that could be judged as spam, you may observe a decrease quickly after.
Major Changes to Your Backlink Profile
The webmaster may not be the only one to blame for changes to the backlink profile.
It’s plausible that one or a few of your preexisting, first-class connections were taken away by another website operator. Either way, lost links are a bummer.
If your reference inlink selection is broad enough, it should not affect you; on the other hand, if a lot of your hyperlinks or the majority of them vanish immediately, you could likely suffer a major change in position.
Additionally, negative SEO attacks are rare, but possible.
In a negative SEO assault, your adversaries or any other evil party would deliberately place undesirable, inferior links to your website with the aim of diminishing your credibility.
If you’re worried about this or looking to assess your current backlink situation, you can employ our free backlink checker tool to investigate your external links.
. If you desire an even more powerful tool, then Ahrefs.com is worth considering.
Broken Redirects
If you are launching a fresh website, transferring to a new server, or making any organizational changes to your webpage, you might endure a reduction in your search engine rankings unless you have the right 301 redirection plan ready.
Broken redirects are every SEO professional’s worst nightmare.
When utilizing a 301 reroute, you must guarantee that XML site maps, original tags, and connections are similarly refreshed.
It’s similar to a change of address notice for the internet – a 301 redirect. This notification informs search engines that a particular page, a selection of pages, or the entirety of your website has been relocated. Request that those who visit your site are taken to your updated address instead of your prior one.
Do everything correctly and you won’t experience any drops in your rankings or face any consequences stemming from having similar material published on both the old and new URL. The search engines should recognize both pages and index accordingly.
Manual Actions
If you experience a sudden and notable decrease in your web page positions, it is possible that Google may have put a penalty on your webpage. An individual is directly responsible for manual actions rather than them being imposed as the result of a computer algorithm’s action.
If your website still appears on other web search tools such as Bing or Yahoo, it could be an indication that Google has penalized you.
It doesn’t matter whether your penalty is manual or automatic, you should take action to amend the issue and get rid of the penalty. The most effective approach is to examine messages from within your Google Search Console profile.
Scan the messages menu and Manual Actions section to find any potential alerts. This place possesses the details of circumstances where a worker of Google has determined that some of your webpages are not in line with their standards.
UX Changes in Google
Google occasionally modifies the user experience of search pages so that they require fewer clicks.
It’s possible that a highlighted block of information appeared when a main search query was entered, which drove web traffic in that direction. Maybe some search experiment has affected the click-through rate.
Examine which terms have disappeared and determine whether anything has evolved.
Geolocation Discrepancies
The results of a search query may vary depending on the geographical location. If you wish to obtain an exact and reliable picture of your standings, it is necessary to observe your rankings in multiple locales instead of merely one.
Have you noticed that the outcomes you acquire when performing a particular search may be contrasting to that of another individual performing the same search?
If you perform a search when logged into your Google account and then do the same search again after logging out, you’ll notice disparate outcomes.
This is because Google considers components such as prior visited sites, the user’s location, and the operating device before providing their search results.
Competitor Improvements
Despite following all the necessary steps, it is feasible that your website’s traffic will be reduced and its rankings will drop. It is possible that your competitors are performing more efficiently than you.
Pay attention to what your competition is up to by researching their social media presence, tracking their link-building tactics, and scrutinizing their content marketing efforts. Tools such as Wayback Machine or Versionista can be employed to observe what modifications have been done by your competitors.
You may also utilize backlink utilities to determine whether they have acquired a flood of new backlinks; it is possible they are participating in an SEO effort of their own.
Once you discover what your challengers have done to get a higher ranking than you, attempt to do similar adjustments – yet do them to an even more remarkable degree.
Page Speed
The loading speed of the material on your pages will have a major impact on both your website visitors’ satisfaction and your search engine rankings. When pages take more time to open, the rate at which people leave the website increases as they don’t have the patience to stick around for your material to be displayed.
You can examine the rate of your webpage by utilizing Google’s upgraded PageSpeed Tool. The tool was revamped to incorporate real user data.
Pages are classified as quick, sluggish, and average depending on the speed of loading.
Other Web Vitals
Google has declared that additional user experience signals and web vitals, for instance “Cumulative Layout Shift,” can affect the order in which your site is listed.
- What is the user experience on your page like?
- Does the layout shift around a lot?
- Are there lots of ads?
Internal Navigation
The navigation of your website shows people where they can locate data and what they can find out on your website.
Design your website navigation in a way that’s level and slim, keeping the layout no more than three layers deep. When your website’s visitors have to take multiple steps to locate the content they desire, they become more likely to abandon it.
The probability is present that search engines will not investigate material concealed far inside your website. The consequence of this will be a reduction in your standings, which will lead to less people coming across the important side of your website.
Creating internal links is a key element of successful search engine optimization, as well as being essential for retaining clients.
Having a straightforward internal structure for your links and navigation aids in keeping your visitors and increases certain ranking aspects like the amount of time spent on the site. Adding in keyword-packed internal links can aid search engines to swiftly decipher the focus of your website and whether the information is apposite to searches.
