With all the recent updates of the Google algorithm (Panda, Penguin, Hummingbird, etc), there was a real massacre in the web.
Google has started a fight, trying to remove the webspam from their results (SERPs), increasing the experience of the users, willing to reward the webmasters that use White Hat SEO, who try to write high quality content, satisfying the search queries of Google users.
If you have been banned from Google, you may request to be included again, but not before you make all the changes needed to your blog, respecting the rules (checking the Google Official Blog may help you).
So both if your website has disappeared from Google or has lost several positions in Google results, you can check in the list below if you find something that will help you.
Here are some reasons why your website has lost rankings in Google SERPs.
1 . The content of your website is updated rarely : publish high quality and original articles with a scheduled time. Google Caffeine favors recent content.
2 . The site does not receive incoming link : check how you can create good backlinks.
3 . The site receives incoming links, but from poor quality websites : use the free tool “Open Site Explorer“, to check and manage the links to your blog. Links from “bad neighborhoods” can hurt your site.
4 . The site has participated in the buying and selling links method : contact the webmaster of the websites where your link is listed and ask to remove it. The problem is also defined as “unnatural linking”.
5 .Your site has external links that point to websites of poor quality : pay attention to what you link at in your content and if you don’t find it relevant, use the “NoFollow” Tag.
6 . The website contains too much advertising, mainly concentrated in the upper part of your pages, at the expense of content : do NOT put too many ads above the fold. If your site is penalized, you will lose rankings and traffic, so if you do not have visitors, no chance of clicks or views on your ads. Probably it is better to enhance the content, not the ads. See Google Page Layout algorithm.
7 . The website contains duplicate content : perhaps one or more sites are also stealing your content. And we all know, Google still has trouble figuring out who is the thief and who is the victim. Use Copyscape and then report the copier to Google. See also other tools to check if your content is copied.
8 . Google is doing a test or changed its algorithm : check what is the related update and make the changes needed.
9 . Google Dance : it is the process by which Google monthly updates its archive pages, recalculating the number of links that each page receives from other (backlinks) and the value of each of them. The Google Dance takes a few days. For a long period has always occurred at the end of each month, but its activation does not follow precise rhythms and therefore may be subject to advance or delay.
10 . You website is too slow to load: be sure to install a Cache Plugin, if you use WordPress, so it can cache pages and deliver them without accessing the database, making your site much faster. And if you host your site, avoid hosting services that cause any delays. I use HostGator .
11 . The visitors that arrive on your pages, almost immediately click the button “Back” browser : this is a sign that they have not found what they were looking for. Focus on write something useful and interesting for your readers.
12 . There are too many incoming links pointing to your homepage only : vary both the page and anchor text for your incoming links. Here’s the exact “anchor text formula”.
13 . Your competing websites have improved and you have lost positions : check your competitor sites and see how you can improve your blog.
14 . Your website was temporarily inaccessible for long time in the last period : check your hosting services.
15 . Your blog has a malware : check any communication from Google in your Webmaster tools and try to clean your websites. In this time, the visitors will have a warning that the site can be harmful, so probably they do not want to visit it. After you have cleaned your properties, inform Google that will check again your site and eventually remove the alert.
In few words, you want to respect all the guidelines published by Google Official Blog, which shows how to build a high quality website.
It is important that you check all the statistical analysis tools available, such as Google Analytics or Google Webmaster Tools, so you can find out any traffic collapse in the days of a Google algorithm update, and make any related improvements.
I suggest you also to take a look to Google Webmaster Profile on YouTube : there are many useful videos, from which you may learn a lot.
Often, a deterioration in the Google SERP is not synonymous of a penalty.
It could be a temporary event. But if not, it is worth analyzing all the factors that Google consider to rank the web.
Additional information can be found at Google Webmaster Guidelines : read the
Best practices to help Google find, crawl, and index your site.
In your opinion, what are the most common mistakes or more dangerous behaviour of a blogger ?
What is your experience?
Have you gained or lost ranking in Google lately?
Please share your experience in the comments below, thanks!
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Hi Erik
Once again a very useful post. I was just hoping to finish the post here but much amazed to find so many valuable links to further my knowledge on each point. This is a superb way to offer maximum information without bothering readers to go through a detailed post.
Getting back links from high quality blogs and sites directly relate to the quality of the contents. A few good friends of a blogger can give him a back link in friendship while rest of the other pick the linkable post purely on merit.
So the only option is to create quality contents and for that the only option is to put more labor in creation of your blog post.
Blog speed is also one of the important factor that usually does not get much attention of many bloggers because slow speed does not bother admin of the blog but its readers so one needs to be so particular about blog speed if he really has to get higher rank in Google.
Thanks a lot for sharing this wonderful and useful post.
Hello Mi Muba,
your presence makes me feel better.
I am glad you found the post useful,
together with all the resources mentioned.
It’s good to link out to relevant content, and what is better than all the targeted links to improve your rankings with Google?
Gaining links naturally seems very hard to achieve, most of all if you’ve just started blogging.
But if you keep up the great work, soon you will realize that you can receive links not just from your friends.
Thanks for reading and commenting, Mi Muba.
Have a great day.
HI Erik, It is interesting that you pointed out in a couple of the points incoming or outgoing links to poor quality websites. I would not have realized that that is taken into consideration by google. Also the resources that you give here are very valuable and something I want to look into. Thanks again, Amy
Hi Amy,
while incoming links are more difficult to manage,
the links you point out are easier to monitor.
Just be sure to mention just useful and relevant resources in your content.
Glad you enjoyed the post.
Thanks for your comment,
have a good one.
Hello Erik,
I think the most important ranking factor is the Inbound link. In fact the success of achieving high Google page rank is largely dependent on the number of inbound links that a page has. The Google dance does affect your traffic levels and sometimes it can take long to recover.
Hi Worli,
I agree with you.
When I started blogging, I thought just good content could rank on Google,
now I know the internet with its search engines rankings is a “harsh world”.
You need many links to rank above the others.
That’s the reality.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts here.
Wow… awesome points showed here. All of these points are main reasons for dropping Google rank.
I agree with Muba Sir, blog posts rank vary on blog load time. We should spent time to improve our blog load time.
BTW as per my assumption too many Google algorithm updates is main reason to lose blog Google rank .
Thanks for sharing. have a nice day Erik 🙂
Regards,
Md Hamim Mondal
Hi Hamim,
so many factors influence a website rank in Google.
200, to be precise.
Page loading speed is just one of them.
Thanks for your comment,
have a great day.
Great list here! I’m with Amy, I didn’t realize until recently that Google cared about the quality of the sites going outbound from your site, not just the links coming in. I’m trying to be as authentic as I can with MoneyMiniBlog. I am working of guest posting to other financial blogs right now and I am already seeing some great results.
My only issue is that I have been blogging for a little over a year and I still have a 0/10 page rank. I suppose that could be due to the age of my domain? What do you think, Erik?
Hello Kalen!
You are doing a great work with your site MoneyMiniBlog.
I love the content and design.
I’m glad you enjoyed the post,
and yes, you should care about the links pointing out from your site (must be relevant).
As for PageRank, “it seems that probably it won’t be updated anymore”.
This is a shocking news from a month ago.
See:
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-will-probably-updating-toolbar-pagerank-john-mueller-confirms/117691/
Let’s see how it goes!
Good morning Erik,
You did really awesome job by pointing out and listing most important mistakes to lose ranking. It will be a map for me as well as other bloggers. Links have deep influence over ranking. That why I love only high quality backlinks.
Thanks –
MSI Sakib
Glad to hear that, Sakib.
Links are the fuel of SEO.
Thanks for your feedback.
Hey Erik.
you shared some good points!
Did not know about many things.
Thanks for the resources in this post.
Appreciate the positive feedback, Anthony.
Thanks for commenting!
hey erik.
i am really impressed with your post and blog too because this is the first time i have visited your blog and i am very much excited to read all other posts.
as in this post you have mentioned many new points which i was not aware of and now-a-days beginners are coping the post of others which is not helping them to grow.
i liked your blog desgin and a classic template. i hope you visit mine too.
regards
rudresh
Hello Rudresh,
welcome to my blog.
Glad you liked the content here,
and I look forward to talk to you again soon.
Appreciate your comment.
Hey Erik,
Great post. All troublesome ways that no one wants to lose ranking for, I’m sure.
Probably the one that’s really interesting is when people are linking to you from sites that you believe aren’t good. I checked my site in OSE and possibly I have a few bad links. How would I go about getting rid of those exactly?
Also, the slow website thing I agree with. Because that can cause high bounce rate and it just snowballs from there.
Great points.
– Andrew
Hi Andrew,
we don’t want our sites to be penalized, right?
Regarding your question, I believe at first you should check the “bad” website linking to you, looking for a contact form or the webmaster email, then contact him, asking to have the link removed.
If weeks/months pass, and you don’t receive any reply, the only solution is disavow the links with Google tool:
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/disavow-links-main
I suggest you to perform this latter action, only if you believe your site’s ranking is being harmed by those low-quality links you checked before and you can’t remove in other ways.
Hope it helps, Andrew.
Hi Hrik,
I agree with your points sure it will make us to lose the page rank recently I faced this problem that some unwanted and low quality links been pointed to my blog homepage.Received an alert from Google then I took the necessary steps with Googlers and got the problem solved.Sure this post can helps the people to get aware of this issue to prevent the blogs and websites.
Hi Shameem,
so glad that you solved your problem of bad links.
Sometimes it’s not easy to find the source of the penalization.
Thanks for sharing your experience here!
Hey Erik,
Great article and thanks for sharing. Just to update, Google PageRank is basically dead (check out some of the big sites posts these few days).
However, in terms of ‘normal’ ranking, I totally agree more with the visit-click ‘back’ button. You may have high CTR but having high bounce rate is really bad for ranking.
So, find ways to keep your readers on board 🙂
Have an awesome week man!
Yep, Reginald.
However, I’m still curious to see what happens to the old sites and their Pagerank.
It seems that CTR is getting up to 20% of the ranking importance.
I’ve read it lately.
Thanks for sharing your views, and have a great week, my friend, 🙂
Hi Erik,
Another awesome post by you. When I saw the post on my site through broadednet widget, I guessed it must be yours. My guess was correct when I clicked on the post. There are many reasons for the ranking. Some of the points you have mentioned are correct.
Though Google does not care about ranking, it is careful that quality of your site.
Have a great weekend
~ Umapathy
Thanks for visiting and commenting, Umapathy.
Hi,
Thanks or sharing this information about the continuous decrease i the website ranking in SERP page. this points will definitely help in the improving the ranking of website.