Search Engine Optimization is tricky. Even when things are going perfectly well, it’s very far from simple, and there’s good reason why you’ll find it being referred to as “the art of SEO”. There are a lot of variables that you need to keep track of, and many of them you have no direct control over. Therefore, you might find your ranks on page one today, only to have them drop overnight. You’ll be left wondering “What happened”, because you know that you didn’t change a single thing with your website.
There are numerous reasons why this might be happening, and there isn’t a way to know for sure. Unless you have changed something the day before your ranks dropped, that is. If you did change something, your best first step is to change it back to how it was. If not, you’re torn between whether the reason was a loss of backlinks, or an algorithm update, or even someone plagiarizing your content.
The first thing to do when your ranks have dropped is to try and pinpoint why this happened. As mentioned above, if you haven’t changed anything significant on your website, there are a few potential things that may have happened. Some of them you can fix, but some may require a bit more work. Let’s take a look at the steps you should be taking, and hopefully, you’ll have your ranks back up in no time!
The first thing to do is to check if Google took manual action
This is the easiest to check, because Google actually tells you what it did to you, and why. Regardless of whether it took action on your entire site, or on a specific page, you will find a note in your Search Console. There’s often a good description of what the penalty is. Therefore, you’ll know what happened.
The downside here, even though you know exactly why your ranks have dropped, is that these penalties are often very hard to get rid of. In many situations, such as when your site has gotten a Pure Spam penalty, it is much easier to delete the pages that have been penalized, instead of fighting the penalty.
If this isn’t the case, the next things to check is whether there has been an algorithm update, or maybe if you, or someone on your team, did something that resulted in ranks plummeting. Don’t be afraid – everyone makes mistakes, and it will most likely be easy to fix.
Did an algorithm update mess things up?
Before you touch anything on your site, check if there’s a chance that Google is responsible for what happened. Was there an algorithmic update that affected not just you, but many others as well? Failing to answer this correctly might mean that you’ll be spending time and money, and your ranks won’t be getting back.
There’s a way to check this as well. Even though the reason might be something like a server error, or Google picking your site for experiments with its ranking algorithms, you must find the exact cause if you want to fix it. Go to your Google Analytics and see which pages have lost traffic. Analyze how traffic behaved for these pages, and see if you can find any patterns. If you do find patterns between two or more pages that have seen their traffic drop, see what do they have in common. When you have these things, you can use them to make a list of why the ranks might’ve dropped.
Another thing you can do is ask around with fellow SEO experts. If they’re seeing changes in ranks as well, it is more than likely that Google is doing something to its algorithm, and it’s affecting everyone. You can also see information on this on resources that are trustworthy, such as Search Engine Land, or Moz.
Analyze your backlinks
Backlinks are another important part, and any SEO expert knows this. They’re a pillar that lets a website perform well in the SERPs. However, if you have a resource that is high quality, and it stops linking, this might be a cause for a drop in ranks. Ahrefs and Majestic SEO will both let you analyze your backlinks.
You can refer to one, or even better, you can combine what both tell you, for an even more accurate results. When you have a list of sources that are linking to your site, you need to figure out why they aren’t linking anymore. Did they update the content? Did they change any URLs, or their structure? Try contacting the owners and see if they can help you.
And you should know that there’s also a thing called spammy backlinks, which is a negative SEO effect which has, unfortunately, proven to be pretty effective. You may have a competitor who’s intentionally pointing low-quality backlinks towards your site. This makes your linking profile much worse in Google’s eyes, and your entire website will suffer.
See if maybe it is your fault
There’s always the possibility for a mistake. For example, you could have a site hidden from indexing. This is what happens with a dev version of a page, which is a copy on which you’ll be testing new features before you put them on your live website. Such a site is hidden from indexing to prevent duplicate pages from popping up. Developers might move the functionality to the live version, but don’t give access to the robots.txt. Therefore, a single page, or a whole section of your website, will suffer. The same thing may happen with noindex and nofollow, which are both lines that developers will use to test things out on the website.
Did your competition get that much better?
Last but not least, there’s always the competition. They are trying to get better than you. They may get that much better, that your website drops immediately because they’re actually providing fierce competition. The logical step is to analyze the competition.
See how you stand with traffic and engagement. Analyze both new, and lost backlinks, using Ahrefs, and see how your social media performs. And, if you want to avoid unpleasant surprises, it’s a smart idea to check your competition more regularly. You don’t have to wait for something to go wrong – knowing where you stand compared to others is always a good idea.
So, how do you get your ranks back?
Let’s start with the bad news. You must know that you’re adhering to Google, not the other way around. Therefore, if they’re implementing a change in their algorithm, you’re the one that will have to keep up with it. You will need to somehow change your approach to SEO in order for your website to comply with the changes. Make a strategy that will get you out, and make one that will make sure you aren’t as affected with the next one.
If you’ve lost backlinks, the solution is relatively easy. You will need to contact the owner of the site that provided the links. It might have been an accident, or they may have made a site update. If they didn’t do it intentionally, chances are you will get them back. Or, if t hey replaced them with another source, see how the new source is better than you. Update your content accordingly and reach out to the owner. Another option is to just replace the links. You will need to be able to afford them, though. And, you should make sure that you don’t run the risk of losing backlinks happening again.
If you, or your developer team, did something that negatively affected your ranks, you can easily fix it. Issues such as noindex, nofollow are pretty easy to fix, as long as your developers know where the problem is. If only a single page is affected, thoroughly check it to find the culprit. Fixing it should be easy.
And, last but not least, the competition. In the world of SEO, competition is always there. Whether it’s better than you, and whether it improves over time, is usually up to them. However, they will most likely improve, and you will be forced to keep up if you want to keep your ranks. You can’t just get to the top and stay there without actually putting in the work. Websites evolve, whether it’s the UI, or the content quality, or their backlinks and SEO efforts, and they will eventually catch up with you.
If you do want to stay at the top, you’ll need to improve. You’ll need to keep up with any changes that may happen, and you’ll need to incorporate new practices that will keep your ranks high. As I said earlier, SEO is a tricky thing. You must keep up and evolve, if you want to succeed.