Huge Ranking Drop

[loukeyzee]

Pretty frustrated right now, I had a keyword on Google at #6 that I had big plans for. This afternoon now I can't even find the optimized page anymore. It seems to be gone, in a matter of a day. There are no crawl errors, nothing was de-indexed.

I have another page of mine (homepage) ranking for the same keyword on page 6 LOL.

What in the wildest bordello could have happened?

 

[DJ.Bud]

Probably Google dance.

Wait for 1 week before changing your content again.

 

[RenegadeX]

Yeah just hold on. Doubt it's permanently gone. Wait a week or 2 and re analyse.

 

[Jackobi Smith]

This happens a lot to me, too. It's a good sign. Usually it comes back 10x stronger after a period of 2-3 months of google testing in its algorithm.

 

[Geasy]

As everyone advised, time is your best friend in this situation. It probably comes back, and the thing that you already have another page ranking for that kw can mean that Google doesn't really know what page to rank and it be cannibalization.

https://ahrefs.com/blog/keyword-cannibalization/

 

[loukeyzee]

Thanks guys, i'm going to wait and keep tabs on what happens. In the mean time rank my other pages.

Thanks for the support!

 

[HaiderKhan]

Don't make any change once your keyword is ranking on 1st page like theme etc. What if someone buying too many expired domains with so many RD and spam score and then 301 redirect to your site lol

 

[loukeyzee]

Don't make any change once your keyword is ranking on 1st page like theme etc. What if someone buying too many expired domains with so many RD and spam score and then 301 redirect to your site lol

Absolutely no way of finding this out?

 

[HaiderKhan]

Absolutely no way of finding this out?

Cognitive seo can help or check your search console.

 

[HaiderKhan]

You should check your url in ahrefs.

 

[loukeyzee]

You should check your url in ahrefs.

Thank you Haider, did that. Luckily not the problem.

 

[HaiderKhan]

Thank you Haider, did that. Luckily not the problem.

Alright then you should wait!

 

[ServiceMonopoly]

So waiting sounds like your best option no hasty decisions you could come back strong or weaker but until then just hang tight and let the pendulum swing.

 

[Psh]

Seems like Google thinks your homepage is the right page for this keyword?

This exact same thing happened to me. Example;

My site was example.com

I wanted to rank example.com/fishing-poles/ for the keyword "Best Fishing Poles", now the issue was that I had the keyword on my homepage too. I was ranking #3 with the /fishing-poles/ page, however all of the sudden the page dissapeared from top 100, and my homepage ranked instead (at #9, because the damn page wasn't optimized).

Did you build backlinks with exact match anchors on your homepage instead of the inner-page? This was the mistake I did after giving the wrong URL when ordering PBNs. Oops.

 

[unknownsmmers]

Pretty frustrated right now, I had a keyword on Google at #6 that I had big plans for. This afternoon now I can't even find the optimized page anymore. It seems to be gone, in a matter of a day. There are no crawl errors, nothing was de-indexed.

I have another page of mine (homepage) ranking for the same keyword on page 6 LOL.

What in the wildest bordello could have happened?

I'm new to SEO so excuse me,

1) are you clicking your own links?

2) are you using free services?

3) do you have Blackhat competitors sending negs?

4) is this a safe / finesse page ?

Edit: heard a similar scenerio where a BHW member clicked their own links & de indexed by the third click

 

[MountainGuy]

Seems like Google thinks your homepage is the right page for this keyword?

This exact same thing happened to me. Example;

My site was example.com

I wanted to rank example.com/fishing-poles/ for the keyword "Best Fishing Poles", now the issue was that I had the keyword on my homepage too. I was ranking #3 with the /fishing-poles/ page, however all of the sudden the page dissapeared from top 100, and my homepage ranked instead (at #9, because the damn page wasn't optimized).

Did you build backlinks with exact match anchors on your homepage instead of the inner-page? This was the mistake I did after giving the wrong URL when ordering PBNs. Oops.

^That is really interesting. If anything it really speaks volumes about the power of the pbn you used .

I'm new to SEO so excuse me,

1) are you clicking your own links?

2) are you using free services?

3) do you have Blackhat competitors sending negs?

4) is this a safe / finesse page ?

Edit: heard a similar scenerio where a BHW member clicked their own links & de indexed by the third click

I dont buy that the reason anyone got their site de indexed was because they clicked on it in the serps. I believe someone thinks this is the reason but google does not deindex you for clicking your website in the serps 3 times.

 

[unknownsmmers]

^That is really interesting. If anything it really speaks volumes about the power of the pbn you used .



I dont buy that the reason anyone got their site de indexed was because they clicked on it in the serps. I believe someone thinks this is the reason but google does not deindex you for clicking your website in the serps 3 times.

Yeah I'm not sure, they said they clicked 1 time per day and the rank kept decreasing day by day every time they clicked it.

Could it be them accumulating a large % of their traffic?
Making it seem suspicious of bots coming off an amateur IP within a high %?

 

[MountainGuy]

Yeah I'm not sure, they said they clicked 1 time per day and the rank kept decreasing day by day every time they clicked it.

Could it be them accumulating a large % of their traffic?
Making it seem suspicious of bots coming off an amateur IP within a high %?

I guess maybe it could be but it was likely something unrelated like google just evaluating his site to not be up to their standards.

Google intentionally delays their penalties/benefits of different seo tactics for varying time just to confuse people and keep their secret sauce secret.

I am guessing them clicking it had 0 to do with why their ranking dropped and it was something completely unrelated but this is google so we will never really know... that being said if a few self clicks could knock you out of the serps I assure you I would NEVER rank for anything... Early on when you are in the first 6 months it certainly could drop your rankings but so can anything else .. unless your a news site it seems nearly impossible to get stable rankings before 3-6 months.