Top#1 to Top#>100? What the hell?

[jemzozole]

Hello folks!

One of my niche blogs had several keywords in top10, even some in top1. Recently it dropped all the way down.
The website didn't slow down. New content didn't appear, with 0 toxic backlinks (the whole site has only organic backlinks, no link building).
It looks like there are no new websites on the first page. Any ideas about what could happen and what to do now?

GSC:

Keyword com:

 

[Amphoric]

It's a long shot, but did you maybe noindex anything lately?

 

[jemzozole]

It's a long shot, but did you maybe noindex anything lately?

Not really. The thing is that site wasn't touched after 9 March.
(Last post-publication)

 

[alonelywriter]

I would suggest you to change the content and title and description of pages dropped to some bit.
Make some noticeable changes according to the keywords you are targeting only to the pages that are dropped.
Once they are reindexed check if they are still down. If they are then its GG.

 

[jemzozole]

I would suggest you to change the content and title and description of pages dropped to some bit.
Make some noticeable changes according to the keywords you are targeting only to the pages that are dropped.
Once they are reindexed check if they are still down. If they are then its GG.

I changed the WordPress theme to a way faster one today, which can make the change but I also updated the most important article for me with 1000 words.
I will update this thread after some time to let you guys know if it helped or not.

 

[SEOscrapy]

After changing the theme you have to wait days or maybe weeks, depends on your niche

 

[jemzozole]

After changing the theme, you have to wait days or maybe weeks, depends on your niche

It's fine since I don't see any other things to do anyway. There are no errors/warnings in semrush, no toxic backlinks, no new competitors for the keywords... However, I had 2 things to fix in GSC which the new theme could solve, so I did change the theme. Hopefully, it will help.

 

[Toz]

It's fine since I don't see any other things to do anyway. There are no errors/warnings in semrush, no toxic backlinks, no new competitors for the keywords... However, I had 2 things to fix in GSC which the new theme could solve, so I did change the theme. Hopefully, it will help.

Many sites were hit today. Should recover.

 

[Nargil]

Same happened to one of my sites a few days back. From top positions to NA.

No manual penalty, no crawling issues, no coverage issues, site speed is decent, no offsite SEO done at all.

Few things that come to mind are:

- Almost every piece of content is monetized.
- Way too many affiliate links across the site.

Besides that I have no idea why this would happen and even aforementioned reasons shouldn't really be causing -100 algo pen.

 

[jemzozole]

Same happened to one of my sites a few days back. From top positions to NA.

No manual penalty, no crawling issues, no coverage issues, site speed is decent, no offsite SEO done at all.

Few things that come to mind are:

- Almost every piece of content is monetized.
- Way too many affiliate links across the site.

Besides that I have no idea why this would happen and even aforementioned reasons shouldn't really be causing -100 algo pen.

2/19 is my ratio of affiliate blog posts. I don't think that it's too much, as the affiliate posts are 100% relevant to my niche, and users read the affiliate posts (3-8min~ on average on the blog post)

 

[ramuite]

Maybe its because of paragraph Google algo update that was the last google algo update.

 

[jemzozole]

Maybe its because of paragraph Google algo update that was the last google algo update.

Is there any information on what was changed?

 

[ramuite]

Is there any information on what was changed?

On Google USA search results page for many results some paragraphs from within the article are displayed instead of meta description. Google will roll out the algo update to other countries as well in coming weeks. You can check the details by searching about google algo updates.

 

[jemzozole]

On Google USA search results page for many results some paragraphs from within the article are displayed instead of meta description. Google will roll out the algo update to other countries as well in coming weeks. You can check the details by searching about google algo updates.

The website is in Polish, so it shouldn't affect it.
More here

 

[DerangedWolf]

Use Semrush to check if there's a spike in toxic backlinks. Sometimes competitors build those links to outrank you

 

[jemzozole]

Use Semrush to check if there's a spike in toxic backlinks. Sometimes competitors build those links to outrank you

Nope, nothing.

 

[Sima Simmer]

too many low-quality pages? many people simply put everything to index - on many chases no-index low-quality pages can help. Do you have many orphan pages? Wait another 7 days it weird sometimes google does big dance - happens to everyone and the worst you can do is go crazy like change Titles, text and on-page SEO - that's pretty much for sure not the reason (just in case you really do bad keyword-stuffing)
Check site:yourdomain.com in google - any weird URLs ?

 

[RAP]

Guys...
There were unconfirmed Google updates on January 7th and 8th, January 12th, January 27th, February 8th, February 17th, February 20th, February 24th and 25th, February 26th and 27th, March 2nd and 3rd, March 6th & 7th, March 11th, March 19th and I suspect March 25th.
That site (with many others) could be tanked during these updates.

 

[hideath]

It's a google update most likely,
give it some time to recover,
if nothing changes, make some content change and get some quality links

 

[Toz]

Same happened to one of my sites a few days back. From top positions to NA.

No manual penalty, no crawling issues, no coverage issues, site speed is decent, no offsite SEO done at all.

Few things that come to mind are:

- Almost every piece of content is monetized.
- Way too many affiliate links across the site.

Besides that I have no idea why this would happen and even aforementioned reasons shouldn't really be causing -100 algo pen.

I've got 1 website that was hit as well around that time. While for me, yes, all content is monetized, it's only monetized with Adsense, with the exception of a few pages, which are monetized by Amazon. I'm not worried about having too many affiliate links, but was still hit. Like you, no penalties, crawling / site speed issues / etc. I did do some offsite SEO and have ranked several of my pages really well for that site (until Friday, anyway). Some positions are holding strong, though. The interesting thing is that for whatever reason, semrush doesn't show this reduction in keyword ranking. The reduction is certainly there, however. Weird. Oh well. I'll give it some time and will see what happens.