There are Many Well Established Blogs And Websites Losing Their Rankings? Why?

Started by JohnVilson, 07-25-2016, 03:54:40

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JohnVilsonTopic starter

I noticed that there are so many well-established blogs And websites losing their rankings?
Why is this happening?


Roy Milson

Search engine optimization should never have been tied to rankings.  12 years ago we didn't know any better.  Five years ago we DID know better but people continued to talk about rankings.  We should always have been measuring SEO value in terms of search referral traffic.

I find that search engine optimization works just as well today as it did 12 years ago.  What is not working so well are all the bad ideas people have been sharing on their blogs, at conferences, and in their books.  SEO should not be treated as a production process that can be followed according to a formula.  You have to treat each Website differently.

The Websites that run into trouble with the search engines are following formulas for success.  Ultimately that leads to failure.


cheta

It is very difficult to see well established sites lose their rankings just like that, no matter what because they have built a very strong reputation in its domain niche world over the years and won the hearts of lots of visitors traffic out there. if it should go down, it maybe because it recently underwent some SEO techniques which are unacceptable to Google search engine. techinques like BLACKHAT SEO.

jeffmarlon

There are many reasons. First of all, remember that ranking is always shuffled by Google and not constant. So, may be backlinking is not performed well, may be content is not unique, may be results are shuffled by Google and website/blog get back its ranking after sometimes. So there are many reasons of it.

towertech

Hi,

There are lost of reason to losing your website ranking, we can;t say the particular way to decrease your website ranking but most of reasons are Google roll out the update or you getting bad backlink.

Thanks


AliceFowell89

There are several reasons why established websites or blogs may experience drops in their rankings. Some of the more common reasons include:

1. **Google Algorithm Updates**: Google frequently updates its algorithm to improve the quality of the search results it shows to users. If a website fails to adapt to these changes, it could likely experience a drop in rankings. Some updates can have a significant impact, especially if they target areas which a site is underperforming in, such as mobile speed, content quality, or user experience factors.

2. **Increased competition**: The internet is an incredibly dynamic space. Trends change, new competitors arrive, and some manage to create content that is more relevant and valuable to the reader than older, established sites. If a blog or website isn't continuously improving and updating its content to stay competitive, it could lose rankings.

3. **Technical Issues**: This could range from slow website load times, broken links, website down time, mobile unfriendliness or any number of technical SEO factors that could affect ranking.

4. **Web Design Changes**: Sometimes, complete redesigns of a website or key pages within could unintentionally result in changes to the site structure, internal linking or other SEO factors that could impact rankings.

5. **Content Quality**: Google's ranking algorithm now places even more weight on the quality and relevance of content. If a website's content fails to provide genuine value to users or is seen as keyword stuffing, it's likely to lose rankings.

6. **Bad Backlinks**: The presence of bad or spammy backlinks can also reduce rankings. Google's algorithms evaluate the quality of backlinks; poor-quality or unnatural links can negatively impact a site's ranking.

7. **User Experience Metrics**: Google increasingly values user experience (UX) as a ranking factor. This includes mobile first indexing, Core Web Vitals (loading, interactivity, and visual stability), and other indicators of a positive or negative UX.

Old, outdated content: Search engines prefer fresh and up-to-date content. If a website's content hasn't been updated in a long time, it might drop in rankings. This is particularly common with industries where the information changes frequently, such as technology, healthcare, and legal services.

Non-responsive design: A large percentage of web traffic now comes from mobile users. Websites that aren't optimized for mobile use often don't rank as well on search engine results pages (SERPs).

No HTTPS: Websites that do not have a secure version (HTTPS) may be viewed as unsafe by search engines, and this may impact their ranking.

Penalties: In some cases, losing rankings could occur due to manual or automatic penalties from Google. If this is the case, the offending issues (such as using deceptive cloaking techniques, or participating in link schemes) would need to be resolved and then a reconsideration request sent to Google.

Poor On-Page SEO: On-page SEO involves optimizing individual pages of your website. This includes proper keyword placement, good metadata, and other SEO best practices. If these components are missing, it can affect your site's ranking.

Changes in Search Behavior: Trends, seasonality, and shifts in user behavior can affect the keywords people use. If a website doesn't update its keywords and content to match these changes, it might lose relevance and drop in rankings.

Poor Social Media Presence: While not a direct ranking factor, a poor social media presence can reduce the visibility and indirectly affect the SEO performance of your content.

Site structure changes: Unplanned changes to the site structure - such as changing URLs without proper redirects or altering the internal link structure - can confuse search engines and lead to lost rankings.

Loss of high-quality backlinks: Just as bad backlinks can harm your rankings, losing good backlinks can also impact your position. If a reputable website that was linking to yours removes that link, your site might experience a drop in domain authority which can lead to lower rankings.

Duplicate content: Search engines don't like duplicate content. If there's a significant amount of copy-pasting either between pages on your site, or from external sites to yours, search engines might downgrade your rankings.

Inconsistent NAP: For local SEO, having a consistent Name, Address, and Phone number (NAP) across all your online platforms is crucial. If there's inconsistency, it can lead to a decrease in local search visibility.

Poor user engagement: This includes factors like click-through-rate (CTR), bounce rate, average time on site, and pogo-sticking (when users quickly return to the search results after clicking on a link). Poor engagement metrics can signal to search engines that your site is not meeting users' needs, and may lead to ranking decline.

Thin content: If your pages have little relevant or substantial content, they will likely be perceived as of low value to users, leading to lower rankings.

Over-optimisation: While SEO is crucial for good rankings, trying to over-optimise your site can be counterproductive. If you're stuffing keywords, hiding text, or participating in link schemes, Google's algorithms will likely catch on and may penalise your site.

Changes in location targeting: If you change the regions or languages that your website is targeting without appropriately adjusting your SEO strategy, this could negatively impact your rankings.

Slow response times: If your server is often slow to respond, or if your site goes down frequently, search engines may crawl your site less often, which could lead to a decrease in rankings.

Robots.txt or NoIndex mistakes: Improper use of Robots.txt files or NoIndex tags could accidentally stop search engines from crawling or indexing your site, leading to decreased rankings.

Poor internal linking: A well-structured internal linking strategy not only helps users navigate your site with ease, it also helps search engines understand the content and hierarchy of your site. When this is poorly structured, it can affect your site's SEO performance and rankings.

Website redesign or site migration issues: If you've recently redesigned or migrated your site and didn't properly plan for SEO, it could lead to a drastic drop in rankings. This often happens when redirects aren't correctly set up, or when the new site lacks the proper on-page optimizations.

Hosting issues: If your website's host has frequent downtime or is slow, it can negatively affect your site's accessibility for both search engine spiders and users. A poor hosting environment can impact site speed, uptime, and security, all of which can contribute to lower search engine rankings.

Unoptimized images and multimedia: Large, unoptimized images and multimedia can significantly slow down your website, leading to a poorer user experience and lower search engine rankings. It's important to properly optimize all visual and audio elements on your site.

Google algorithm updates: Occasionally, Google rolls out significant updates to its ranking algorithms. These 'core' updates can have extensive effects on search engine rankings, especially if they target tactics that your website is using.

No schema markup: Websites that utilize schema markup (structured data) can help search engines understand their content better, which often leads to better SERP rankings and higher visibility with rich results. Without it, a site might still do fine, but it's a bit of a handicap.

Competitor activities: SEO doesn't occur in a vacuum. If rankings have slipped, it's not always because you're doing something wrong. It could be that competitors have improved their own SEO strategies and moved up the page, bumping your site down.

Ignoring Bing and other search engines: While Google holds a dominant market share in many places, Bing, Yahoo, and others still account for a sizable percentage of internet searches. Ignoring the SEO practices for these platforms might lead to lower overall rankings.

It's worth noting that search engine algorithms change frequently, and SEO practices need to adapt accordingly. It's always a good idea to monitor ranking changes and stay up-to-date with current SEO trends and updates.


Gharkul

When your rankings drop, what's the first thing that comes to your mind? You need to build more links, right?
Most people make the mistake of building tons of links at a fast pace to the web page that dropped in rankings. Google is smart and can detect if a web page is gaining links at an unnatural pace. So, if you build too many links to the web page that dropped in rankings, you'll notice that your rankings will drop even more.


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