Often, I'll talk to prospective customers who
believe they have been affected by the update algorithm or penalty. They have
lost a lot of organic traffic, so they immediately think that a change in
search engines is to blame.
Unfortunately, I've also run into many situations
where SEOs use algorithm updates like Panda or Penguin as explanations for
organic traffic drops. Because customers may not understand the technical
nature of SEO, sellers can often hide behind excuses product algorithm or the
past sanctions, the reasons for the drop in traffic. So, how can you know what
the real problem is?
Have
You REALLY Been Hit With A Penalty?
The first step to understanding if your site has fallen
victim algorithm update or penalty is to check levels of organic traffic you.
If an algorithm update or penalty is at work, you can often see organic traffic
fall off a cliff. Dig deeper to determine if the drop is only on one search
engine. If not, then the algorithm update or penalty is likely not the cause,
since it will affect only traffic from a search engine.
Also check the timing of the fall, note the search engine
and then check Google's Algorithm Update page Moz of history that can provide
you with a schedule of recent updates . If the move fall schedule suits you and
schedule an algorithm update , your site may be affected by the
enimerosi. Episis , check the schedule for the fall , note the search engine and
then check Google's Algorithm Update page Moz story who can provide you with a
timetable recent updates . If the move fall schedule suits you and schedule an
algorithm update , your site may be affected by the update.
To check for the sanctions, as sanctions inbound link
associated with the Penguin, the first step is to make sure you have an account
Google Webmaster Tools. Check this account regularly to make sure you're not
missing notifications from Google for potential spammy links that can be
identified.
Additionally , if you suspect that your SEO is building
spammy links , check out some of the backlinks that Google identified and
included in Tools for Webmasters Google.
Click the links for themselves - see pages where the links
are coming from . What do they like ? The Supreme Court Potter Stewart
described pornography identify as " I know it when I see . " The same
could be said for spammy links. Might be difficult to define exactly what
constitutes a spammy link or website, but you will definitely know a site or
link is spammy when you see it .
Other
common reasons for the fall of Major Organic Traffic
There may be other common reasons for the large drops in
traffic, including block indexing , missing redirects, market changes and
activity level SEO.
Blocked
Indexing
If the move is fast falling from multiple search engines ,
this could be a sign of site technical issues that prevented the search engine
indexing . Is your robots.txt file from your test server has been moved to the
live server error ? If yes , could block search engines from indexing.
Check your robots.txt file to disallow statements apply to
your whole website or specific pages that have lost circulation. If this is the
case, remove the incorrectly deny statements by robots.txt to start recovery.
Along with the robots file, there may be other ways that
bots are excluded from indexing the content. Was your site recently redesigned
or whether pages with the highest losses experienced a change programming? Other
common problems that can prevent indexing include the use of JavaScript for
some page information, placing forms in front of the content (bots search
engine cannot fill out forms), and other types of technical change.
Missing
redirects
Oftenoverlooked in the process of relaunching site , 301 redirects are
vital for search engine robots to find the content when the URL and / or domain
for a site has been updated , which is shared with the site relaunches . Here
is an example of the drop in traffic (in multiple search engines) for a website
without re 301 redirects in place:
How you can see if you lose 301 redirects? In analytics,
select a time before resuming. Drill down to find a handful of the most visited
pages on your site from this period. Enter this URL in the address bar of your
browser. If you receive an error 404, then a 301 redirect not created for that
page is likely culprit in organic traffic losses you.
And if you lose 301 redirects for most trafficked pages on
your site, it is likely safe to assume that 301s not created any pages of the
website, since it would likely be prioritized most trafficked pages for
redirection.
Changes
in market
By the way, I noticed also that organic traffic drops due to
the reduction of searches in a particular market. Few years back, I was working
with a company that sold the software disk defragmentation. Even though our
rankings for key terms consistently improving, organic movement threw. Why it
was a penalty or algorithm update? Neither - it was market conditions.
A good tool to use in these cases is the Google Trends, which shows search
volume keywords during a period of time. Notice the project during the last ten
years the term “disk defragmentation”
Lo and Behold, in this case, the overall interest in search
terms such as "disk defragmentation" has been in decline for some
time. This is not a measurement of SEO, per se, but rather an indicator of the
industry.
Similar searches for your brand name company, competitors'
brands, as well as other associated conditions non-brand showed similar
results.
Level
SEO Activity
One last issue I often see is that website owners can
perceive SEO as a one-time program and not a continuous investment. The problem
with this approach is that the data is always shifted to SEO:
- Ranking factors change and evolve over time
- Competitors can invest more in what is SEO
- New competitors enter the fray every day
Again, may initially perceive the loss of organic traffic
over time as a possible algorithm or death issue, but really it just may be
that the inertia SEO over time has caused the site to lose adhesion to search.
Final
Thoughts
Before jumping to the conclusion that your site has been hit
by an algorithm update or penalty, be sure to check all these factors. Although
this is not a complete list, these are the most common problems I encounter are
wrong about algorithm updates or penalties.
It is far better to understand the real problem and deal
head on than to blame an algorithm update or penalty; and you will be one step
closer to solving the real issue at hand and recovering organic search traffic.
The opinions expressed in the article are those of the guest
author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.