Reason for SERP Drop???

16 replies
  • SEO
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About a week ago I changed the settings in my tag pages from noindex to index to see if that might help my site overall.... and today I checked in google webmaster tools and it seems in one day the indexed pages on my site went from 600 to 6000. I dont understand that as I only have approximately 1000 tag pages... what are all the other pages?

also today, the main keyword for the site vanished from the serps... I guess the sudden increase of indexed pages is the cause of the serp drop...

can anybody help me understand what might be going on here?

Attachment 21622
#drop #reason #serp
  • Profile picture of the author nik0
    Banned
    Here's a link that describes the process of extracting all indexed pages in Google when it concerns 1000+:

    https://www.highposition.com/blog/ho...-your-website/

    You can also just do a site: search and browse through the results. That often provides enough clue's of what's indexed in addition to those tag pages.

    You could also use a tool like Xenu to scrape every URL of your site, though that doesn't indicate whether it's indexed in Google or not but does give you a complete picture.

    The drop in rankings can be caused by an excessive amount of duplicate content and/or thin pages caused by the tag pages.
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    • Profile picture of the author RedWaterDub
      well, I used the extraction method you said but it only showed me about 1000 pages... however there were a lot of strange pages listed that do not exist and have nothing to do with my site.. they are products.. looks like someone hyjacked my site and added their products onto the end of my url string... dont know what thats all about .. but when I click on one of these page links it redirects to some spammy product site.... should I do something about this?
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      • Profile picture of the author patco
        Originally Posted by RedWaterDub View Post

        well, I used the extraction method you said but it only showed me about 1000 pages... however there were a lot of strange pages listed that do not exist and have nothing to do with my site.. they are products.. looks like someone hyjacked my site and added their products onto the end of my url string... dont know what thats all about .. but when I click on one of these page links it redirects to some spammy product site.... should I do something about this?
        That's really strange... Did you check with a tool that check if a specific link is working? In the past I used tools that finds all links on your page and gives you a list with pages that are working (and also that are not working -> 404)! You might try with this, you could understand the problem...
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  • Profile picture of the author anwar001
    Google does not penalize a WordPress (or any other) site for having archive pages that publish and point to the same content. They have mentioned this many years back in 2008 itself - Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Demystifying the "duplicate content penalty" So you don't have to worry excessively about this. Maybe your site will come back in rankings in a couple of days.

    However, my advice would be to keep the post’s content to excerpt length when it is published on archive and tag pages. This will also allow easier browsing for your site visitors.
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Tag pages are all duplicate internal pages. Most of those pages will be buried in Supplemental SERPs.
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  • Profile picture of the author LuckyIMer
    Originally Posted by RedWaterDub View Post

    About a week ago I changed the settings in my tag pages from noindex to index to see if that might help my site overall.... and today I checked in google webmaster tools and it seems in one day the indexed pages on my site went from 600 to 6000. I dont understand that as I only have approximately 1000 tag pages... what are all the other pages?

    also today, the main keyword for the site vanished from the serps... I guess the sudden increase of indexed pages is the cause of the serp drop...

    can anybody help me understand what might be going on here?

    Attachment 21622
    I always deindex my blogs tags and keep them deindexed. I suggest to restore the setting back to the way it was and be patient.
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  • Profile picture of the author DizenSounds
    There is no reason to index your tag pages or category pages, undo it.

    Don't to the guy citing a blog post by Google 6+ years ago. SEO changes monthly so don't read legacy it and consider it fact.
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
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      Originally Posted by DizenSounds View Post

      There is no reason to index your tag pages or category pages, undo it.

      Don't to the guy citing a blog post by Google 6+ years ago. SEO changes monthly so don't read legacy it and consider it fact.
      I disagree on not indexing category pages. A category page is the mother of all pages for that specific group of pages & should be indexed & ranked. A category page also doesn't have to be duplicate content.
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      • Profile picture of the author nik0
        Banned
        Sounds like your site is hacked Red, so yeah do something about it.
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      • Profile picture of the author godoveryou
        Originally Posted by yukon View Post

        A category page also doesn't have to be duplicate content.
        This.

        A simple starter solution would be something like this: https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-custom-category-pages/

        While that is a decent solution to get your feet wet, I prefer using something like this: https://github.com/billerickson/disp...shortcode/wiki

        In other words, deindex the built-in category pages, create a page specifically how you want and then display your posts also, specifically as you want. Then 301 redirect the built-in category urls to your new category pages and call it a day. Obviously you 301 them because every post in that category will inherently link back to the built-in category page and you want to preserve that link juice for something that isn't a deindexed page.

        I'm sure there are a zillion other ways to do it as well
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  • Profile picture of the author imabigboy
    I would wait a few weeks or so and just see what happens. It may bounce back on its own.
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  • Profile picture of the author SEOWizard417
    Most likely DUP content issues with all those tag pages. They arent necessary, might as well take them off.
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  • Profile picture of the author Icematikx
    For category pages..

    I edit my theme to remove the showing of posts, and use a shortcode plugin to display the posts from that category.

    I then use a plugin to enable HTML in category descriptions, and add a bit of code to display that description. What I get is a category page that I turn into a ranking money page.

    For example, if my homepage targets "juicer reviews", then my category targets "breville juicer reviews" and contains similar content to the homepage, except that it lists all of the breville juicer reviews.

    All of the posts link back to the category page, and I find it works extremely well.
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  • Profile picture of the author jony1
    Should be many reason in SERP drop..bad(low quality backlinks) backlink, duplicate content, doing black hat SEO. On pages problem or more.
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  • Profile picture of the author Resource9
    Check your backlink profile immediately. The algorithm has changed from what it used to be in the past. If you have any irrelevant backlinks in your profile, then remove them through the disvow tool. This will help you in restoring the keyword positions. Before, building new backlinks kow about the latest algorithm so that you know how to build new backlinks.
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  • kindly make Noindex again your TAGs page because this is creating duplicate content in search engines if there is canonical tag is missing. Kindly restore them again.
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