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My #1 Ranking Just Disappeared Overnight Without Any Reason! - "Super Confused"

by SurgeClicks
18 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hi

I run a popular sports blog with close to 600K pageviews per month, my site was ranked '#1' for a high volume keyword for almost a month, I published that article 45 days ago and it reached 'Page 1' 30 days ago, the traffic was pretty good, I saw a lot of comments, shares and other engagements, but 2 days ago when I checked SERPfox, I saw that it had completely disappeared from search results!

I have seen swings in SERPs, I have witnessed dramatic drop and rise in rankings within days, but so far I have never seen a top ranked webpage disappear from search results overnight, I thought it might be visible at lower rankings again, but so far even that has failed to happen.

Let me know if anyone of you have experienced something similar or have any idea as to why this might have happened (Not sure if I am allowed to disclose the URL and Keyword here).

Looking forward to an amazing discussion!
#disappeared #overnight #ranking #rankings disappeared #reason #serp rankings #super confused
  • Profile picture of the author soniyasharma96
    Check your webmaster properly, if Google has removed your website from SERP then surly it sent you a message on webmaster tool.

    1 month later, by mistake, my colleague has submitted my blog in remove URLs section in webmaster tool and suddenly my whole website disappeared from SERP. So you need to check also this section in webmaster tool.

    If you have received any message from Google end then work on it and try to solve the problem.
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    • Profile picture of the author SurgeClicks
      Originally Posted by soniyasharma96 View Post

      Check your webmaster properly, if Google has removed your website from SERP then surly it sent you a message on webmaster tool.

      1 month later, by mistake, my colleague has submitted my blog in remove URLs section in webmaster tool and suddenly my whole website disappeared from SERP. So you need to check also this section in webmaster tool.

      If you have received any message from Google end then work on it and try to solve the problem.
      It is just one webpage which has dropped out of Google SERPs for a particular keyword I was getting traffic from, the rest of my website is doing fine and I did check Google Webmasters Tools and there were no errors or warnings of any sort.

      So I think the issue was with the content of that particular post itself, not something technical or my site in general!

      Thanks for your reply!
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  • Profile picture of the author gaurav2555
    Spammy backlinks? Would like to know your backlink profile - PBNs, forum etc or just via natural link building? This should be a great learning for all of us.
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    • Profile picture of the author SurgeClicks
      Originally Posted by gaurav2555 View Post

      Spammy backlinks? Would like to know your backlink profile - PBNs, forum etc or just via natural link building? This should be a great learning for all of us.
      Hi

      I don't build any backlinks on my own for my sites, I focus all of my effort on keyword research and producing good quality content, but I do spend a great deal of time on on-site SEO, so one possible issue might be keyword stuffing on-site!

      In all my posts I ensure that my 'Focus Keyword' is mentioned in the title, URL, 1st paragraph, meta description, twice within the article (along with 1 or 2 LSI keywords) and even image alt tags, but this is something that is recommended by the Yoast SEO Plugin, so I'm not if there are any issues with this.

      Let me know if this could be it!
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  • Profile picture of the author dave_hermansen
    Without knowing the URL, this is a tough one to diagnose. Initially, it sounded like something triggered by Penguin, since the new Penguin filter is URL-specific. But, if you do not build backlinks, it cannot be that. There are no more penalties with Penguin, so the worst that would happen is bad backlinks would be ignored and you would have had to had a ton of those to get ranked at the top and then plummet to nowhere. The only caveat to that is you said "I do not build backlinks ON MY OWN". Does this mean someone else does it or that there are zero backlinks that have been intentionally built by anyone?

    It is very unlikely to be something that is Panda-related, too, since that filter tends to lower the rankings for the entire site or directories of a site. You said only this URL was affected. Only having the keyword phrase the number of times and in the places you indicated is very unlikely to have been deemed keyword stuffing anyway. You might want to work on getting related phrases on the page if it is really that monetarily important that you rank for this single keyword phrase, if you have not already done that. Really, those LSI phrases are more important than repeating the targeted phrase (no matter what the Yoast plugin says).

    Definitely check Search Console to see if there are any messages from Google. Also, check to see if your article has been scraped and if someone is ranking high now with the content they copied from your site.
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
      Originally Posted by dave_hermansen View Post

      it cannot be that. There are no more penalties with Penguin, so the worst that would happen is bad backlinks would be ignored
      Not true. You can still get manual action against your site. However you were right we would have to see the site and page in question.
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      • Profile picture of the author dave_hermansen
        Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

        Not true. You can still get manual action against your site. However you were right we would have to see the site and page in question.
        I think you misread what I wrote or perhaps I could have stated it more clearly. I said there were no more PENGUIN backlink penalties, which is why I suggested checking search console to see if there were any messages from Google (a.k.a. manual penalties).
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    • Profile picture of the author SurgeClicks
      Originally Posted by dave_hermansen View Post

      Without knowing the URL, this is a tough one to diagnose. Initially, it sounded like something triggered by Penguin, since the new Penguin filter is URL-specific. But, if you do not build backlinks, it cannot be that. There are no more penalties with Penguin, so the worst that would happen is bad backlinks would be ignored and you would have had to had a ton of those to get ranked at the top and then plummet to nowhere. The only caveat to that is you said "I do not build backlinks ON MY OWN". Does this mean someone else does it or that there are zero backlinks that have been intentionally built by anyone?

      It is very unlikely to be something that is Panda-related, too, since that filter tends to lower the rankings for the entire site or directories of a site. You said only this URL was affected. Only having the keyword phrase the number of times and in the places you indicated is very unlikely to have been deemed keyword stuffing anyway. You might want to work on getting related phrases on the page if it is really that monetarily important that you rank for this single keyword phrase, if you have not already done that. Really, those LSI phrases are more important than repeating the targeted phrase (no matter what the Yoast plugin says).

      Definitely check Search Console to see if there are any messages from Google. Also, check to see if your article has been scraped and if someone is ranking high now with the content they copied from your site.
      Hi

      Thanks for your reply, I have just PM'd you my site link. I don't build any backlinks for my site, all of my backlinks are 100% natural, so there are no chances of having a bad link structure.

      As you said, I pay a great deal of attention towards finding and including LSI keywords and the emphasis on the main focus keyword is nothing more than what is suggested by most bloggers and internet marketers these days.

      I do check my search console almost once a week and haven't come across any warnings or errors regarding this particular site.

      Please check out my link and let me know what you think!

      Regards
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  • Profile picture of the author selfassured
    Any messages from Google?
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  • Profile picture of the author Woomeister
    Penguin update.
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  • Profile picture of the author jeffreyhuan
    You may want to read this from Search Engine Journal.

    https://www.searchenginejournal.com/...h-data/178676/

    A Google search update appears to have occurred on November 10th.

    Can't be sure if it is this update that affect your rankings.
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  • Profile picture of the author DavidKellog
    As far as I know the major updates are followed by small updates each day. So, yes, it could be the last update that produced the drop in rankings of your website.
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  • Profile picture of the author luciesmazanska
    In most cases, you should only blame yourself that you didn’t do your best to avoid getting into this dreaded situation.
    But in some cases, you just can’t be aware of all the possible scenarios in which your site might lose organic search traffic.
    It could be either because Google penalized your site or your site has some issues that led to the ranking drop.
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  • Profile picture of the author paulgl
    Two main reasons why a normal site drops.

    1) Topic dropped off the charts on google. It happens more times than people think. And since you have a sports blog...Why would an old post on a sports blog keep pulling the same traffic.

    2) Technical issues. Could anything.

    However, with a name like surgeclicks, I suspect you yourself may have maimed a client....in other words, site was not normal.

    Paul
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  • Profile picture of the author KylieSweet
    Originally Posted by SurgeClicks View Post

    I run a popular sports blog with close to 600K pageviews per month, my site was ranked '#1
    But when I checked SERPfox, I saw that it had completely disappeared from search results!
    I have seen swings in SERPs, I have witnessed dramatic drop and rise in rankings within days, but so far I have never seen a top ranked webpage disappear from search results overnight
    Glad to see a popular sports blog with you with decent traffic. However i never use tools to check the ranking but I check it manually within the specific search engine. Because I need real time results for my analysis due to fluctuations and their updates. I would suggest to observe and take time to take a look from your previous process for verification purposes.
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  • Profile picture of the author Honey Bunny SEO
    Yeah, Google testing new algorithm. I'm seeing threads like this spawning on Reddit/SEO, BHW and Quora.

    Have you experience a sudden drop in positions for your other keywords as well?

    Also check your competitors for these queries in your area. I'm affraid it's hard to tell the reason for sure as more data is needed. You would want to analyze all top 100 domains for the keyword in question along with historical data on it.

    Something like this:
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    • Profile picture of the author KarenByerly
      Originally Posted by Honey Bunny SEO View Post

      Yeah, Google testing new algorithm. I'm seeing threads like this spawning on Reddit/SEO, BHW and Quora.

      Have you experience a sudden drop in positions for your other keywords as well?

      Also check your competitors for these queries in your area. I'm affraid it's hard to tell the reason for sure as more data is needed. You would want to analyze all top 100 domains for the keyword in question along with historical data on it.

      Something like this:
      Huh? Really testing new algorithm?
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  • Profile picture of the author easyvbapps
    Maybe your domain is penalized. Check other posts rankings. If you are moved to 5th or 6th page, then your domain might be penalized. Wait for some days to get a message in WMT.
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