My website dropped on google from 2nd position to nowhere

32 replies
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This is 4 months old website with 25+ articles related to real estate marketing tips: epressa dot com
Article "137 real estate slogans" was on the 2nd position for "real estate slogans". Now it is not in the top 100. I din't do a lot of back linking at all - just a few manual links from blogs posts and comments only.

Other pages dropped in rank too.
The only change I recently did was installing a new WP theme "Vantage" ~ 10 days ago which has a directory module with reviews and rating. I was going to use it just for providing a free section for listings of resources for real estate agents. I put 5-6 of these listings with short 200+ words descriptions.

Yesterday I noticed the drop and the only warning on Google webmaster tools was that this theme generated ~ 100 links to non-existent pages inside the directory module. I cleaned that up but still no improvement.

Can a new theme cause something like this? Should I go back to the previous theme I had?
#2nd #dropped #google #position #website
  • Profile picture of the author arpitagarwal82
    Perhaps there is a problem with your new theme. You can hire a wp expert to look into the theme code and find the problem, or you can simply revert back to your old theme.

    Once the ranking are gone, it may take some time to get the ranking back (if you fix the issues). Or there is a slight possibility that you may never rank that well again. Google is like a box of a chocolate
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  • Profile picture of the author kumarseoguru
    Wait for few weeks, sometimes it happens because of Google Dance or some update. Google will update first and let the user know afterwards . Its been long time they are following same strategy.
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  • Profile picture of the author godoveryou
    I'd look at the theme and url structure. This almost sounds like a broken url.
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  • Profile picture of the author inudu
    Theme selection is crucial to SEO. Make sure you install "Yoast by SEO" wordpress plugin because this will eliminate a lot of the URL issues. If I were you, I would switch back to my old theme or hire an SEO expert to optimize the vantage theme.

    These theme creators are programming experts, not SEO experts. Be very careful with the theme you buy because it's probably causing lots of errors. Also, page speed may have decreased and dropped your rankings.
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  • Profile picture of the author sdlive
    i run an adult site. I never did any backlinking, no dupe content, its on fast dedi server. 200% clean site, it ran fine for 2 years, until i noticed just now,a traffic slow down.. wtf?? Effing google.. i did nothing illegal,.. i barely have any ads on my tube site... this freaking google..
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  • Profile picture of the author alvinchua91
    Sounds more likely to do with the theme. Either that or you got negative SEO performed on your site.

    Why don't you check out your backlink profiles just to confirm?
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Originally Posted by longhorn View Post

    This is 4 months old website with 25+ articles related to real estate marketing tips: epressa dot com
    Article "137 real estate slogans" was on the 2nd position for "real estate slogans". Now it is not in the top 100. I din't do a lot of back linking at all - just a few manual links from blogs posts and comments only.

    Other pages dropped in rank too.
    The only change I recently did was installing a new WP theme "Vantage" ~ 10 days ago which has a directory module with reviews and rating. I was going to use it just for providing a free section for listings of resources for real estate agents. I put 5-6 of these listings with short 200+ words descriptions.

    Yesterday I noticed the drop and the only warning on Google webmaster tools was that this theme generated ~ 100 links to non-existent pages inside the directory module. I cleaned that up but still no improvement.

    Can a new theme cause something like this? Should I go back to the previous theme I had?
    • Rank #9 in Google SERPs for that same page for the original keyword (90 real estate slogans).
    • Rank #145 in Google SERPs for the keyword real estate slogans.
    • Rank #1 for 137 Real Estate Slogans, though nobody is searching that exact keyword.

    I see the URL is still the old URL:
    • hxxp://domain.com/90-real-estate-slogans/

    I would change all the internal links pointing at that page to be the exact anchor-text as your target keyword (real estate slogans), drop the numbers in the anchor-text (inbound internal links across the entire site).

    I know that sounds trivial but I've seen Google do weirder things like lower case & upper case keywords showing different SERPs.

    The theme change most likely shuffled some on-page links across the entire site (nav, sidebar, footer links, etc...).

    I didn't look at any of your links, I seriously doubt anyone is doing neg SEO for a keyword like real estate slogans like someone mentioned above.
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    • Profile picture of the author longhorn
      @ yukon - Thank you for detailed answer! I already went back to the old theme and I will take "90" and "137" out of URLs.
      @ everybody else - I really appreciate your help!
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      • Profile picture of the author yukon
        Banned
        Originally Posted by longhorn View Post

        @ yukon - Thank you for detailed answer! I already went back to the old theme and I will take "90" and "137" out of URLs.
        I wouldn't mess with the original URL, just change the incoming internal link anchor-text. You might have meant anchor-text instead of URL?

        Also keep in mind switching themes back & forth is going to take some time for Google to reindex all those pages across the entire site. Give Google some time to settle down before doing anymore major overhauls on the site (month or two).
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  • Profile picture of the author lovboa
    Banned
    I would change it back to the new theme before doing anything else, rather than making live changes on the fly trying to get it back the way it was.
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  • Profile picture of the author johnben1444
    The comment links are one of the most delicate links to mess with at these time.

    You might want to clean that up and see how it goes.
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  • I recommend uninstalling the theme, and then submitting your sitemap to Google Webmaster tools so that Google crawls your site with the new theme.
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  • Profile picture of the author nettiapina
    Originally Posted by longhorn View Post

    Can a new theme cause something like this? Should I go back to the previous theme I had?
    Yes, it can. No you should not in my opinion. Well, unless the new theme is crap...

    You've changed your site code. From a techs point of view you've changed more than you've kept, althought the content is still the same. It seems to me that sites often temporarily drop in Google because of site changes, but in most cases seem to get back to where they were. Of course there's no quarantees about that.

    If you're doing a development that's bringing the site forward I'd just try to tough it out. Of course I'd still make sure that there's nothing obvious that's wrong with the new site.
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  • Profile picture of the author manson911
    Originally Posted by longhorn View Post

    This is 4 months old website with 25+ articles related to real estate marketing tips: epressa dot com
    Article "137 real estate slogans" was on the 2nd position for "real estate slogans". Now it is not in the top 100. I din't do a lot of back linking at all - just a few manual links from blogs posts and comments only.

    Other pages dropped in rank too.
    The only change I recently did was installing a new WP theme "Vantage" ~ 10 days ago which has a directory module with reviews and rating. I was going to use it just for providing a free section for listings of resources for real estate agents. I put 5-6 of these listings with short 200+ words descriptions.

    Yesterday I noticed the drop and the only warning on Google webmaster tools was that this theme generated ~ 100 links to non-existent pages inside the directory module. I cleaned that up but still no improvement.

    Can a new theme cause something like this? Should I go back to the previous theme I had?
    Sorry to hear about this, I am trying to rank my first website and yesterday it decrease by 1, and am going crazy because I don't know what happen.
    I too believe it is something to do with your new template but only WP expert could tell you for sure. Keep us posted if there will be any changes in your rank.
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  • Profile picture of the author promo87
    Banned
    Originally Posted by longhorn View Post

    This is 4 months old website with 25+ articles related to real estate marketing tips: epressa dot com
    Article "137 real estate slogans" was on the 2nd position for "real estate slogans". Now it is not in the top 100. I din't do a lot of back linking at all - just a few manual links from blogs posts and comments only.

    Other pages dropped in rank too.
    The only change I recently did was installing a new WP theme "Vantage" ~ 10 days ago which has a directory module with reviews and rating. I was going to use it just for providing a free section for listings of resources for real estate agents. I put 5-6 of these listings with short 200+ words descriptions.

    Yesterday I noticed the drop and the only warning on Google webmaster tools was that this theme generated ~ 100 links to non-existent pages inside the directory module. I cleaned that up but still no improvement.

    Can a new theme cause something like this? Should I go back to the previous theme I had?
    Well, I don't think anyone knows about it better than Google I think it might happen because of the ~100..... well as you have cleaned it up I'll say wait a while Google might take you back to the place you are. :confused:
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  • Profile picture of the author Henney
    well.. that drop, it could be temporary due to change done on the site
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  • Profile picture of the author longhorn
    2 days after reverting to the old theme and re-submitting sitemap.
    No changes.

    One weird thing I noticed though - if you search for example for this: "real estate farming" then you'll get my page about "real estate marketing ideas" on the first page of google's results although it really doesn't have anything to do with real estate farming.

    Before the drop there was another page - "real estate farming 101" on 3-4 position which was actually optimized for "real estate farming" search term.
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by longhorn View Post

      One weird thing I noticed though - if you search for example for this: "real estate farming" then you'll get my page about "real estate marketing ideas" on the first page of google's results although it really doesn't have anything to do with real estate farming.
      Why is that weird, you mentioned the word farm 23 times on the ranked page (anchor-text + plain text)?
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      • Profile picture of the author longhorn
        23 times! Hmm... I didn't realized that.
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        • Profile picture of the author dannycheng
          Originally Posted by longhorn View Post

          23 times! Hmm... I didn't realized that.
          So much for Google's much vaunted semantics and user intentions algorithm .. - anyway, from my own experience it's probably the theme- not all themes are coded the way the spiders like them, so.....
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    • Profile picture of the author nettiapina
      Originally Posted by longhorn View Post

      2 days after reverting to the old theme and re-submitting sitemap.
      No changes.
      You're expecting the positions to change overnight, but it's often more gradual. It may take a week, or it may take a month.

      Also, you've now changed the site twice. If my theory about technical changes is right that certainly didn't help you.
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  • Profile picture of the author longhorn
    I see the URL is still the old URL:
    hxxp://domain.com/90-real-estate-slogans/

    I would change all the internal links pointing at that page to be the exact anchor-text as your target keyword (real estate slogans), drop the numbers in the anchor-text (inbound internal links across the entire site).
    I followed yukon's advice and changed hxxp://domain.com/90-real-estate-slogans/ to hxxp://domain.com/real-estate-slogans/

    Today I checked and this page was #1 for "real estate slogans"
    Do you think that this change helped moving from #2 to #1 or it is just Google's dancing moves?

    Other pages are still not doing good.
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by longhorn View Post

      I followed yukon's advice and changed hxxp://domain.com/90-real-estate-slogans/ to hxxp://domain.com/real-estate-slogans/

      Today I checked and this page was #1 for "real estate slogans"
      Do you think that this change helped moving from #2 to #1 or it is just Google's dancing moves?

      Other pages are still not doing good.

      I never said to change the URL, I specifically said to change the anchor-text.
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  • Profile picture of the author chandanthaver
    This type of downfall in keywords shown when your website suffer from any Google penalty. So check your webmaster for any Google update.
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  • Profile picture of the author patco
    Just to say that in most cases you should wait to see the result. Google will NOT index your website directly after you remove the theme... Also, I would write a few new articles and try to do QUALITY SEO on them to speed up the process and I hope you will get your ranking back soon!
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  • Profile picture of the author timpears
    Links look spammy to me.
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  • Profile picture of the author DPM70
    I appreciate that SEO is what it is and Yukon is giving some great tips here but your website is absolute cack! Maybe you should consider adding some kind of value to the internet before spewing all of your dross all over it.

    Not surprised to see such a crappy website dropped out of Google's real estate search pages.

    I bet there are many tens of pages worse than yours in the search but it only goes to show the kind of crap Google is up against when it comes to providing decent search results.

    Long live google's algorithm
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  • Profile picture of the author JonesMurray
    Its looks terrible that you have warning, you must need to check all on-page factors and remove them all.
    Before installing any theme, you need to see the ratings and read the reviews and also see the help.
    If the problem still present so consult with the Professional SEO Expert who can help you and give you the right solution.
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    • Profile picture of the author Karan Rawat
      Originally Posted by JonesMurray View Post

      Its looks terrible that you have warning, you must need to check all on-page factors and remove them all.
      Before installing any theme, you need to see the ratings and read the reviews and also see the help.
      If the problem still present so consult with the Professional SEO Expert who can help you and give you the right solution.

      What is the connection between Google Rank and warning!
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  • Profile picture of the author thebert
    It's already been covered here in some detail. Theme issues - changing themes is more than just a look and feel thing, it can be a fundamental change in the underlying code. Everything from page load timings to internal linking structure to mystery links can be affected.

    If you've got decent rankings, why change themes? Why risk it? Especially if you're site is not an established, bona-fide authority site. You're just asking for trouble.

    Sorry to hear about your rankings. If you were doing any off-page SEO and those efforts got you your initial rankings and those efforts are white-hat, keep going. There's a good change your rankings will bounce back. If you're gray or black-hat, you've been caught with pants down. Live and learn. Move on.

    Good luck!
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  • Profile picture of the author vickyjohn123
    this effect seems to be the google dance....same happened to me for 1 keyword... anyone give me the good suggesstions for this ..
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