6 Ways to Recover If You’ve Lost Your Web Page Rankings
How are your web page rankings fairing? Have you sunk, swam or treaded water? In one of our New Year’s blogs we discussed the tricks of SEO optimization as they applied to the latest and greatest Google algorithm updates. After seeing three major algorithm updates in 2013, it isn’t surprising to see 2014 already graced by yet another Google update. Google Updates Its Page Layout Algorithm for Web Page Rankings It was bound to happen. As the face of search engine optimization continues to evolve, Google unleashed their first algorithm update of 2014. According to Search Engine Land, the update specifically targets websites that are “top heavy” with ads. Matt Cutts, Google’s lead of web spam, released the announcement on February 6, 2014, stating it was a “refresh” of Google’s Page Layout Algorithm, otherwise known as the Top Heavy Algorithm. This marks the third confirmed update to the algorithm, which aims to penalize websites featuring pages that are top-heavy with advertisements. What does this mean for you? Simply put, if your website buries content under lots of ads, you were in trouble back in 2012. If you’re still cramming ads in above your content today, you’re about to end up in even more trouble. According to Search Engine Land, sites choosing to use overlay, pop-up and pop-under ads are not impacted by this algorithm. How much top ad is too much? There doesn’t appear to be any set ruling. However, you should take into consideration how your page displays. Content should be the anchor of every page. Ads are simply additional icing, meant to decorate not overtake. Remember: Google’s updates are all about improving the user’s experience. Users want to see more beneficial content and fewer advertisements. Google Shakes Up SERPs Before refreshing the Page Layout Algorithm, Google made what DejanSEO called the 6th largest update in a year. It caused a search engine results page shake up that shook cyberspace like an earthquake for the first time in a year. DejanSEO reported a culmination of “a massive 2.91 roos.” What exactly did the cyber earthquake do? Near as we can tell, it shook up and rearranged where many websites placed on the SERPs. A prime example of this comes from Search Engine Journal, where Hin Lai shares the shocking news that after the quake their website dropped nearly 130 spots. Maintaining Your SERPs The updates to algorithms in 2014 beg the question we posed in the opener: how are your search rankings fairing? Have you sunk, swam or treaded water? If you’ve managed to tread water, then you’re obviously doing something at least partially right. And you’re likely breathing a sigh of relief, thanking the search engine gods. Breaking even is always better than coming up short. Now, how do you improve? If you’ve swam so far this year, then your search rankings have risen; you’ve definitely got the hang of 2014 SEO. However, if you’ve had the unpleasant experience of sinking, you’re no doubt trying to claw upward. You need air, and you need it now, before the first quarter of the year is out. Survival instincts are kicking in! But can you raise the submarine before the first quarter of 2014 passes? After all, isn’t Google hardcore about penalizing offenders, keeping their heads held staunching underwater to teach them a hard learned lesson? Based on Hin Lai’s experience, you might not feel your head held underwater for too long. Lessons Learned Early in 2014 Once Lai realized the search ranking drop looming before him, he did something not all of us would think to do at a moment of crisis: create a timeline of events. Google’s first update of 2014 hit on January 8th, and at Search Engine Land Lai recorded the following timeline: “January 9th – Site was hit by the penalty and dropped from rank 5 to rank 124. January 19th – Investigations led to having a PRO exact match anchor text link removed. January 26th – Monitored the results of actually saw a further drop of about 60 places since the link was removed. Fell to rank 101 at this point. January 28th – Decided to change the URL to avoid using my exact keyword. 301 redirected the old URL to the new one so that existing link juice would flow through. January 30th – Huge jump back to page 1, woohoo! February 1st – Site climbs to rank 6. February 4th – Site climbs further up to rank 5.” As you can see, the website seems to have been able to regain ranking almost as abruptly as it was stripped of it due to good changes—the kind that Google smiled favorably upon. So, what can we learn from this example? How can you recover from falling search rankings in 2014? 6 Means of Repairing a Sinking Ship We can learn a lot from what Lai did to recover his rankings. He points out some interesting lessons, and we’d like to expand on these lessons (or means of repairing the sinking ship): Lesson 1: Content is, yet isn’t the king. We’ve talked a lot about how content is king this year. We’ve discussed the need to put your audience first, tailor to their needs, educate, inform, compel and engage. Content needs to be well written and properly formatted. It needs to rival traditional editorial standards. And that’s why you should consider getting an industry copywriter. While quality content is an essential to a well-planned SEO strategy this year, it cannot be your sole savior. Take Lai, for example. He had immaculate, quality content and still his rankings got hit. Invest in quality content, view it as kingly, but do not allow it to stand alone. The King on the chessboard is the key to the game, but he cannot stand without his army. Lesson 2: You can pass all link juice via 301 redirects. We take this lesson directly from Lai’s experience. He points out that Matt Cutts publically stated “all link juice is … Read more
