Sometimes, things seem to be going great with a site’s SEO when suddenly the rankings take a dive. This is a nightmare situation for most site owners, particularly as it’s hard to pin the drop on anything specific. The problem can be sorted out swiftly if recent changes have occurred, but when the site has been holding steady for some time, it’s harder to locate and fix the problem.
There are many causes of rankings drop, some of which are obvious. If your site’s rankings have taken a sudden and steep dive, your SEO consultant might be able to track the issue down. It’s usually a good idea to get a professional on board in this situation instead of wasting time. You can talk to us at SEO Consult Australia about ranking problems.
The first and most important step is finding out what caused the drop. A good search engine optimisation consultant will look at any recent changes to the site. It might be that your keyword density has triggered a keyword stuffing filter, or other similar optimisation techniques have stepped too far over the line. If this is the problem, it won’t take long to fix. If you haven’t made any recent changes, the problem will be harder to track down.
When you haven’t made recent changes
It sometimes happens that a site drops in rankings even though no changes have occurred on the pages. When this happens, the cause has to be external. The work needed to fix this type of problem tends to be a little more extensive, as it comes from factors outside of your control. The important thing is that the problems can be fixed, and your pages eventually restored to their former positions.
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An underhanded search engine optimisation technique has been reported. A lot of sites get away with a black-hat SEO technique until their competition reports them. The problem might not even be your fault. Some optimisation companies practice less-than-reputable tactics to get their clients’ pages where they need them to be. If this is the problem, the good news is it’s easily fixed. All that needs to happen is for the offending technique to be replaced.
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Your past ranking is a fluke. If your rankings in the past have been based on pure luck, reality is going to eventually catch up with you. For example, if you never intended to rank for the keyword ‘designer perfume’ but somehow found your page in the top ten, that’s great. When competitors figure out what’s going on, things go bad. It’s impossible to fight back when you don’t know what got you the ranking in the first place, so SEO revision is needed.
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Competitors have simply caught up. This happens more often than not, although usually it happens over a long time. If your competitors have all recently optimised their sites, your older site can be easily edged out. A good SEO maintenance program should prevent this from happening, but many companies simply don’t bother. If this is the case, it’s time to give your site’s optimisation another visit.
