Being an SEO specialist, one of the worst nightmares is to wake up and find a drop in the Google ranking. The dramatic reasons behind the google ranking drop could include a change in content, an algorithm update, technical issues, improvements competitors made, SERP layout changes, and a Google penalty. So, you need to understand through which your website ranking has been influenced, and in this article, we will comprehend the possible reasons why Google ranking drops and how to deal with it.
Reasons why your Google ranking Drops
- Change in Algorithm: One of the most possible reasons why Google ranking drops is the change in algorithms. Search engines frequently introduce updates to make search results more significant, but they often come with a dramatic drop in WordPress site rankings. Notably, every time Google announces a new update, search results can become agitated. Some sites jump to the top, while others drop significantly. In order to solve the issue, you need to wait before you act. In the initial days after the initiation of a new algorithm, positioning on the search engine results page can get muddled. However, after a few days, it becomes stable.
- Natural Changes: A drop in ranking can be for the products that have simply become outdated or have passed the seasonal demand. The problem here is not SEO but the product and marketing techniques. Therefore, you should adjust your promotion strategy, branding techniques or change the product itself.
- You are banned by Google: Another reason behind the Google ranking drop in search results could be the Google filters. Precisely, there are few search engine sanctions that are made against the sites violating the rules. Furthermore, there are certain algorithm penalties that violates the webmaster guidelines. Specifically, for algorithmic penalties, you will not be getting a notification, so you will be required to figure it out on your own by scrutinizing your recent rankings and reading news about any updates in the Google algorithm. Also, you need to immediately eliminate the issue that has caused manual penalties. Remove all the non-unique content and request reindexing if your redirects are incorrectly configured.
- Improvements in Competitor’s Content: Your competitors are also constantly working on improving their sites just like you. In fact, everyone is competing for the best search engine position at all times. Imagine you had been ranking higher than your competitor, but your competitor was vigorously working on optimizing their site, and you had been spending less time as compared to them on SEO. In such a case, your ranking might drop, and your competitor might overtake you. In this case, you need to scrutinize your competitors’ SEO efforts, content, and site design. Also, constantly work on your website, optimize content, and build backlinks, so that you don’t lose your position.
- Server Issues: A position drop in the search engine result page can be due to server issues. The possible reasons can be caching issues, long server responses, and server errors. In such a case, you need to check pages repeatedly for availability and load speed. If you find any issue with markup or any unnecessary tags, then fix them immediately.
- Website on-page issue: During the optimization of each site page in WordPress, problems may appear that hurt your ranking after being indexed by Google bots. Precisely, some of the on-page issues include broken links, incorrectly written meta tags, links as a part of the link exchange scheme, and user generated spam. You can solve these issues by updating links, creating relevant titles and meta descriptions, and enabling comment pre-moderation to get rid of user-generated spam.
- Website technical issues: Another reason behind the Google ranking drop is the technical errors on the WordPress site, which can prevent it from ranking properly and can cause a drop in Google ranking. Such errors can be caused by incorrect configuration of the robots.txt file or incorrect use of tags. Therefore, check the robots.txt and tags. Open important pages for indexing, close dynamic and custom pages from indexing, and correctly distribute the transfer of PageRank.
- Lost backlinks: Link building is a constant process that needs to be maintained. Specifically, the main problems with backlinks include the donor site loses domain trust, removal of links, and links becoming obsolete. Thus, you should keep your links up-to-date. Besides, try negotiating permanent links with dofollow tags and make sure they lead to relevant pages on your site. Also, look for new donors with high domain trust.
- Old or generic keywords: The use of old or generic keywords is another possible reason why Google ranking drops. Specifically, date-bound keywords may become outdated. For instance, a keyword like “best apps in 2019,” and now is 2021, so nobody is looking for it in 2021. So, you should constantly develop the semantic core and redefine the applicability of keywords in your content. You should also track keyword rank changes. Suppose if some keywords are outdated, then optimize the page for other queries. Besides, create content for new keywords and try to use long-tail keywords to be as specific as possible.
- Low quality content: Low-quality content is also a key reason for the drop in Google ranking. Google may downgrade your website if your content is of low quality. The most common issues are the plagiarized content, issues in title and meta description, use of unverified data, and content consisting of large blocks of unformatted text. To solve the issues, you should try more engaging titles and meta descriptions, increase the length of your text, structure texts, lists, and add subheadings. If the find problem is in keyword density, then remove some keywords from the text. Also, make sure to use simple language and maximize useful and unique information in your copy.
If you notice a drop in your ranking, don’t panic; perhaps it is just a technical problem. Identify the possible reasons for your Google ranking drop and then find a proper solution for it. Take the help from the above mentioned reasons and identify your specific one.