Often, I’ll speak to prospective clients who think they’ve been hit
by an algorithm update or a penalty. They’ve lost a lot of organic
traffic, so they immediately think that a search engine change is to
blame.
Unfortunately, I’ve also run into many situations where SEOs are
using algorithm updates such as Panda or Penguin as explanations for
organic traffic drops. Because clients may not understand the technical
nature of SEO, vendors can often hide behind excuses of algorithm
updates or past penalties as the reasons for traffic drops. So how can
you know what the real problem is?
Have You REALLY Been Hit With A Penalty?
The first step in understanding if your site has been a victim of an
algorithm update or penalty is to check your organic traffic levels. If
an algorithm update or penalty are at work, you often may see organic
traffic drop off a cliff. Dig deeper to determine if the drops are
solely from one search engine. If not, then an algorithm update or
penalty are likely not the cause, since they would only affect traffic
from one search engine.
Also check the timing of the drop, note the search engine and then check Moz’s Google Algorithm Update History page which
can provide you with a timeframe of recent updates. If your traffic
drop timeframe also matches the timing of an algorithm update, your site
may have been affected by an update.
To check for penalties, such as inbound link penalties associated
with Penguin, the first step is to ensure you have a Google Webmaster
Tools account. Check this account regularly to be sure that you’re not
missing notifications from Google about potential spammy links they may
have identified.
Additionally, if you suspect that your SEO has been building spammy
links, check some of the backlinks that Google has identified and listed
in Google Webmaster Tools.
Click on the links themselves — view the pages where the links
originate from. What are they like? Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart
described identifying pornography as, “I know it when I see it.” The
same could be said about spammy links. It can be difficult to define
exactly what constitutes a spammy link or site, but you’ll certainly
know a site or link is spammy when you see it.
Other Common Reasons For Major Organic Traffic Drops
There can be other common reasons for big traffic drops, including
blocked indexing, missing redirects, market changes and level of SEO
activity.
Blocked Indexing
If traffic is quickly dropping from multiple search engines, this
could be a sign of site technical issues that have prevented search
engine indexing. Has your robots.txt file from your test server been
moved to the live server accidentally? If so, it could be blocking
search engines from indexing.
Check your robots.txt file for disallow statements that apply to your
whole website or specific pages that have lost traffic. If this is the
case, remove the incorrect disallow statements from the robots.txt to
begin recovery.
Along with the robots file, there may be other ways that bots are
being blocked from indexing content. Was your site redesigned recently,
or did pages with the greatest losses experience a programming change?
Other common issues that can prevent indexing include using JavaScript
for certain page information, placing forms in front of content (search
engine bots cannot fill out forms), and other types of technical
changes.
Missing Redirects
Often overlooked in the website relaunch process,
301 redirects are crucial for search engine robots to find content when
the URL and/or domain for a site has been updated, which is common with
site relaunches. Here’s an example of traffic drops (across multiple
search engines) for a site relaunched without 301 redirects in place:
How can you see if you’re missing 301 redirects? In analytics, choose
a timeframe from before the relaunch. Drill down to find a handful of
your most visited pages on the website from that time period. Enter that
URL in your browser address bar. If you receive a 404 error, then a 301
redirect was not created for that page and is a likely culprit in your
organic traffic losses.
And if you’re missing 301 redirects for your most trafficked pages on
your site, it’s likely safe to assume that 301s were not created for
any pages on the site, since you would likely prioritize your most
trafficked pages for redirection.
Market Changes
On occasion, I’ve also found that organic traffic drops because of a
decrease in searches in a particular market. A few years back, I was
working with a company that sold disk defragmentation software. Even
though our rankings for key terms were consistently improving, organic
traffic was dropping. Why? Was it a penalty or algorithm update? Neither
— it was market conditions.
A good tool to use in these situations is Google Trends,
which shows keyword search volume over a time period. Notice the
pattern over the past ten years for the term “disk defragmentation”:
Lo and behold, in this instance, the
overall search interest in terms like “disk defragmentation” has been on
the decline for some time. This isn’t a measurement of SEO, per se, but
rather an industry indicator.
Similar searches for the company’s brand
name, its competitors’ brand names, and other related non-brand terms
demonstrated similar results.
Level Of SEO Activity
One last issue I often see is that website
owners may perceive SEO as a one-time project rather than an ongoing
investment. The problem with this approach is that the elements are
always shifting in SEO:
- Ranking factors change and evolve over time
- Competitors may be investing more in SEO than you are
- New competitors enter the fray each day
Again, you may initially perceive organic traffic loss over time as a
potential algorithm or penalty issue, but truly it just may be that SEO
inaction over time has caused the site to lose traction in search.
Final Thoughts
Before jumping to the conclusion that your site has been hit by an
algorithm update or penalty, be sure to check all of these factors.
While this isn’t a comprehensive list, these are the most common issues
I’ve encountered that are mistaken for algorithm updates or penalties.
It’s far better to understand the real problem and face it head on
than to blame an algorithm update or penalty; and, you’ll be one step
closer to solving the real issue at hand and regaining organic search
traffic.
Opinions expressed in the article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.