How to Get Your Website’s Search Rankings Back After a Google Algorithm Update
- November 16, 2022
- Blog, Google Algorithm Updates, Search Engine Optimization
Is your website no longer appearing in search engine results? Your site’s ranking can fluctuate depending on the algorithm used by the search engine. A sudden, significant drop in your Google Search Console ranking may be due to an algorithm update.
When Google (or Bing) updates their algorithms, they change the formula used to calculate rankings, which can impact your Google ranking. If your website doesn’t reflect the new formula, it may see a dramatic drop in Google ranking and organic search traffic.
When your Google rankings drop after an algorithm update, how do you recover them?
There’s no need to panic when your Google rankings drop after an algorithm update.
Here are four steps you can take to recover your lost rankings:
- Assess the situation and determine which keywords were affected.
- Analyze your website to see if there are any issues that could be causing your rankings to drop.
- Make the necessary changes to your website.
- Monitor your progress and continue to make improvements.
The journey to regaining your Google ranking begins with research. Try to understand what the update did and if it introduced any new ranking signals. The more you know, the easier it will be to recover.
While a search engine may keep mum about minor updates, it may spill the beans about core updates. Check Google’s Webmaster Central Blog to see if it mentions a recent algorithm update. Moz also lists both confirmed and unconfirmed Google algorithm updates. The Google Algorithm Change History is also a great place to check for past updates.
Check SERP Features
You might want to check if you’re seeing more or fewer ” rich results ” for your brand name on SERPs. This isn’t the most dependable metric since Google’s changing SERP features all the time, but it could be useful in spotting wider trends.
Use Google Analytics
Google Analytics can provide a lot of useful data about your website traffic, such as organic traffic, average session duration and bounce rate.
Organic traffic refers to visitors who come to your website via search engines. If you notice a sudden drop in organic traffic, it’s likely that a Google algorithm update has caused a decline in your SEO ranking. Also, check how long users stay on your site after clicking on an organic search result. If they leave quickly, it means that they didn’t find what they were looking for.
Login to your webmaster accounts at Google and Bing to check for notifications. Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools both have a notification feature that will notify you of any critical problems with your website. Check your website’s sitemap and make sure all of your pages are being indexed by Google. You can do this by going to the Sitemaps section in Google Search Console.
Google has also launched a new tool called the Mobile-Friendly Test which allows you to test how mobile-friendly your website is. Simply enter your website’s URL and Google will analyze it for mobile-friendliness.
Make sure your website is using responsive design or a mobile-friendly theme. Responsive design means that your website will automatically adjust its layout to fit any screen size, including mobile devices.
If you’re not sure if your website is using responsive design, you can check by using the Google Mobile-Friendly Test mentioned above. If your website is not using responsive design, you can either create a new responsive website or use a mobile-friendly WordPress theme. Make sure all of your website’s content is easily accessible on mobile devices.
Check on your latest site’s changes
You should always evaluate any changes made to your website- especially if they’re major changes. This is because search engine crawlers could interpret your website differently, which could then lower your ranking on the search engine.
If your website’s URL structure is changed, such as by changing the way the URLs are formatted, search engines will have to start over from scratch. Search engines may continue to display the old URLs in their search results, but after a new algorithm update, they may deindex the old URLs. If the new URLs aren’t properly optimized, they may not rank as high as the old URLs.
You Should Delete Pages that are Low Quality Content (if any)
If your website’s rankings have dropped, one way to potentially recover is by deleting low-quality pages. These pages can drag down your website’s ranking authority, and an algorithm update can exacerbate these negative effects.
Pages with little or no original, valuable content are considered low quality. Since they provide no incentive for users to visit them, search engines will try to keep them out of their results. An algorithm update by a search engine can identify low-quality pages on your website, which may cause your site to be demoted.
Algorithm updates can have a significant impact on your website’s ranking. Some updates may improve your position, while others can lead to a drop in ranking. If your website experiences a drop in ranking, take a few steps back and investigate the recent algorithm update. Make the appropriate changes to your website and you should see an improvement in your ranking.
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