SEO HORROR STORIES: What to Do If Your Rankings Drop

It’s a zombie outbreak. For what seems like forever, you have been fighting for survival, avoiding perilous situation time and time again. Finally, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. There’s a path to freedom away from all of the dangers, the threats, the monsters you have faced.  

Then you choke on an éclair and die.  

The macabre side of the story aside, that’s kind of what it’s like when your SEO rankings drop. You work for months, years even, to climb the search pages, following every step as instructed and covering every minute detail. Then, for whatever reason, all of that effort is seemingly thrown out the window as your search rankings suddenly plummet.  

However, don’t panic. A resurrection is entirely possible – and you can prevent any permanent damage to your rankings.  

Why Have My Rankings Dropped? 

There are various reasons why your Google SEO rankings might have dropped. A core algorithm update, where Google shifts its focus to different ranking factors, is often the reason behind a sudden fluctuation in a website’s search results. 

However, other factors can also come into play. Content changes and technical issues may have a detrimental impact, as can a penalty from Google if your website is judged to be in conflict with search engine policies. If you have been slacking with your SEO efforts, there’s also the possibility the competition has leapfrogged your website.  

Before you make any drastic decisions in response to any perceived Google ranking drop, there are several steps you need to take. The first step: read the following guide.  

Has a Change to the Rankings Actually Occurred?  

Okay, this might seem like a redundant question to ask. Still, you must avoid rushing into anything before confirming if your Google rankings have dropped permanently.  

After all, the cause of these dropped rankings could simply be an issue with your ranking tracker. It might not have properly localised, for instance, or it could have picked up on a temporary Google ranking personalisation or experiment.  

It doesn’t take much effort to see if your rankings did, in fact, drop. One method is to see what the rank tracker developers have to say. Visit their website or social media feeds to see if they’ve reported any known issues. Furthermore, use the Google Search Console and your web analytics suite to see the full results.  

If all signs point towards dropped rankings – and it isn’t simply an error or a natural fluctuation – keep reading on, for all is not lost! 

Judge the Damage  

Speaking of horror stories, this is where the true terror lies. However, it’s a job that needs to be done – you have to analyse the damage caused by your ranking’s drop.  

With your analytic tools, you must carefully judge the scope of the ranking drop. When doing this, ensure you consider each keywordKeywords are the words and phrases that potential customers might search for to find your business. and web page that was negatively affected. For each keyword/page that experienced a drop, add the following information to a spreadsheet:  

• Their previous ranking 
• Their latest ranking 
• The difference between them  

• Ranking URL 
• Content type 
• Indexable page: yes or no?  
• Additional comments (example: the last time the page was updated) 

By tracking this data, it establishes a foundation for you to understand why your website has experienced a rankings drop.  

Understand What Went Wrong  

So, what led to your rankings disappearing? It’s time to find out exactly what went wrong. Numerous scenarios could cause a search ranking drop to happen.  

Here are the main suspects:  

Google Algorithm Update  

Google changes its algorithm almost every day. Fortunately, most of these changes are minor and won’t be noticed. Although, every few months or so, the search engine giant rolls out a core update – and this can have ramifications on your website.  

Of course, a core algorithm update can come in different shapes and sizes. Some will even be beneficial for your site’s performance – but if an algorithm update takes a bite out of your SEO strategy, you’ll have to alter your approach in some way or another.  

Before doing that, you’ll have to work out what Google is penalising your website for. Look at the changes that the latest core update made. Note: you can keep track of the latest updates with our Google algorithm guide. 

What to Do Next 

Once you have discovered how the algorithm change has affected your website’s search rankings, you need to react to this – and fast. You don’t want to let the change continue to penalise your content, especially if there’s a fix or strategy available that can put your website back on a positive footing. 

In most cases, following Google’s best SEO practices should keep you out of trouble. The quicker you fully adopt their search preferences, the less likely your site will suffer repercussions when the next core update rolls around.  

Lost Backlinks 

Surely, you understand the importance of a quality backlink profile. So, if yours has been damaged somehow, it shouldn’t be a surprise that your SEO campaign will suffer. 

To see if lost backlinks are the culprit, you’ll have to generate a lost linksHyperlinks, also known as links, are the connection points on a webpage that take you to other webpages. report. This is easy with a tool like SEMrush, Majestic, or Ahrefs, which keeps count of links on a daily basis. Once you have this report, it’s important to check if the link drop is to a specific web page or category or if it’s a site-wide issue.  

What to Do Next 

You have identified the missing links. Now, it’s about finding out why the links have disappeared – and if you can regain them.  

Backlinks might have been removed by accident, possibly due to a recent site update. In this case, it makes sense to reach out to site owners to see if they’ll be willing to restore your link.  

However, a link could have been swapped out for another source. If that’s happened, you’ll want to investigate the new linked content that replaced yours, see why it’s preferred over yours, and see how you can make your content more appealing.  

Sometimes, there’s no possibility of reinstating your old backlinks. In this situation, you should be looking to replace these by investing in new links – and getting them up as soon as possible.  

A Difference in Internal Links 

If your Google ranking dropped suddenly, it could be down to internal linkInternal links are links that connect different pages on your website. They help users navigate your site and make it easier to find information, changes. An alteration to your internal link structure may hamper your site’s link equity – catching Google’s eye for the wrong reasons.  

Internal link changes are most common with updates to site navigation. However, updates to key pages – from removed links to altered anchor texts – can also be the problem. 

What to Do Next 

With a tool like Screaming Frog, you can crawl your old and current website versions, allowing you to compare inbound link counts. Once you have discovered where you’ve lost links, it’s a case of restoring these when possible. It’s also wise to include additional internal links to make up for the initial impact caused by those lost in the first place. 

Page Changes 

Have you made any recent updates to your pages? If you have, Google could view your newly updated pages as not being as relevant as they once were for your target keywords.  

Admittedly, this is frustrating, particularly if the updates were done with good intentions. Nevertheless, it’s crucial to look back at the original page, compare this with the new one, and see why Google is punishing the latest revision.  

What to Do Next 

This is an area where changes can be made quickly and effortlessly. You can re-add those lost keywords, change the title and subtitles, revert the meta descriptionWebsite meta descriptions are used to inform web users on search engines about the content of webpages., reinstate your old URL, etc., to get your page back to its original standing in the search results pages.  

Negative User Feedback 

Users are unlikely to tell you directly if they’ve had a negative experience on your site, but the analytics – such as their average visit time and click-through rate – can tell the entire story.  

There are numerous reasons why these stats have decreased and, in turn, caused your rankings to head south. This could be an annoying pop-up, a change to your page titles, or a delayed site loading speed, among many other detrimental possibilities. 

What to Do Next 

The good news: it should be easy to react to these changes. If you’ve changed the page title or installed a pop-up, reverting back to your site’s original setup shouldn’t be a problem.  

However, resolving this can be more problematic if your site suffers from load speeds. In this case, you’ll have to perform a site audit, uncover issues, and rectify these to reduce those sluggish load times.  

Making the Next Move 

With the above information, you’re in a much better position regarding what to do next. With that said, various other issues could be holding your website rankings down – and that’s where specialist SEO consultancy can come in clutch.  

Forget about waiting around when you suffer a rankings drop. It’s imperative you react immediately and get your site back to its former glory.