Ranking drop recently. Organic Updates?

[Former Member]

Hi Everyone,

I'll admit I've been out of the SEO loop for several months, other business areas have kept me away.

Coming back, I've noticed a drop in organic ranking for most of our local landing pages (each geared toward a specific service area).

Has there been a recent update that could be affecting the ranking?

www.cahillplumbingandheating *DOT* com

 

[heckler]

Greetings,

Depending on how long you've been away... there have been a lot of changes since July.

Here are some topics of reading to get you caught up:
Google "Pigeon" Updates Local Search Algorithm With Stronger Ties To Web Search Signal

Google Updates Local Algo with More Web Based Signals – Turmoil in SERPS | Understanding Google Places & Local Search

Pigeon – An Anecdotal Impact Report | Understanding Google Places & Local Search

Pigeon Rolled Back? Law Firm Study Says Yes

 

[Former Member]

Greetings,

Depending on how long you've been away... there have been a lot of changes since July.

Here are some topics of reading to get you caught up:
Google "Pigeon" Updates Local Search Algorithm With Stronger Ties To Web Search Signal

Google Updates Local Algo with More Web Based Signals ? Turmoil in SERPS | Understanding Google Places & Local Search

Pigeon ? An Anecdotal Impact Report | Understanding Google Places & Local Search

Pigeon Rolled Back? Law Firm Study Says Yes

Thanks Heckler! I was here for the Pigeon update It actually helped our Google Local ranking dramatically.

I'm noticing a drop in organic ranking as opposed to our G Local listing. From my understanding Pigeon is focused on Local listing ranks.

Is there anything new affecting organic ranks? Or do I have something unique going on here?

 

[heckler]

Is there anything new affecting organic ranks? Or do I have something unique going on here?

Just the usual tweaking that Google does after a roll-out.

You may have lost a lot of head terms, but my bet is that you've seen an increase in long-tail KWs, otherwise your local listing probably would have tanked as well.

From what I understand, this last update appears to be Google breaking down the previous separation of local & search.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Ross, they're was a Penguin update on October 17 http://moz.com/google-algorithm-change. Does that correspond with your ranking and/or traffic drop?

 

[Former Member]

Ross, they're was a Penguin update on October 17 http://moz.com/google-algorithm-change. Does that correspond with your ranking and/or traffic drop?

Thanks Colan, I'm going to look into this in the morning and report back. Thanks for heads up!

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Here's a nifty little tool that helps figure it out - Panguin Tool | Technology by Barracuda Digital

I think it was Darren that first posted about this tool.

 

[Former Member]

Here's a nifty little tool that helps figure it out - Panguin Tool | Technology by Barracuda Digital

I think it was Darren that first posted about this tool.

Awesome tool.

From what I can see our page views have only grown while I was away. I think heckler was right, we've just lost rank for some head terms.

Unfortunately, those local landing pages that have lost rank have high conversion and are important. Going to have to figure out what happened to these... always something!

 

[JoshuaMackens]

Are competitors doing ongoing Local SEO in your space monthly? If so, they may have just jumped you if you've been inactive on the site.

 

[Former Member]

There isn't much local SEO efforts in our space. All our competitors have kept the same positions. Seems something caused a drop for our homepage and local landing pages (for "city name plumber"). We ranked #1-2 for 5 surrounding towns and now most have dropped to the second page. No changes to the website while I've been away for past few months. Going to look into it next week.

 

[Margaret Ornsby]

Thanks Colan, I had seen that tool ages ago and lost track of it... It's a goodie

 

[Colan Nielsen]

You're welcome! Yes, it's a nifty tool.

 

[Robert Ramirez]

Awesome tool.

From what I can see our page views have only grown while I was away. I think heckler was right, we've just lost rank for some head terms.

Unfortunately, those local landing pages that have lost rank have high conversion and are important. Going to have to figure out what happened to these... always something!

Sounds like Panda to me, even if Panguan isn't showing that in the numbers, I'd dig deeper. Panda can penalize certain TYPES of pages, so check your analytics and webmaster tools data with everything else filterd out. Just look at those geo landing pages, something might reveal itself that would have otherwise been missed.

Also - it looks like this has been within the last 3 months, so I would definitely get a close look at impression data in GWT.

I wouldn't be surprised if you got caught up in a Panda refresh of some kind. Do some manual work of syncing up those algo update dates with traffic to the pages that were affected. Don't assume a site-wide penalty (which is what Panguan is great at identifying).

 

[Former Member]

Sounds like Panda to me, even if Panguan isn't showing that in the numbers, I'd dig deeper. Panda can penalize certain TYPES of pages, so check your analytics and webmaster tools data with everything else filterd out. Just look at those geo landing pages, something might reveal itself that would have otherwise been missed.

Also - it looks like this has been within the last 3 months, so I would definitely get a close look at impression data in GWT.

I wouldn't be surprised if you got caught up in a Panda refresh of some kind. Do some manual work of syncing up those algo update dates with traffic to the pages that were affected. Don't assume a site-wide penalty (which is what Panguan is great at identifying).

Thanks. We seemed to have went through a bit of shuffling. After the ranking drop, things have now recovered and we're ranking higher than ever for various city keywords. Not sure if getting shuffled around like that is pretty standard but I am liking where we landed.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

Oh man, tricky Google