Why a Website’s Ranking in Google Search Results is Deteriorating

It’s no surprise that SEO specialists and website owners diligently monitor updates to search results pages. The process of advancing a website’s ranking is quite resource-intensive and cannot be achieved overnight, which is why specialists are eager to see confirmation that their long-term efforts are justified. However, the results are not always pleasing; often, after a SERP update, a website’s positions only worsen.

Let’s delve deeper into the factors that lead to traffic reduction and the subsequent lowering of a web resource’s positions in search results.

Technical Reasons for the Decline in Website Ranking

Even if you strictly follow Google’s guidelines in developing an SEO optimization strategy for an internet portal, you shouldn’t expect 100% success. Very often, after launching a site, webmasters have to quickly fix unexpected errors, periodically adjust the given settings, and make situational decisions.

Deviations from the pre-planned optimization strategy are often caused by the following factors:

• Search bots fail to access a webpage (due to hosting failure, late server rental payments, etc.). A site’s availability and load speed are among the main ranking criteria, so it’s crucial to monitor these parameters very carefully. If you cannot quickly address this issue, the search engine will promptly remove you from the top positions in search results.
• Search bots fail to index a webpage (it is intentionally or unintentionally protected from indexing). This issue might occur during modifications of the robots.txt file or other root documents.
• Redirects stopped working. Make sure that 301 and 302 redirects are functioning correctly, and meanwhile, check the status of other attributes, particularly those aimed at combating duplicates (canonical, etc.).
• Following the transfer of the site structure to another platform, one of the linking elements of the general page chain stopped working. To prevent this, set up the 301 redirect function on the site.
• The mobile version of the site was incorrectly updated. The site must function properly in both desktop and mobile versions.
• The site was hacked. Ensure reliable protection of your internet resource so that fraudsters do not ruin your work and damage the company’s reputation.
• The site fell under search engine filters. If Google labeled the webpage content as spam, analyze the published content and remove materials that directly or indirectly could have roused suspicion in search bots. Also, the search engine is free to impose other types of sanctions on the site (DMCA – a fine for copyright infringement, YMYL – a fine for publishing materials potentially threatening to a reader’s physical, mental, or financial well-being, etc.).
• A malfunction occurred directly in the search engine’s operation. There are two solutions to this situation: either contact Google tech support or register on a thematic forum and discuss the problem with knowledgeable people or fellow sufferers.

Content-related Reasons for the Decline in Website Ranking

A website’s ranking on the SERP page is formed gradually as search algorithms analyze not only the technical condition of the internet platform but also its content.

Content manipulation can lead to traffic decline if you:

• Create semantic markup through “illegal” in the search engine’s opinion means.
• Use a type of spam known as cloaking (where the search engine sees one type of content while the user sees something completely different).
• Add an excessive number of keywords to the publication text, in other words, you spam;
• Place empty content on the page, that is, articles that have no informational value for the audience;
• Frequently change the Title, description, and other meta-tags – it confuses search bots;
• Improperly apply AMP technology. Such pages do indeed load quickly, but their content is presented in a simplified format.

What Should Links Not Be Like?

Building a site’s link profile should be taken very seriously. The search engine effectively identifies backlinks from low-quality internet platforms and bans them. This undoubtedly affects the web resource’s positions in search results.

Additionally, remember that Google monitors the quality of UGC content posted on the page. Text messages filled with keywords and suspicious links will surely not go unnoticed.

Moreover, you should not remove all low-quality links from the site at once. A sharp decrease in the link mass is likely to lead to traffic reduction.

In Conclusion

Remember, the reduction in a website’s ranking on the search results page and the decrease in traffic volume may be due to a complex of reasons, among which separate mention should be made of:

1. Seasonal trends (obviously, fur coats are in less demand in summer than in winter);
2. Unexpected disasters, other “bright” events (in such moments, users are extremely distracted, their attention is drawn elsewhere);
3. The content published on the site has lost its relevance due to various circumstances.

Don’t forget to monitor competitors in the relevant market niche, their promotion strategies, rises, and falls. This will help you form a clearer understanding of the existing situation, timely calculate related risks, and swiftly neutralize them.