Drop in Google ranking

[holidayturkey]

I have just redeveloped my website, http://www.aholidayinturkey.co.uk, using the Diametric template and my Google ranking has disappeared. The old site, which was just plain html/css, had been around for over 5 years and was regularly on page 1 for the main keywords. Although I haven't changed the domain the new site is absolutely nowhere and traffic has dropped to almost nothing.

I am new to Joomla so am wondering if I have done something wrong. I would really appreciate it if somebody could take the time to have a look at the site and let me know what it could be.

Alternatively, is it possible that Google has dropped me simply because the site has been redeveloped?

Thanks for your help.

Ian

[maxa]

Do you have other URLs to your pages now than you had on your previous site? If so, you must give Google some time to find and index your new pages. Also, please consider that good ranking in SERP requires inbound links from other websites. Check if there are links from other websites that are now broken because you changed the URLs, and fix it by either a) ask the webmaster of those sites to update their links to the URL where the recommended content is now, or b) add 401 redirects to your .htaccess file from the old URLs to the new ones. Actually, I would do that anyway for all the old URLs. 401 redirect tells Google that the page is permanently moved to a new URL. Also, check out this guide to Joomla SEO. Good luck!

[holidayturkey]

Thanks. The home page is in the same place but the other pages will not be the same so you could have hit the nail on the head. I'll do some digging.

[marty69]

Try redirecting your old pages to the new ones. It should work fine, otherwise your rank will disappear soon completely,

[kazi38]

I m trying to develop a joomla site. tnx to all in this community.

[JohnDevise]

Thanks. The home page is in the same place but the other pages will not be the same so you could have hit the nail on the head. I'll do some digging.

For redirecting your new urls to old urls use extensions , because I think it will be difficult to manage it yourself .

[MosherCharles]

HI ! google takes some time for indexing your new urls but if you can do than please redirect your new urls to old urls.

[holidayturkey]

Thanks for the tips

[holidayturkey]

No, like I said the old site was plain HTML/CSS. Nothing to do with Joomla

[holidayturkey]

Sorry if I sound ungrateful but I know about SEO, as witnessed by the fact the previous version of the site was on page 1 for my main keywords. My question was whether I had made any Joomla related mistakes which could have caused the drop.

I believe the earlier posters are correct, that it is because the original pages are no longer there and the new ones not yet fully indexed.

Thanks

Ian

[SimonHayter]

Sadly, you made a mistake of dropping the old URLS.

You will need to edit your htaccess file and do a 301 redirect from all the old urls to the new pages.

301 does work, but it doesn't give you a 100% orginal juice, espeically when done on a site wide site. The best method is to try and stick to the same urls as the orginal site.

If you had a static site and it used .html on the end of the urls then you can use Joomla to do this for you and just rename the urls so they are the same as the old urls.

Changing URLS sucks and in my honest opinion should be avoided unless you are going to gain from it. Ie... if you had 23132.html and it was about antique glass then antique-glass would be a better url but many make the mistakes of dropping old urls when building a new site and to be honest I consider this one of the most important factors.

Google used to love 301's but due to the sheer amount of abuse since the Panda update Google tends to drop some of the juice. Basically where sites had 10,000 articles and most of them were considered thin, they got slapped by Google and then what happened is these sites merged their content with 301's. There is more reasons but a simple search will reveal this.

Try to recover the old urls if they are usable, ie good labeling... if not then use the htaccess 301 method.

Also, please note in the past month or so, Google introduced an exact domain slap, what this means is Exact Keyword Rich domains will be given less juice. Yours I think would be considered a Exact Keyword Rich domain but this isn't to say you been slapped but more so less REWARDED for an exact domain and will require more links to balance.

Looking at your content, everything else is fine! you could however add more pictures but if your ranking before hand then the issue will be exact domain + urls dropped.

[holidayturkey]

Cheers. I will definitely look at 301s for the old addresses.

[zenix]

I doubt if 301 redirect will work. Even if it works, maybe just short terms.

[thandekainga]

This more often than not isn't related to Joomla (It's a SEO friendly CMS).

Submit you sitemap again and make sure your pages are optimized. I like the domaintools tool which gives a page a score.

Oooh! By the way some joomla plugins automatically screw your ranking :-(

All the best.

TK

[mahamad3]

How do you follow your visits ? with google analytics ?

If yes, did you copy the code into the new template index ?

[Obir]

Redirect the old urls to the new ones, be sure your sitemap is correct and resubmit, then pray. I don't know how many urls you're working with but a plugin would be the best bet if you have a larger number to change. The redirect should work, just don't wait to long.

[mastermind1212]

301 redirect is the best option for you , because , google takes some time in indexing pages and give rank to websites. So dont panic and just work continue in SEO.

[vegas-kid]

You are going to have to 301 redirect every old page or create the pages with the same URL. You can add .HTML to the end of your pages in global config if you go the match URL route.

[grbrains]

currently SEO ranking updates is going on but keep quality marketing. hope you will getting back all results.

[Shapewear]

may be that the high pr backlinks pointing to your websites were deleted by the website owner or may be you added a content that was duplicate or may be you put much advertising links on your website.
In order to recover from this just keep updating your website and build some quality links to

[PtboDesign]

What about the content on the site? Is the copy all the same, h1 tags, meta tags, etc?

[100fm6]

this is just normal if you changed the doman name
there will be a drop at first then you will get your positions back
otherwise this could be Panda updates?
Panda is a like a menstrual cycle. It comes once a month at about the same time. Sometimes a few days early, sometimes a few days late, and is always accompanied by webmaster PMS.

[snowman001]

There has two possibles when you have met this situation! First is the Googlespiders have not been included!
The next is your Site being punished!

[pishro]

otherwise this could be Panda updates?

Google search algorithm update has already been, http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=712&t=821382
Please share any suggestions in this regard. thank you.

[terdono]

GOOGLE LAUNCHES NEW PIGEON UPDATE — how does it affect your website?

Code: Select all

http://www.link-assistant.com/news/google-pigeon-update.html?utm_source=email&utm_medium=broadcast&utm_campaign=pigeon-29072014

[dorsa]

Google SERP Displays Change Again
Do you ever get the feeling Google changes things up just to toss SEOs off guard?

In late June, the company announced it was scrapping parts of the popular Google Authorship program, frustrating marketers who liked the credibility and search advantages that using the “rel=author” tag had offered.

Code: Select all

http://www.sitepronews.com/2014/07/30/google-serp-displays-change/

[techbeatbox]

Even i got a drop in Google SERP For my Blog and found that it is due to New Google Pigeon Update.

[SonaliVerma]

You will need to wait for sometime to get the website stable. After making changes on website, there is fluctuation in rankings so don't panic.