
A website rankings loss audit is a thorough examination of a website's performance to identify the reasons behind a decline in rankings. It's essential to understand that a website rankings loss audit can help you pinpoint the issues and make data-driven decisions to recover your lost rankings.
The first step in conducting a comprehensive website rankings loss audit is to define the problem. This involves identifying the specific pages or keywords that have experienced a decline in rankings.
By analyzing the website's technical health, we can identify issues such as crawl errors, duplicate content, and slow page speed, which can all negatively impact rankings.
Additional reading: How to Compare Rankings to Website Visibility
What Is a Website Rankings Loss Audit
A website rankings loss audit is a thorough examination of your website's SEO health to identify and fix issues causing a decline in rankings. You can perform a full SEO site audit to identify these issues.
To conduct a website rankings loss audit, you can follow the same 11 steps used for a full SEO site audit. This involves focusing on key areas such as optimizing your website's structure and content.
For another approach, see: Web Site Traffic Ranking
Causes of Rankings Drops
Website rankings can drop for various reasons, and identifying the exact cause is critical to recovering lost visibility.
Algorithmic updates from Google are a common cause of ranking drops, with Google rolling out updates that can shift ranking factors or change the type of content favored in search results.
A Google Core Update, for example, can affect how Google evaluates content quality, authority, and relevance, leading to a drop in rankings if your website no longer aligns with the new search intent or ranking factors.
Small, unnoticed changes to your content can also have a big impact on rankings, removing or altering important information like FAQs, product descriptions, or internal links can affect how relevant Google considers your page.
Technical SEO issues like crawl errors, broken links, server issues, or indexing problems can make your site inaccessible to search engines, leading to a significant drop in rankings.
Changes in user behavior, increased competition, or penalties imposed by search engines are other potential reasons for a decline in website traffic and search engine rankings.
Google typically releases a few core updates per year, which can affect how Google crawls, indexes, and ranks sites, sometimes impacting specific types of sites and sometimes having no effect at all.
Easy Fixes for Rankings Drops
Technical SEO issues can cause ranking drops, but the good news is that they're often easy to fix. Crawl errors, broken links, and server issues can make your site inaccessible to search engines, leading to a significant drop in rankings.
Fixing technical SEO issues is crucial to ensuring search engines can easily crawl, index, and rank your website. Even small issues can lead to a drop in rankings, so it's essential to fix any problems you identify during an audit.
Redesigning or migrating a website can also impact your SEO, introducing unintended issues that need to be addressed. Performing an SEO audit after migration or redesign is a good practice to uncover and fix these problems quickly.
Failed Migration or Redesign
Failed Migration or Redesign is a common culprit behind rankings drops. This often occurs when redirects are broken, URLs change without proper tracking, or important pages are missed or significantly changed.
Tools like the Wayback Machine can help you see exactly what's changed over time, including the source code. This is crucial in identifying if a failed migration or redesign is the cause of the rankings drop.
A failed migration can happen at the same time as a Google update, making it harder to diagnose the issue. It's essential to ask the client if any migrations took place and use the Wayback Machine to confirm their claims.
Here are some possible causes of a failed migration or redesign:
- A failed migration that happened at the same time as the update.
- A significant content change that occurred around the same time.
If you suspect a failed migration or redesign, it's essential to analyze the website's changes using the Wayback Machine. This tool allows you to see exactly what's changed over time, including the source code.
In many cases, a website won't fully recover from a Google core update until another core update is rolled out. Sometimes, it may take several updates to see a recovery.
Ranking Drops: Easy Fixes
Technical SEO issues can cause ranking drops, but they're often easy to fix. Check for crawl errors, broken links, server issues, and indexing problems like a no index tag where it shouldn't be.
Fixing technical SEO issues is crucial to ensuring search engines can crawl, index, and rank your website. Even small issues can lead to a drop in rankings.
Redesigning or migrating a website can introduce unintended SEO issues. Performing an SEO audit after these projects is a good practice to uncover and fix any problems.
Small technical issues can have a significant impact on your rankings. Identifying and fixing these problems is essential to maintaining your website's visibility in search results.
Identifying and Confirming Rankings Drops
Identifying and Confirming Rankings Drops is a crucial step in a website rankings loss audit. You can start by comparing your site's performance on Google with other search engines like Bing to see if the rankings drop is Google-specific or a technical SEO issue.
If the rankings have only dropped in Google, it's likely a Google-specific issue, such as an algorithm update. However, if you see a drop across all search engines, it's almost certainly a technical SEO problem.
Common technical issues include server errors, misconfigured robots.txt or noindex tags, broken links without proper redirects, and JavaScript SEO issues. To catch these issues early, use the LIVE test in Google Search Console to see exactly how Googlebot views specific pages.
Here are some common technical issues to watch out for:
- Server errors
- Misconfigured robots.txt or noindex tags
- Broken links without proper redirects
- JavaScript SEO issues
Remember, catching technical issues early saves you valuable time and allows you to focus on other potential causes.
Confirm or Rule Out Reporting Glitch
The first step in diagnosing a rankings drop is to determine whether it's caused by a technical SEO issue or a simple reporting glitch.
Start by comparing your site's performance on Google with other search engines like Bing. You can do it either in Google Analytics or use Bing Webmaster Tools (if it is set up) to compare the trends in GSC.
If the rankings have only dropped in Google but remain stable elsewhere, it's likely a Google-specific issue. However, if you see a drop across all search engines, it's almost certainly a technical SEO problem.
Common technical issues include server errors, misconfigured robots.txt or noindex tags, broken links without proper redirects, and JavaScript SEO issues.
Pro Tip: If a noindex tag is present in the source code, it doesn't matter if the rendered HTML looks correct—Google won't even attempt to render the page.
Here are some common technical issues to watch out for:
- Server errors
- Misconfigured robots.txt or noindex tags (accidentally blocking important pages)
- Broken links without proper redirects
- JavaScript SEO issues
Catching technical issues early saves you valuable time and allows you to focus on other potential causes. Experienced SEO consultants can spot these problems in minutes, while less experienced teams may spend weeks trying to figure them out.
Identify
Identify the root cause of your rankings drop, and you'll be well on your way to recovery. Technical SEO issues are a common culprit, making your site inaccessible to search engines due to crawl errors, broken links, server issues, and indexing problems.
Crawl errors, in particular, can prevent search engines from properly crawling and rendering your pages. This can lead to a significant drop in rankings. Broken links and server issues are also major red flags.
SEO audits can help uncover technical issues, including slow page loading times, mobile usability problems, and crawl errors. These issues may seem minor, but they can have a significant impact on your website's performance.
A traffic and rankings loss audit can reveal a wide range of issues affecting your website's performance. Technical SEO problems, such as crawl errors and broken links, are often at the root of the issue. Content-related issues, like thin or duplicate content, keyword stuffing, and outdated information, can also be identified.
Changes in user behavior, increased competition, and shifts in search engine algorithms can also contribute to a rankings drop. By identifying these factors, you can develop a targeted strategy to recover your lost visibility.
Recommended read: Website Performance Audit
Analyzing Rankings Drops
Algorithmic updates are the most common causes of ranking drops, with Google frequently rolling out updates that can shift ranking factors or change the type of content favored in search results.
To determine if an algorithm update caused the rankings drop, you can use tools like SEOcrawl, Semrush, and Ahrefs to overlay your organic traffic with the timing of major Google updates. However, just because the rankings drop coincides with a Google update, it doesn't automatically mean the update caused it.
You should also rule out technical issues or reporting glitches, and check if a failed migration or significant content change occurred around the same time. Use the Wayback Machine to compare how the website or specific pages that lost traffic look now versus how they looked before the drop.
If you're sure it's an algorithm update affecting the site, you can wait it out if the update is still rolling out and the rankings drop is recent. Otherwise, it's time to analyze what caused the drop and start working on a fix.
Check this out: How to Use Any Website for Free
Here are some key questions to ask yourself:
- What are the pages outranking yours doing better?
- Were you replaced by a different type of content?
- How stable are the new rankings?
By analyzing the search engine results pages (SERPs), you'll gain insights into what adjustments you may need to make to reclaim your spot.
Remember, analyzing every keyword and its SERPs in detail is very time-consuming, especially when done thoroughly. It's essential to understand the size of the drop for each keyword to develop a targeted recovery strategy.
Identify the dropped keywords that were driving the most traffic, and compile a list of the most affected keywords. Understanding the size of the drop for each keyword is critical to developing a targeted recovery strategy.
Additional reading: Targeted Traffic to Website
Tools and Resources for Rankings Audit
To perform a thorough rankings loss audit, you'll need the right tools. Google Analytics and Google Search Console are must-haves for traffic and performance data. These tools provide valuable insights into your website's crawl errors, site speed, mobile usability, and content quality.
You'll also want to use specialized SEO tools like Screaming Frog for technical SEO audits, Ahrefs or Moz for backlink analysis, and SEMrush for comprehensive site audits and competitor analysis. These tools help identify areas for improvement and provide actionable recommendations.
Expand your knowledge: Free Website Seo Analysis
For monitoring your site's performance, consider using Google Analytics to track traffic, bounce rate, and user behavior. Look for increases in organic traffic and user retention after making changes. Additionally, use tools like Ahrefs Rank Tracker, SEMrush, or Moz Pro to keep an eye on your site's keyword rankings and set up alerts for specific keywords.
Here are some essential tools for a rankings loss audit:
- Google Analytics
- Google Search Console
- Screaming Frog
- Ahrefs or Moz
- SEMrush
- Rank Tracking Tools (Ahrefs Rank Tracker, SEMrush, or Moz Pro)
These tools will help you gather data on various aspects of your website's performance and identify areas for improvement. By leveraging these tools, you can conduct a detailed and accurate audit of your website and develop a plan to recover lost rankings.
Set Priorities Right
When you're faced with a long list of issues during a website rankings loss audit, it's easy to feel overwhelmed. But don't worry, you can tackle them one by one.
Setting priorities right is crucial to fix the most damaging problems first. According to Example 5, issues are grouped by their level of urgency - errors, warnings, and notices.
You should focus on fixing errors first, as they can have a significant impact on your website's rankings. Technical SEO issues, such as crawl errors and server issues, can make your site inaccessible to search engines, leading to a significant drop in rankings (Example 2).
In addition to errors, you should also prioritize fixing security risks, such as SSL/TLS errors, which can compromise your website's credibility (Example 5).
Here are some of the most critical issues to address first:
- SSL/TLS errors and other security risks
- Mobile optimization
- Unoptimized JS and CSS code
- Non-200 pages in your sitemap
- Internal and external linking patterns
- Duplicate content
By focusing on these high-priority issues, you can quickly improve your website's SEO health and start seeing improvements in your rankings.
Competitor Analysis
Analyzing your competitors is essential for staying ahead in the digital landscape. A website rankings loss audit includes competitor analysis, which helps you identify their strengths and weaknesses.
You can use tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs to analyze competitor rankings and compare their content, backlinks, and keyword usage to yours. This will give you a clear picture of where your competitors are exceling and where you can improve.
If this caught your attention, see: Competitor Website Audit
To conduct a competitor analysis, start by identifying the top 5 pages currently ranking instead of yours, particularly for the targeted keywords. Review each of these competitors and compare their pages with the one that lost rankings.
Here are some key areas to focus on when analyzing your competitors:
- Content type: Is it a different type of content? For example, if affiliate pages were previously ranking but now it’s ecommerce products, you might need to adjust your content strategy to match what Google values now.
- Content length and depth: Is their content more detailed or thorough compared to yours?
- On-page SEO: Are their SEO fundamentals stronger than yours?
- Content usefulness: Is their content more helpful or informative?
- Authority and backlinks: Do these top-ranking pages have significantly more links or higher authority than yours?
By understanding what your competitors are doing differently, you can refine your SEO strategy to outperform them and capture a larger share of organic traffic.
Manual Penalties and Recovery
Manual penalties from Google are rare but can still occur, usually for violations like unnatural links, keyword stuffing, or spammy content. This can result in a significant rankings drop or even deindex your site completely.
To identify a Google penalty, check Google Search Console for notifications about manual actions. Manual penalties are imposed by human reviewers at Google when they find your website in violation of their guidelines. If there is no manual penalty, look for algorithmic penalties, which can be inferred from sudden drops in traffic coinciding with known algorithm updates.
Common reasons for manual penalties include unnatural links, thin or scraped content, cloaking or sneaky redirects, and spam. If your site receives a manual action, Google Search Console will notify you, and you should address the issue immediately by removing any harmful practices.
Here are the steps to follow if your site receives a manual action:
- Remove any bad links or duplicate content.
- File a reconsideration request once you've fixed the problem.
Google will review your site and lift the penalty if they are satisfied with your efforts.
Manual Penalties
Manual penalties can be a major setback for any website. They're imposed by human reviewers at Google when they find your website in violation of their guidelines.
To identify a manual penalty, check Google Search Console for any notifications about manual actions. If you're not sure, look for algorithmic penalties, which can be harder to detect but may be inferred from sudden drops in traffic coinciding with known algorithm updates.
Manual penalties can result in a significant rankings drop, or even de-index your site completely. According to Google, penalties are usually imposed for violations like using unnatural links, keyword stuffing, or spammy content.
Some common reasons for manual penalties include unnatural links, thin or scraped content, cloaking or sneaky redirects, and spam. These practices can lead to penalties and affect your website's performance.
Here are some common reasons for manual penalties, along with some guidance on how to fix them:
- Unnatural Links: Engaging in black-hat SEO practices like purchasing links or participating in link schemes can lead to penalties.
- Thin or Scraped Content: Publishing low-value, thin, or plagiarized content may trigger a manual penalty.
- Cloaking or Sneaky Redirects: If you're showing different content to users and Google crawlers, you may be penalized.
- Spam: Any form of spammy behavior, including keyword stuffing, over-optimization, or irrelevant, low-quality content, can lead to a manual action.
If your site receives a manual action, Google Search Console will notify you. Address the issue immediately by removing any harmful practices, such as bad links or duplicate content.
Web Security
Having a secure site is a must for business reasons, and it's also a ranking factor in SEO. Google explicitly stated that HTTPS security and safe browsing will play a key role in ranking signals.
A site that doesn't use the right SSL certificate risks a drop in search engine traffic. This is a serious concern for any business.
If your site links out to a high proportion of unsecured external sites, you'll risk a drop in search engine traffic. This is because search engines prioritize security.
Google announced a switch to using core web vitals as ranking signals from May 2021. This includes factors like HTTPS security and safe browsing.
All of this warrants scrutinizing your website security during any SEO audit.
Worth a look: Can I Run a Site Audit on Any Website
Optimizing Website for Rankings
Optimizing your website for rankings is crucial to maintaining your online presence. A technical SEO audit can help identify structural issues that might be hindering search engine crawlability and indexing.
Error response codes like missing pages (404) or server issues (503) can significantly impact your website's visibility. A site with lots of error codes and a bad internal link structure risks being crawled less frequently or even suffering an outright ranking penalty.
On-page SEO is also vital for maintaining your website's rankings. This includes optimizing elements like title tags, meta descriptions, headers, and content quality. By ensuring these components are optimized for relevant keywords and provide value to users, you can enhance the relevance of your content and make it more likely to rank well in search results.
Here are some key on-page SEO elements to check:
- Title Tags and Meta Descriptions: Ensure they are optimized with your target keyword and other relevant LSI keywords.
- Header Tags (H1, H2, H3): Properly use header tags for content structure and make sure the headers reflect the main topic of each section.
- Keyword Density: Avoid keyword stuffing and keep your keyword usage natural and relevant.
- Content Quality: Is your content up to date? Ensure it satisfies the user's intent and provides valuable information.
- Mobile-Friendliness: Use Google's Mobile-Friendly Test to ensure your site performs well on mobile devices.
By addressing these technical and on-page SEO issues, you can improve your website's crawlability, indexing, and overall search engine rankings. This will help you maintain your online presence and attract targeted traffic to your website.
Monitor
Monitoring your website's performance after a rankings loss audit is crucial to ensure the recovery process is working. Regular tracking helps you stay on top of trends and quickly detect any further declines.
You can use tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console to monitor your site's traffic, user behavior, search rankings, and more. These tools provide valuable insights into your site's performance.
Monitoring your competitors is also essential, as they might have improved their SEO efforts, causing your website to lose rankings. This is where tools like Ahrefs Rank Tracker, SEMrush, or Moz Pro come in handy, allowing you to keep an eye on your site's keyword rankings.
Here are some tools you can use to monitor your website's performance:
- Google Analytics: Track your site's traffic, bounce rate, and user behavior.
- Google Search Console: Monitor your site's overall health, keyword rankings, and any indexing issues.
- Rank Tracking Tools: Use tools like Ahrefs Rank Tracker, SEMrush, or Moz Pro to keep an eye on your site's keyword rankings.
Automating your SEO monitoring using a third-party tool can save you time and effort. Softwares that offer automated audit reporting make it easy to present concise, accurate, and understandable information to upper management.
Automated Tools for Rankings Audit
Automated tools can greatly simplify the process of conducting a rankings audit. These tools help gather data on various aspects of your website's performance, including crawl errors, site speed, mobile usability, and content quality.
Google Analytics and Google Search Console are commonly used tools for traffic and performance data. They provide valuable insights into your site's overall health, keyword rankings, and indexing issues.
Ahrefs, Moz, and SEMrush are popular tools for backlink analysis and comprehensive site audits. They help identify areas where your website can improve, such as backlink profiles and content quality.
By leveraging these automated tools, SEO professionals can conduct a detailed and accurate audit of your website, saving time and effort in the process.
Here are some popular automated tools for rankings audit:
- Google Analytics: Track your site's traffic, bounce rate, and user behavior.
- Google Search Console: Monitor your site's overall health, keyword rankings, and indexing issues.
- Ahrefs, Moz, and SEMrush: Analyze backlinks, content quality, and site audits.
- Rank Tracking Tools: Use tools like Ahrefs Rank Tracker, SEMrush, or Moz Pro to keep an eye on keyword rankings.
Automating your SEO audits using these tools can significantly cut the time and effort required to organize your findings, freeing your team up to make the necessary adjustments.
Frequently Asked Questions
How to do a SEO audit for a website?
To perform a comprehensive SEO audit, follow these 8 essential steps: check organic traffic, run a full site crawl, and then optimize your website's on-page SEO, internal links, UX signals, featured snippets, page rendering, and mobile-friendliness. By following these steps, you'll be able to identify and fix issues that can improve your website's search engine rankings and user experience.
How do you audit website performance?
To audit website performance, run a site audit tool to identify technical errors, analyze design and UX, and assess content. This comprehensive process helps create a detailed report to improve website functionality and user experience.
How do I audit off page SEO?
To audit off-page SEO, evaluate your backlink profile, check competitors' backlinks, and identify areas for improvement. Start by fixing broken links, optimizing internal linking, and assessing link building options to boost your online presence.
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