Why has my ranking disappeared?

SEO is very competitive. When you’ve been investing in SEO for a long time, one of the worst and most demoralizing things to see can be a drop or a disappearance in rankings. Waking up one day to find out your ranking disappeared is a cause for great concern. If you have no idea how this happened, don’t panic immediately. We have listed below the factors that might have caused it.

Penalties

Penalties happen for a variety of reasons. They are either done manually or algorithmically. These penalties are usually incurred when you violate Google’s guidelines. Maybe your site was hacked, or maybe you’ve been using black hat SEO techniques. Either way, you can find out by looking at your Google Webmasters account.

Algorithm Update

Now and then, Google releases a new or updated algorithm. This has been a recurring cause of ranking drops for a number of years.  If you think this might be the reason why your ranking has disappeared, a quick check on this blog or other leading SEO blogs will notify you whether an algorithm update has occurred. If you use a rankings tracker, try to look whether the drop of your ranking coincides with the implementation of a new algorithm.

Competitors

A simple reason for the disappearance of rankings could be the improvement of other websites. Accommodating all websites in search results is impossible. When one goes up, another must come down. This is why SEO experts continually have to maintain and be mindful of their websites. They have to monitor the site always to know the latest trend and developments in the SEO world. As a result, your rankings could drop because your competitors have improved their SEO. This is particularly likely when neither you nor your competitors have been investing in SEO. As soon as one does, they leapfrog everyone else.

Lost Links

Being dependent on a limited number of backlinks could affect your site ranking. If those backlinks are removed or are temporarily unreachable, your website’s authority will be compromised. This can make search engines look at your site as unreliable. As a result, Google and Bing could demote your website in their rankings. You will have to check lost links and verify their presence online to see if this reason is responsible.

Behavior Changes of Users

Now and then, particular events and occurrences capture people’s interest. This creates a sudden surge of online searches prompting what is called “Query Deserved Freshness”. Instead of having the usual expected results, results are filtered according to the users’ behavior. Searches are refreshed showing a demand for fresher, news-based results. More specifically, results surrounding the current trends and events. Consequently, this pushes down the static content onto the second page of the search engine results.

Have your rankings dropped suddenly? Your SEO could be to blame. Let us take a look under the hood of your website and see if we can help you get your rankings back. Get in touch today for a free consultation.