Why your website isn’t ranking on Google?
Have you noticed a sudden or steady drop in your search engine keyword rankings for certain pages? Stop focusing on the question “Why is my website not ranking on Google?” and instead start searching for expert tactics on “how to rank my website on the search engine results pages.”
If your web pages aren’t performing well on the search engine results pages (SERPs), your online visibility can be hit severely within a few days, weeks or even months. This means less organic traffic will find and visit your site. And you know what happens after: your sales also suffer.
You must act quickly to improve your search engine optimization strategy or SEO strategy once you notice the first signs of overall or local SEO ranking drops. This article will walk you through the reasons for the decline and back them up with concrete tips on how to improve Google Search ranking potential. We also stress the importance of setting aside time to track and monitor keyword rankings.
9 Reasons Your Website Ranking has Dropped and Ways To Get Back to the Top
Reason 1: Some Important Pages Have No Index Tags
When you track keyword rankings and learn that some valuable pages are not at all visible in search results, you might have let slip a “no index” tag in the pages’ <head> section. This meta tag tells Google or any search engine web crawler to skip indexing a page. Without crawling and indexing, your pages won’t have any SERPs ranking opportunities.
First, let’s look at possible causes of this issue. The “no index” tag could be added to certain pages during development and be left there by mistake when the pages go live. Some content management systems (CMS) like WordPress also have an option for preventing search engines from indexing pages, such as those containing sensitive information and shopping carts.
How to fix it: Enhance the SEO rankings of affected pages by removing the “no index” tag. Verify that the “no index” error exists by checking the Coverage report on Google Search Console. If you have a fairly new website without sufficient Search Console data, try tools that crawl your site and show the pages affected by this Google search ranking error.
Reason 2: Googlebot Can’t Crawl Certain Pages
Robots.txt is a text file containing instructions for web crawlers, including Googlebot. It blocks or allows access to your pages. So, for example, if it contains a rule for blocking Googlebot from crawling specific pages, the search giant won’t be able to discover said pages. This may affect SERPs ranking and visibility.
How to fix it: Make sure search engine bots are allowed to access critical pages, e.g., https://example.com/blog. If you’re not sure where to find robots.txt, here’s a practical tip on how to improve Google Search ranking: leave the fixing to the experts. This should help you avoid major technical SEO mistakes as they understand the scope and limitations of a robots.txt file.
Reason 3: You Lack High-Quality External Links
Pay attention to your backlinks. They exist to enhance your online visibility (read: how to improve Google Search ranking).
According to studies, backlinks, the links found in other sites that point back to your pages, are a critical Google ranking/local SEO ranking factor. Having a reputable site refer to your page in their content boosts your credibility, helping Google determine how relevant that page is to a keyword or user query.
In short, backlinks or external links can affect your SERPs rank. If you have zero, excessive or spammy backlinks, your search result position is compromised.
How to fix it: Monitor keyword rankings and audit your link profile using tools like Ahrefs, Sitechecker and SEMrush. You can check details like the sites linking to your pages, their domain authority and anchor texts. Also, you can discover suspicious links and link loss – so you won’t have to wonder, “Why is my website not ranking on Google?”
If your problem is due to a thin link profile, read more on how you can improve your overall link building strategy or include link-building in your online marketing efforts.
Reason 4: Search Intent Isn’t Prioritized
Here’s another likely reason if you’ve been scratching your head and asking, “Why is my website not ranking on Google?” You may have crafted content for a popular keyword — a keyword that’s frequently searched by your target users — but it does not satisfy users’ search intent. What does this mean?
Let’s say you’re in the real estate industry and prioritized a popular keyword like “how to buy a home in City X.” You decided to integrate this keyword into your sales page. In the copy, you simply mentioned that your property consultants could help readers buy a home and proceeded to list your housing options. Meanwhile, your competitors wrote blog posts that enumerated deciding factors before providing a list of housing options. And they ranked at the top of SERPs for that. That’s because they aligned their content with the intent of the target audience, which was still in the Awareness/Interest stage of the buying process.
How to fix it: Use tools like BuzzSumo or SEMrush to track keyword rankings and top performers. Analyze the articles, their structure and content and update your page or create a new piece of content accordingly. If you’re going toe-to-toe with main competitors, make it a point to enhance your search engine optimization strategy.
Reason 5: You Got Penalized By Google
Manual Actions
It’s rarely the case, but a sudden drop in SERPs ranking may be caused by a manual Google penalty. So unless you did something drastic to manipulate SEO rankings, like spamming or hiding text/stuffing keywords, you’re good.
Google will alert you if you do get a hit. Go to Google Search Console to check the issue. Under Security and Manual Actions, you will find the penalty, its description and all affected pages.
How to fix it: It’d be too long to go over all the manual actions, but we have already covered the ground for you in this article about Google penalties. We suggest you search for the penalty and apply the corresponding fix to all pages involved. Your Google ranking may not return to past levels (quickly) after recovery because, minus the quality issue, the SERPs rank algorithm will evaluate your pages anew.
Algorithmic Penalties
From time to time, Google rolls out algorithm updates, so it pays to track keyword rankings not only in the wake of such changes. Recent ones (Panda, Penguin. etc.) check for content quality and unnatural links. Your SERPs position can dip significantly and impact your organic traffic and search engine keyword rankings.
How to fix it: Go for in-depth, well-written and overall high-value articles or copy (Panda). As for unnatural links, the issue ties to low-quality and spammy backlinks. Google may also find the acquisition of tons of links in a short time period suspicious. After replacing poor-quality content and removing problematic backlinks, wait for Google to recrawl your site or pages and your SERPs rank performance to turn around.
Reason 6: You’re Not Optimizing for Your Location
Did you notice that local SEO ranking is different from user to user? This is because Google factors in their location, among other things. If you’re a franchise or multi-location business, it’s critical to target the right location-based keywords or bid for them in search engine marketing (SEM) or pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.
How to fix it: As we said, target the keyword that applies to your franchise subunit or business branch. You should also amp up your local and franchise SEO strategy by leveraging local listings.
Reason 7: Your Site Is Not Updated for Page Experience (Core Web Vitals)
Page Experience comprises Google’s latest array of ranking signals, including the Core Web Vitals, which focus on page load speed, visual stability and interactivity. The new guidelines for SEO keyword rankings launched in June 2021. It takes several weeks or more to set Page Experience optimization in motion and around four weeks to see its impact.
How to fix it: If you have not audited your site or updated your SEO strategy, there’s no time to waste. Read our Step-by-Step Google Page Experience and Core Web Vitals Guide for complete information. To catch up, you could also partner with an internet marketing agency that can monitor keyword rankings and apply the update at the same time.
