Google has very strict guidelines about how they rank websites. If you find yourself with little or no traffic and look in your email to find a notice from Google, you have likely run afoul of Google’s policies regarding content. The number one rule for Google is “Content, content, content”. If you have a lot of spammy or low-quality content, Google will penalize you.

Keyword stuffing is a big no-no. These are just two examples of old, but still, surprisingly common practices that will earn you a Google violation and cause your traffic to drop significantly. Refer to this article to find out about bad SEO practices you might still be using.

Google violations can be removed. You will need to check your Search Console account. Inside the Messages menu under Warnings, you will find any manual actions taken against you. The message will include instructions on how to have the manual action lifted. Follow these instructions. You will then need to petition Google to take another look at your website. If you pass, the manual action will be lifted.

Another SEO rank drop reasons are Your Keywords Are Either Obsolete or Not Relevant to Your Region Using obsolete keywords is a recipe for disaster. When people search on Google, they are actually using keywords to simplify their searches to get the most relevant results. Google has become so advanced these days that it can even search websites based on location. There’s a hint for you, in case you missed it!

However, you also need to take into account that nearly all industries change over time, so if you’re one of those people that are asking yourself Hey, I used this keyword x years ago, and it worked fine, why is it not getting me anything now, it’s because that particular keyword has likely become obsolete. Furthermore, keywords can vary by region. The best way to find out if you’re using the right keywords is to do keyword research. Use Google Trends to find highly-used keywords in your country, or join communities with similar interests. Sometimes you can find communities that offer amazing insight into your particular industry.

This is also one of the SEO rank drop reasons, Just as low-quality content on your site can get you penalized by Google, you can also get penalized if you link to other sites that have low-quality content. Here’s why: In the days before the Panda and Penguin updates, websites used backlinking to rank on Google. These sites often had spammy or spun content stuffed with keywords users commonly put into Google.

The result was that you would perform a search for something like fish tanks and get a whole host of well, let’s just call them . Not Safe for Worksites just for the sake of professionalism and good taste, shall we The point is that Google looks upon poor backlinking as a way to game the system so to speak. In essence, you’re trying to gain artificial hits using very questionable methods, and that doesn’t sit right with Google. The above example is a good reason why you should always check the quality of your backlinks.

Poor website speed is the most SEO rank drop reason for our website. We know it’s tempting to use those free hosting providers you see floating around the Internet. After all, free hosting is a great way to cut costs and increase your profit margin, right Wrong! What you may not realize is that a lot of these free hosting plans offer what’s called shared hosting, which means the speed of the server on which your site is hosted is highly dependent on the amount of traffic going to that particular server.

Since you’re sharing bandwidth with other websites, it’s quite possible that the amount of traffic will bog your site down tremendously, and nobody likes a slow website. Just think of what you would do if you encountered a business that had a slow website. While free hosting may work for the average Joe Schmoe that doesn’t expect to get a lot of visitors, a business has to show a lot more confidence than that!