Dropped 12 after following SEOMOZ Tips

[sansonj]

I changed up my on page stuff via SEOMOZ tips, and I dropped like a rock in water 12 positions from 29 to 41 over night for homes for sale in casa Grande AZ. What did I majorly do wrong?

[danbocain]

Without knowing what you really did, it would be hard to tell.  I would suggest going to the page that dropped and checking Google's cache of the page.

If Google's cache still shows your old content (pre-Moz suggested changes), then something else is the problem.

I would also be sure to check Webmaster Tools to ensure that you haven't been sent any type of messages / warning notifications.  That's a pretty big overnight drop to be purely content-related in general.

[sansonj]

No message from google. Just checked. Now checking cache

[sansonj]

I just check the cache with google and it is my newest version. How would following SEOMOZ do the opposite of my goal?

[Steven_Macdonald]

I recently improved my on-page SEO and saw a drop in one or two keywords due to changing the title tags and URL. More than a week later, they had regained their original ranking, with one increasing its position.

Although, if you could list two or three changes you made, I'm sure we could provide further help.

[sansonj]

Off the top of my head:

1. Added an image with Key phrase Alta Tag

2. add in some

tags of the key phrase

3. Removed some of the internal links trying to get down to what seomoz wants- still shy

4. cleaned up my meta decription

5. Removed one of my search widgets from the right column of the page

I think that is it.

[polarking]

I use rank checker for Firefox and sometimes it does the same thing, Big drops on keywords I didn't even touch. Where are you seeing the biggest drop I mean what rank tool? Unless you did something crazy your rank should not drop that fast. I would try a few other ranking tool. If you are using Semrush the update their database every month not daily.

[danbocain]

Without seeing more details, as Steven Macdonald stated, I don't think anyone can really help you out.   When you look at your page vs the pages ranking above you, how do they vary in terms of keyword usage, page content, rich media, title tags, URL structure, etc? One item in the Moz "Page Grader" that can hurt your rankings is the page structure. If you adjusted that, search engines would have to re-rank your page.

If your page was domain.com/keyword and you change it to domain.com/keywords then you are technically ranking a new URL and should setup a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new one.

[SanketPatel]

What specific changes you have made in landing page ? SEOMOZ provides suggestion but its important how you have implemented them on your website.

[sansonj]

I went right to google.com and did the search

[sansonj]

I used the grading feature. I did not change the url.

Off the top of my head:

1. Added an image with Key phrase Alta Tag

2. add in some

tags of the key phrase

3. Removed some of the internal links trying to get down to what seomoz wants- still shy

4. cleaned up my meta decription

5. Removed one of my search widgets from the right column of the page

I think that is it.

[SanketPatel]

Hi Sansonj,

Can you please check  " 2012 Diverse Solutions IDX" in your article.

IDX anchor text link looks like a hidden text because of background. Is it same as earlier or you have modification in that also ?

[stubby]

check to see whether you have personalized results turned on

check to see what location google says you are searching from.

Both factors affect what is shown to YOU.

[sansonj]

Yes, I checked that and I did it on other computers at other locations.

[sansonj]

I looked, and the background is white and the IDX is blue.  I have no control on that.

[mytouchoftech]

Did you remove any actual content, or change the url of the page, or use rel='canonical' links?

[sansonj]

Nope. I made the small changes the system said to do.

[mytouchoftech]

Did your changes coincide with anything else?  Like a push in backlink generation?

[Mcarle]

SEO is a tricky beast.

If you shift one keyword up others shift down, as well as if ANOTHER person does shifting all sites jumble around as well.

I have seen my own pages shift down then back up again right after making changes.

Although looking at your page I might recommend having that great block of text towards the top & your copyright notices at the bottom. Make the page agreeable to humans as well as robots...

[sansonj]

Can you cut and past it, so I can see if it mines or the app.