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Yes - could be. You need to use Google SearchConsole Fetch&Render tool to identify are images is loaded at all.

Also note that some of lazy loading tools used data-src ( https://github.com/dinbror/blazy ), other pagespeed_lazy_src ( https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/module/filter-lazyload-images?hl=en ) and third data-img-src and many others. You need to check what attribute your tool is used and check are images crawlable and indexed.

You need to check also Qazy - https://github.com/qnimate/Qazy yet-another-lazy-loading tool without negative SEO impact because images are loading from src attribute. And this is explained here: http://qnimate.com/lazy-loading-images-and-its-seo-impact/

So - yes this negative impact could be caused from images lazy loading too.

This is normal. First you need to evaluate this guide: http://www.elite-strategies.com/flavors-types-google-penalties/ and see what kind of penalty you have. Then you need to get all data from Analytics, Search Console both Links and Analytics there.

And here is huge analysis...

1. You need to check timeframe of your sudden drop. Are there some turbulence in SERP? New algo released? Anything weird in your own castle (server, CMS, hosting provider, etc)? If there is something - fix it. Also read about algos/turbulences in industry news sites.
2. Check for messages in SearchConsole about "Manual Actions" and fix them if it's any.
3. Check for sudden change of your links and create linking profile. If there are new and weird links from spammy sources - disavow them ASAP. If there is overoptimization for keywords - change anchor or disavow. This can be something Penguin algo related.
4. Check for sudden change of your site - thin content, aggregated content, duplicate, irrevelant, etc. Check also user signals - low CTR, high bounce rate, low time on site and low % of returning users. Also check bad UI - design, navigation, mobile redirects, site speed, ads. Check for low trustworthiness - in Google Raters Handbook that was recently released. This can be - providing contact information, ToS, PP, etc. And last - overoptimization. This can be something to Panda algo related.
5. Check for other algorithms - like TopHeavy aka Page Layout Algorithms that may affect your site.

So after you know what can be your drop related then check and recheck. Isn't first nor last time when you can think about Panda but in reality was Penguin or vice versa. This can save you few months. After you're 100% sure what was then try to make changes to escape from algo penalty.

Same happens to me almost year and half. We're running brand new site and faced sandbox algo. But we make few links more than we should and from low quality sites. So site was shown in SERP for month in first or second page and then suddenly drop to 10 page. Our organic traffic was fell to 1/10 of before almost overnight. But we make new traffic sources - social media and referral traffic so we could live without organic. We change links, make diversify linking profile changing links, anchors or even both. We also delete some links. But nothing happen in SERP position. Then i use disavow tool and 2 weeks ago there was algo refresh (Penguin). Almost overnight search traffic jump more than 10x and recovering previous positions and getting new and ever better positions. Today - this site make traffic as 10x than after recovering.

The problem is that you need to make changes in site against penalty. And wait for algo refresh. You also need huge patience because some drop can happen anytime, but for recovering you need algo refreshes. And refreshes take months or even years.

This is popular question for multilingual or multi-regional sites. And answered many times: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/182192?hl=en The main problem is that this questions have many answers. And all of them are right, some more, other little more.

Just don't forget that no matter what way you select you need to keep relevant language links to each language site. And keep hreflang to other language sites too. https://moz.com/learn/seo/hreflang-tag https://moz.com/blog/hreflang-behaviour-insights https://moz.com/blog/open-source-library-tool-check-hreflang https://moz.com/blog/using-the-correct-hreflang-tag-a-new-generator-tool

Brian,

i explain both ways as you may loose ratings in SERP. If you're sure that 1st isn't the case we're talking about then good for you.

The problem is N:2 data was shown in SERP using different methods. Example: http://www.mobiliodevelopment.com/pdf417-barcode-standard/ go in SDTT and look this url for rich snippets. There are 0 structured data except head metas. Now go back in SERP and look for "pdf417 standard" this article is maximum on 2-3 page if isn't on first. You can easy see "Mar 2, 2012 - PDF417 is a 2D barcode standard."

This is proof that you can have data w/o rich snippets. Now back on your problem. If you remember i talk about someone who lost his star reviews for year and they're back. I suggest this guy to go and ask here:
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/webmasters
Guess? Nothing happens. And this was 11-10 months ago.

That's why you need to check and recheck your implementation just to see that everything is correct on your side. This mean technical implementation and logical implementation. Then you may looking for support in link above and prepare for waiting with patience.

PS: I can take a look too but need url to inspect this site.

This could be issue called "sandbox" and here you can see more about it: https://moz.com/blog/googles-sandbox-still-exists-exemplified-by-gradercom https://moz.com/blog/how-to-beat-the-google-sandbox https://ahrefs.com/blog/google-sandbox-2-0-know/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandbox_effect

So i think that this could be your problem with site launched on 1st Dec. How to make show in SERP and escaping sandbox isn't possible with some "cheats". Fastest site appearing was 3 days, normal timeframe is between week-10 days. If site didn't appear after 2 weeks then this could be due some crawler problem.

Now you could do two things:

1. Share links in social networks - Google+, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest. This will bring bots in your site. Just don't rush things - i have seen some in panic webmaster dumping 100 links in social networks. Also don't attach too much homepage just one time is normal. But attach inside pages - about us, services, products, blog section, etc.
2. Start linkbuilding acquiring links from authoritative and trusted sources. This is tricky... very tricky! I have seen webmasters creating so much links so site get penalized after "sandboxing" after 2-3 days.

I hope that this will give you ideas why new sites didn't show from day 1 in SERP pages.

There are two ways so i can explain them both:

• you incidentally click something somewhere OR WordPress plugin/theme or core during some update now working different. That's why you always should have weekly backups and investigate changes between backups. This is first step that you should test with structured data testing tool.
• Google give you rich snippets for use temporary and they're not guaranteed. Even if your code is OK you can see them, then not: https://sites.google.com/site/webmasterhelpforum/en/faq-rich-snippets  http://www.searchenginejournal.com/rich-snippets-the-phenomenon/75095/ http://www.blindfiveyearold.com/the-rich-snippets-algorithm https://www.seroundtable.com/google-rich-snippet-penalty-20521.html https://www.seroundtable.com/google-spammy-structured-markup-penalty-20509.html Also not that they can comeback w/o change anything - friend of mine have stars, then they removed from SERP for one year, and now they're back. Nothing in code was touched nor changed. Other friend of mine lost their stars from 2013 and they're still missing, but remain in code. You also need to check about issue called "rich snippet spam" too.

As you can see providing rich snippet in code isn't enough for showing them. In first link above there is line as "Google does not guarantee that Rich Snippets will show up for search results from a particular site even if structured data is marked up and can be extracted successfully according to the testing tool.". That's why you need to check and recheck is there issue on your website. And if there isn't problem then you just need to wait to appear.

BTW - review on homepage sound scary! Review is nested in schema.org and you should have something to bring reviews - book or movie for example. This was explained here: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-rich-snippets-homepage-19205.html https://www.seroundtable.com/google-updates-reviews-ratings-rich-snippets-19983.html https://www.seroundtable.com/google-rich-snippets-not-home-20645.html This mean that even if SDTT shows "Okay" this mean OK from technical point of implementation, but on logical there can be some issue.

Yeah - this IS problem.

I have friend of mine who runs webhosting for "free hosting". And he told me that no way to get to 1st page with anything lower than 10k root domains is mission impossible. Also in terms of backlinks their scale is in millions. Only getting there is more and more links from anywhere in the world, any site from any niche. And i saw statistics... he is right.

The problem that if you're in some similar industry then maybe patience is over. And maybe next Penguin will fix this, but we already heard this many times. So you can play few games:

• you can keep building links as before. Only pure white hat from various sources. Can be game magazine, game shows, local meetups, etc.
• you can use some gray hat techniques. Forum links, blog comments, etc.
• you can purchase some expired domains on game niche. Using tools as http://tool.domains/ for finding and evaluating them.
• this is blackhat and i won't recommend it but when all options are on the table - using PBN network or PDF linking. And this is "white side of blackhat". There is dark side of blackhat using software vulnerability like in 3P industry (Pharma, Poker and Porn). As i said before it's better to stay away from that, computer hacking can be also federal crime. Even don't think to use this for real client. Bad guys used them for "churn and burn" method where domain is used for few days, then blacklisted; but guys get new domain and used it for few days; next domain...
• sponsoring some good players - like Fatal1ty
• sponsoring some good video game streamers - you can look for them in Twitch or YouTube. One of closest example is mine friend called Gothika47 (i can connect you if you wish). He run video channel in YT https://www.youtube.com/user/VoodooHeadsTV and Twitch http://www.twitch.tv/gothika_47 (he was moved from Hitbox before month ago). So that streamers can bring you HUGE audience if you're used them proper. I was watch streams with over 1k viewers online and this is WOW because streamer listen watchers and can do their requests.
• creating infographic with LOL skills or even build calculator for LOL or item calculator; you can also make "for dummies" walktrough for novices; also strategy guides, clan guides, etc. You also can make a videos about that - only for novices.
• something other... just think about giving "value" to users

As you can see this list isn't full and can be extended with many more ways. But always think "how we should add value to community?" Because this is important to them and this will drive sales.

PS: Dificult situation - LOL is trade mark owned from Riot Games. And should think about possible legal issues from using their TM too.

CDN isn't pure fun for SEO because you give links to other companies or domains.

I can do http://cdn.example.com/ or http://examplecom.amazoncdn.com/ as closest example - then your both links to images goes away and isn't too good.

Only way is if your site and images are on same domain/subdomain. But this require very good planning of deploying. And in result you will be "vendor locked" for cloud solution.

Yes, there is!

https://moz.com/search-ranking-factors/survey
https://moz.com/blog/is-optimizing-photos-more-important-than-you-think
https://moz.com/learn/seo/on-page-factors
https://www.shopify.com/blog/7412852-10-must-know-image-optimization-tips
https://yoast.com/image-seo/
http://www.koozai.com/blog/content-marketing-seo/increase-traffic-with-images/

That's why you MUST include ALT attribute to each image that you didn't use for design purposes in HTML.

You can use Google Sheets and one regex parser as it's explained here: http://www.labnol.org/internet/google-web-scraping/28450/ https://builtvisible.com/playing-around-with-importxml-in-google-spreadsheets/ http://www.seerinteractive.com/blog/google-scraper-in-google-docs-update/ https://www.distilled.net/blog/seo/how-to-build-agile-seo-tools-using-google-docs/

Well isn't big deal at all. You need to:

• investigate error 500. Usual this is part of "door knocking". You should see who and what is going to do just for error 500. Watchout for /wp-content where themes and plugins are. Also /wp-admin and /wp-include where WP core is.
• investigate 404 errors. This is part 2 of "door knocking". Often happens when vulnerability doesn't exist. Like timthumb or revSlider - someone still knocking on few days. (this was vulnerability that leave more than 100k sites with PHP execution)
• investigate strange redirects - 301, 302. IF site is working perfect you shouldn't see any redirects. But if you're WWW and someone link w/o WWW you can see redirect. Also WP comes with internal redirector for broken urls, can be typo mistakes. But more interesting are vulnerability so any strange activity can be easy seen.
• investigate strange traffic - can be POST or GET to /wp-content/plugins or /wp-content/themes PHP code. In perfect world only WP can call them. Or using WP-AJAX. Direct calling to code isn't recommended anymore.
• investigate bot traffic - like 2000 requests for 30 mins to wp-login.php This is one example - you can easy see them because one IP can do lot of requests.
• you need to check file structure - new/changed files can be warning that something was happened. I like GIT/Mercurial or SVN because they can check quick folders for changes. Bad news - you need SSH access and some dev skills. If you don't have SSH then you can download whole site and compare it with original copy. I can recommend WinMerge (free and open source) tool for comparing files/folders in Windows. If you're on Mac just as me you can use FileDiff (free) or Kaleidoskope (paid tool, trial available). There is also paid multi platform tools as Beyond Compare, Araxis Merge, Delta Walker and few more.
• you need to make HTTP password to sensitive portions of WP. Also you must do some hardening of WordPress installation. This is covered in Codex here. For example try to login on mine site: http://www.mobiliodevelopment.com/wp-admin/ Good luck!
• you can implement additional security in .htaccess like 5G firewall here. Or you can implement WAF (web application framework) like modsecurity.

I think that i cover most of mine daily routine inspections. Look scary but when you get experience will took less than 5 minutes per site.

You need to check this post from Rand first: https://moz.com/community/q/da-pa-fluctuations-how-to-interpret-apply-understand-these-ml-based-scores

I if you have drop in 11/19 then this can be related with unconfirmed update. But update on 11/13 i didn't know. Can you share SearchConsole and/or Analytics here?

I have talk about WordPress security before month ago in WordPress Bulgaria 2015.

So very short - if you have update to latest versions of core, plugins and themes and they're stable you don't have anything to worry about.

The problem is when some of them comes with non well checked code - most plugins or themes. This mean that if there is some vulnerability you can be infected over and over. Same can happen if you download from illegal sites plugin/theme with some added code as vulnerability. Don't think that "this won't happen on me" because this is one of most frequently way to distribute malware to users.

All that security layers add extra PHP code that need to be executed and slow down site. They also bring issues to some users. I never forget when few months ago ping in Twitter some site that i can reach their site from Bulgaria. Yes - due settings in their "security" plugin.

That's why you need few ways:

• you need to use only plugins/themes from original author. If they're on WordPress.org then this is preferred. This doesn't mean that they can't have some vulnerability, but you just minimize chance
• you need to update them regular
• you need to use only proven plugins/themes in your practice. I believe that plugins with 100k installs is tested than plugin with 10 installs
• you always should keep backup of site and it's database local on your computer. In hacked site case - you just need to restore from backup for 5-10 mins
• keep backups on regular basis - can be plugin or manually. There you can diff backups for changes very quick
• you need some skills to investigate web attacks using checking web server log files. I do this on daily basis for mine most important sites. If some IPs or user agents doesn't follow rules - deny their access
• in case of hack - keep archive of hacked site and then recover. One of huge mistake more novices make is to trying to clean site. Most of malwares keep somewhere in WP "dead hand" and they're back later. Experts (like me) need lot of time to find and disabled them. With backups - this is piece of cake
• If you follow this but keep hacked... then think out of box - maybe plugin have unknown vulnerability or theme. Sometime other sites/scripts working on same hosting account can infect you. I have even seen infected whole hosting company on server level. Then you need expert assistance. You can find this in WP forum and/or in your hosting provider.
• Some hosting providers provide extra service as - WordPress hosting. This is often high-speed solution with added extra level of security on server level. I can recommend SiteGround, WPEngine or nestify.io

List is really long and boring. But if you follow all these rules - you don't need "security" plugin. It's critical for you to know what's happen in WP and when this is happening. I often can see people that doesn't know that they're infected but they doesn't have backups or archives. This make mine job longer and expensive.

PS: I know that checking site on daily basis sound little bit scary. But take me maximum 5 minutes per site for day.

According Glenn Gabe there was something: http://www.hmtweb.com/marketing-blog/november-19-google-algorithm-update/ http://www.hmtweb.com/marketing-blog/unconfirmed-google-algorithm-updates-2015/

Google says: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-update-no-21225.html
"Don't have anything more specific to announce, sorry!"

TL;DR - You're hesitated about problem that doesn't exist.

Googlebot doesn't index CSS or JS files. They index text files, HTML, PDF, DOC, XLS, etc. But doesn't index style sheets or javascript files.

All you need in WordPress is to create blank robots.txt file where WP is installed with this content:

User-agent: *
Disallow:
Sitemap: http://site/sitemap-file-name.xml

And that's all. This is explain many times:

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.bg/2014/05/understanding-web-pages-better.html
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.bg/2014/10/updating-our-technical-webmaster.html

Here is it:
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-priority-change-frequency-xml-sitemap-20273.html

Just as John Mueller suggest you should use lastmod attribute to indicate change http://www.sitemaps.org/protocol.html and then you can do sitemap ping to Google for reindexing. This is easy http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ping?sitemap=URLOFSITEMAP.xml and it's allowed https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/183669?hl=en

First i'm on Mac since 2008/09 and i missed Windows7,8 and 10. But i have experience since Windows 3.0 somewhere in 91/92. So longs story short - you should do routine website testing in Edge just to see that everything is correct and works perfect. You shouldn't see any impact if you don't follow their suggestions.

Actual all web developers and designers have long and difficult partnership with IE. IE6 trying to break W3C standards and implement own version of them. This is described here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_box_model_bug IE7 fixes them but add new "bugs", and IE8 add new portion of them. This is described here: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/10/css-differences-in-internet-explorer-6-7-and-8/ http://code.tutsplus.com/tutorials/9-most-common-ie-bugs-and-how-to-fix-them--net-7764 https://css-tricks.com/ie-css-bugs-thatll-get-you-every-time/ and in many other articles. So all devs finally was little bit pissed off and stop supporting IE at all. They just make some IE specific hacks for specific versions user just to see something almost correct.

Later Webkit and Firefox join the party in CSS and add their own versions of CSS styles. Each of them start with webkit- or moz- as prefix. Opera also joins the party with o- preffix. But they fix almost all vendor prefixes within years with CSS3 and finally all agreed to abandon them. But all "vendors" comes with autoupdated browsers so they push new versions to users. You can't imagine today working with other than current version of Firefox, Chrome or Opera. Safari is different because actual version is only on current version of OSX. And in this world only IE is outdated... Just MS refuses to push new versions to old OSes.

So today as Bob Dylan sing "Times have changed" everything is different. And Microsoft is trying to bring back support of all standards they lacking in past. But web here is different than web before and bringing support for IE is hard. That's why they sent mails about "possible problems". Honestly mine site works in IE 6,7,8,9,10 and 11 (tested, no joke!) and should works in Edge too (not tested).

So that's why they sent you mail about "possible issues". In all web companies are jokes about IE6 or IE7 support: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/11/but-the-client-wants-ie-6-support/ http://www.sitepoint.com/how-to-stop-wasting-time-developing-for-internet-explorer/ And if today Microsoft warn us about "standartds" we should ask them where have they are all over years NOT supporting standards?

All of them except Ahrefs comes with "free" versions and you can export almost everything.

If you need to support EDGE you need to follow this one link: https://dev.windows.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/staticscan/ There a static tester will check your HTML and CSS for specific issues against it.

There you can see "same markup", "browser detection" and "CSS prefixes" section with more information.

The real problem is outdated IE versions. You can easy support EDGE but what to do with old versions? I know sites with visitors from IE7 still. Now Microsoft tell "support us", but what to do with all their versions?

Yes - you can!
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/93636?hl=en
Just follow instructions there. And check 301 redirects for correct location also canonicals, sitemap, robots.txt and links to static assets (CSS/JS) and link to pages.