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Recently Google has introduced their latest updates. It is expected that the latest changes in algorithm will directly affect the search engine rankings and traffic of affiliate sites. So here comes the question, how owners can restore their search engine ranking. Well, in this post, we will talk about that.

What to Fix

Google has clearly mentioned the fact that fixing things won’t help owners to recover their ranking. But many site owners haven’t understood the fact yet that what Google is trying to say. Well, they are trying to say that the new changes have nothing to do with traditional SEO. They have done all the changes based on the technical SEO factors.

Recently we have audited few websites and experienced significant drops in their ranking. When we researched to figure out the reasons for ranking drops, we found several serious issues related to technical SEO.

Page Speed

We all know that the loading speed of a page is an important ranking factor. But Google’s Webmaster Trends Analyst John Mueller has said that page speed is not the only important ranking factor.

A web site owner was very frustrated about the ranking of his site. He optimized his site for speed, but he was outranked by slower web pages.

So, in a webmaster hangout, he asked John Mueller why some of the top sites are still slow to load? He also asked about the speed of the mobile version? This is what John Mueller answered:

“…the good part is that we have lots of ranking factors. So you don’t have to do everything perfect.

But that also means that you run across situations like this where you say, Google says speed is important, but the top sites here are not so fast, therefore, it must not be important.

So for us, it is definitely important. But that doesn’t mean it kind of overrides everything else.”

If you think carefully, then you will understand that there’s no point in lowering down a website just because it loads slowly. If it provides the best answer to the search query, then the site deserves to be on the top of the search result.

Ask yourself, what’s the primary purpose of Google? Well, they aim to satisfy the search query of the visitors. So Google’s first preference is to check how efficiently you can address the needs of your customers. And after that, they check how fast your site loads.

We are not minimizing the importance of load speed. It is still an important ranking factor and plays an important role in improving the conversion rate. We are only saying that this is not the only significant ranking factor.

Links

Most of the sites that you see on the top of the search engine result page have no junk links. Here it is important to understand that Google ignores junk links and paid links.

Paid links may boost your ranking for a while, but after a short period of time, they will stop working. As a result, the rank of the site will drop automatically. It might also give Google a spam single, which will damage the ranking of your website a lot.

Meanwhile, it is also important to know that Google also ranks those sites that have spammy backlinks. John Mueller has clearly mentioned the fact that Google ignores spammy links if they found that the content is good enough and deserves to be on the top.

During a conversation, someone asked John Mueller that he has seen many sites have reached on the top of the Google search engine result page by using a nefarious link. He reported this to Google, as suggested. In addition, he also asked John Mueller if they can do anything else about this. In reply, this is what John said:

“…when it comes to competitive areas, what we’ll often see is that some sites do some things really well and some sites do some things really bad.

We try to take the overall picture and use that for ranking.

For example, it might be that one site uses keyword stuffing in a really terrible way but actually their business is fantastic and people really love going there, they love finding it in search and we have lots of really good signals for that site.

So we might still show them at number one, even though we recognize they’re doing keyword stuffing.”

So it is fair to conclude that Google is not going to reduce the rank of site by 30% to 90% because of the links. If everyone loves a site, the chances are high that it will also stay at the top of the Google search even after the massive changes in the algorithm.

Missing Pages

404 errors and missing pages are very common. If you have a website or you work in the digital marketplace, then you have heard of it.

John Mueller said that if they found any “Page Not Found” or server error, then they directly contact the site owner through the Search Console. So after knowing about your 404 pages and server errors, you have to fix them. By doing this, you will be able to restore your ranking.

Why Websites Lose Rankings

Google wants to rank the most efficient websites on the top that has the ability to address the needs of the users in the best way possible. So this is the area where you have to focus. If you don’t work on addressing the needs of your users, then the rank of your website will drop automatically.

Takeaway

Google has recently made new changes that every site owners need to consider. The first one is changing the no-follow attribute. It means that the number of links is used as a ranking factor.

The second important thing that they have changed in their latest algorithm is BERT. It will affect 10% of overall search queries, including the featured snippets.

BERT and no-follow links are not typical updates. But if you want to improve or restore your ranking, then you have to keep these things in mind.