{"id":7095,"date":"2017-10-02T21:00:31","date_gmt":"2017-10-03T05:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.ahrefs.com\/?p=7095"},"modified":"2025-12-18T09:05:59","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T14:05:59","slug":"loss-of-seo-visibility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/loss-of-seo-visibility\/","title":{"rendered":"SEO Visibility - The Complete Beginner\u2019s Guide to Fixing a Search Visibility Loss"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"intro-txt\"> \u201cWait \u2026 what just happened to my damn site, and why is it nowhere to be seen on the first page of Google?!\u201d&nbsp;<\/div>\n<p>Sometimes diagnosing a loss of SEO visibility is rather straightforward. But not always. If you\u2019re not entirely out of luck, things might be a bit more subtle.<\/p>\n<p>So, if you\u2019re worried that your website might be experiencing an SEO visibility loss, you\u2019re in the right&nbsp;place.<\/p>\n<p>Read on to learn <em>what SEO visibility is<\/em>, how it is different from SEO traffic, and <em>how to identify and battle a potential drop in search visibility<\/em> and\/or traffic.<\/p>\n<h2>What is SEO visibility?<\/h2>\n<p>Probably the most straightforward way to define SEO visibility would be&nbsp;this:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>SEO visibility is a metric that tells you what percentage of all possible organic clicks (from SERPs) a website is getting for a given keyword.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In other words, SEO visibility is not to be understood in terms of raw traffic numbers, but rather your position in the SERPs themselves in relation to your competitors. I know this might sound a bit convoluted, so let\u2019s break it down on an example:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>100% SEO visibility is the absolute best edge case that basically never happens. It would mean that your website owns all the organic spots in Google for a given keyword and all the \u201cclickable\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/seo\/glossary\/serp-features\" data-ahr=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/serp-features\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">SERP features<\/a>. Read: you\u2019re getting 100% of the available clicks.<\/li>\n<li>35% SEO visibility is when you rank #1 for your keyword. Here, 35% represents the amount of clicks that you can <a href=\"http:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/search-engine-optimisation-seo\/seo-analytics\/comparison-of-google-clickthrough-rates-by-position\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">generally expect<\/a> to get when ranking #1 for a search term.<\/li>\n<li>To that tune, if you rank, say, #10, your SEO visibility is at 2%. From there, it goes like you\u2019d expect.<\/li>\n<li>Lastly, ranking outside of the first page gives you 0% SEO visibility. After all, page two of Google is the best place to hide a dead&nbsp;body.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Additionally, the values add up in case you occupy more than one spot. So for example, being on #1 and #2 means 55% SEO visibility.<\/p>\n<h2>Why does SEO visibility matter?<\/h2>\n<p>As in, why would you care what your SEO visibility score&nbsp;is?<\/p>\n<h4>1. SEO visibility metric lets you diagnose SEO problems quickly<\/h4>\n<p>Search visibility is a great metric to help you figure out if you\u2019ve been hit with an algorithm update or a penalty (more on that in a minute).<\/p>\n<h4>2. It gives you a bird\u2019s-eye-view perspective on your site\u2019s overall SEO performance<\/h4>\n<p>It tells you how big your piece of the available traffic pie actually is.<\/p>\n<p>For example, if you\u2019re only looking at your raw SEO traffic numbers, you\u2019re not getting much insight in terms of how much more traffic is there still to&nbsp;grab.<\/p>\n<h4>3. You can compare your results for specific keywords without getting into the absolute numbers<\/h4>\n<p>Thus you will notice any room for improvement quicker.<\/p>\n<p>For instance, if you\u2019re getting, say, 200 visits for <em>Keyword1<\/em> and 100 for <em>Keyword2<\/em> then it might not be immediately apparent which of these keywords deserves more of your attention.<\/p>\n<p>However, seeing that the visibility for the first one is already at 55% (you rank both #1 and #2), while the second one is at 12%, means that the former is pretty much maxed out in its potential, while the latter can still be worked on and improved.<\/p>\n<p>With that said, there\u2019s probably one aspect of this topic that\u2019s kind of confusing, and that&nbsp;is:<\/p>\n<h2>Is \u201cSEO visibility\u201d a synonym for \u201cSEO traffic\u201d?<\/h2>\n<p>In a word, <strong>no.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s the core difference between SEO traffic and SEO visibility:<\/p>\n<div class=\"recommendation\"><div class=\"recommendation-title\">Let\u2019s make it&nbsp;clear:<\/div><div class=\"recommendation-content\"> <strong>SEO visibility<\/strong> is a relative value that\u2019s represented as a percentage. It tells you what percent of the available pool of clicks you\u2019re getting.\n<p><strong>SEO traffic<\/strong> is an absolute value. It is the exact number of visitors (clicks) that you\u2019re getting.&nbsp;<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n<p>An interesting implication of this is that your SEO traffic may fluctuate while your SEO visibility remains stable. For instance, one week you\u2019re getting 2000 visits from a keyword, and the other you\u2019re getting 2200 - while still ranking #1 for the keyword both&nbsp;weeks.<\/p>\n<p>In this light, gaining\/losing SEO traffic is not always caused by a gain or loss of SEO visibility. However, <em>gaining\/losing SEO visibility will always have an impact on your SEO traffic.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This makes looking into your overall SEO visibility perhaps the quickest way to identify any SEO problems going on, including Google penalties, algorithm updates, and even technical problems.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-17385\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/SEO-visibility-SEO-traffic.png\" alt=\"SEO visibility vs SEO traffic\" width=\"900\" height=\"685\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/SEO-visibility-SEO-traffic.png 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/SEO-visibility-SEO-traffic-768x585.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/SEO-visibility-SEO-traffic-558x425.png 558w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><\/p>\n<h2>Identifying an SEO visibility loss: how to check if you\u2019ve lost your search visibility<\/h2>\n<p>Here\u2019s a handful of the most common indicators that your site is losing SEO visibility:<\/p>\n<h3>Indicator #1: Less leads in your funnel<\/h3>\n<p>If you\u2019re not very technical with your website setup then getting less leads for your business is perhaps the easiest trend for you to notice, making it a good first stop when assessing your current SEO visibility.<\/p>\n<p>The number of leads coming through your funnel is strongly connected to the amount of traffic you\u2019re getting and thus to your SEO visibility overall.<\/p>\n<p>However, while certainly something to worry about, a decreased number of leads on its own might not be enough to be sure that your SEO visibility got hit. The next step would be to check how much SEO traffic you\u2019re getting now vs. your usual numbers. Which brings us&nbsp;to:<\/p>\n<h3>Indicator #2:&nbsp;Lost organic traffic<\/h3>\n<p>The best tool by far to assess a potential loss of SEO traffic is Google Analytics (GA), as you would expect.<\/p>\n<p>Basically, if your site lost any of its SEO visibility, this is going to be reflected in your overall organic traffic stats. Examining those numbers gives you a general overview of the situation and its seriousness.<\/p>\n<p>Start by going to your GA profile and check if your traffic numbers seem out of place compared with the average numbers across the previous weeks\/months.<\/p>\n<p>For example, something like the following is never a good sign and usually means trouble:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-17384\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/CWP-stats-1.png\" alt=\"Sudden search traffic drop\" width=\"900\" height=\"301\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/CWP-stats-1.png 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/CWP-stats-1-768x257.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/CWP-stats-1-680x227.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><\/p>\n<p>But your fluctuations don\u2019t need to be this brutal. Even observing your traffic taking a \u201cstep down\u201d is also a strong indication that you\u2019ve taken an SEO visibility hit. Example:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-17383\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/stats-step-down-1.png\" alt=\"Stats step down\" width=\"900\" height=\"364\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/stats-step-down-1.png 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/stats-step-down-1-768x311.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/stats-step-down-1-680x275.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><\/p>\n<p>Now that you know something is going down, and that it\u2019s reflected in your overall numbers, you should narrow down on the specific time period that seems most likely to have been hit and compare it to another time period - one where your numbers were normal.<\/p>\n<p>GA lets you do this right in the main date range selection:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-17382\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/compare-1.png\" alt=\"compare dates in GA\" width=\"900\" height=\"291\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/compare-1.png 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/compare-1-768x248.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/compare-1-680x220.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><\/p>\n<p>In my case - based on what I saw in the main traffic overview screen - I zoomed in on the problem to have been happening between July 7th-27th, and then I compared it to the previous period.<\/p>\n<p>If what you\u2019re seeing after doing the same is somewhat similar to the following screenshot then you know you\u2019re in trouble:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-17381\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/compare2-1.png\" alt=\"results of the time period comparison\" width=\"900\" height=\"391\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/compare2-1.png 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/compare2-1-768x334.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/compare2-1-680x295.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><\/p>\n<h4>Identify the individual areas of the site that got&nbsp;hit<\/h4>\n<p>This can be done in GA\u2019s section <em>Behavior \u2192 Site Content<\/em>. Once there, you can find the specific areas of your site that got hit the most. Remember, we\u2019re just looking into the organic traffic, not the overall numbers.<\/p>\n<p>There are two things you can&nbsp;do:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ol>\n<li>Starting from your most popular content, make your way down the list (as far as you want to go) and single out the specific pages that lost the highest numbers compared to their general trends from a couple of weeks back when everything was fine. (Also, it\u2019s a good idea to go back a couple of years to see if the drop isn\u2019t a seasonal thing - often the case in some niches.)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-17380\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/changes-1.png\" alt=\"traffic changes\" width=\"900\" height=\"574\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/changes-1.png 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/changes-1-260x166.png 260w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/changes-1-768x490.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/changes-1-666x425.png 666w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ol>\n<li>You can use GA\u2019s really cool sorting method called <em>Absolute Change<\/em>. This will sort the list starting from the pages that got affected the most. Like&nbsp;so:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-17379\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/sort-1.png\" alt=\"sort by absolute change\" width=\"900\" height=\"267\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/sort-1.png 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/sort-1-768x228.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/sort-1-680x202.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><\/p>\n<p>However, this method has one downside - the most affected pages aren\u2019t always the most valuable ones. We can fix that by filtering the list to only display pages that received at least X number of visits. This can be done by clicking on <em>advanced<\/em> (next to the search bar), setting the numbers that seem sensible, and clicking on <em>Apply<\/em>:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-17378\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/filter-1.png\" alt=\"filter by Pageviews\" width=\"900\" height=\"176\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/filter-1.png 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/filter-1-768x150.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/filter-1-680x133.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><\/p>\n<p>What you\u2019ll see is a list of your most valuable pages that have also been hit the&nbsp;most.<\/p>\n<h4>Identifying any mobile ranking troubles<\/h4>\n<p>One more thing we\u2019re going to do with GA is check how the site is performing on mobile. Depending on how mobile-friendly your website is overall, it\u2019s possible that some of your SEO visibility loss (or even all of it) comes from mobile.<\/p>\n<p>This can be looked into by going to GA\u2019s <em>Audience \u2192 Mobile<\/em>. At this stage, since you\u2019ve already done all the date range manipulation, you will see a chart that compares both time periods. Right beneath, you will see a breakdown of your desktop vs mobile traffic, like&nbsp;so:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-17377\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/desktop-mobile-1.png\" alt=\"desktop vs mobile traffic\" width=\"900\" height=\"665\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/desktop-mobile-1.png 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/desktop-mobile-1-768x567.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/desktop-mobile-1-575x425.png 575w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><\/p>\n<h3>Indicator #3: Lost rankings<\/h3>\n<p>Now that you know some of your traffic is gone, you should start looking into your search engine rankings.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re going to use two tools for that: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/webmasters\/tools\/home?hl=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Google Search Console<\/a>&nbsp;(GSC; formerly known as Google Webmaster Tools) and <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ahrefs<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s start with&nbsp;GSC.<\/p>\n<p>This one has a lot of great uses for every site owner and especially if you want to assess your SEO visibility losses in certain areas. In general, if you haven\u2019t integrated your website with GSC yet, you should do it&nbsp;ASAP!<\/p>\n<h4>Using GSC to identify lost rankings<\/h4>\n<p>First off, GSC will let you know about any manual actions that might have been taken against your site. This can be viewed if you go to <em>Search Traffic \u2192 Manual Actions<\/em>. If everything is in order, you\u2019ll see&nbsp;this:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/s-5.png\" alt=\"Manual Actions panel in GA\" width=\"540\" height=\"284\"><\/p>\n<p>If not:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-17376\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/gsc-manual-actions.png\" alt=\"Manual Action taken GSC\" width=\"598\" height=\"271\"><\/p>\n<p><em>(Screenshot courtesy of <a href=\"http:\/\/searchengineland.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Search Engine Land<\/a>. Sorry, I\u2019m lucky enough to not have any such screenshots of my own, so I had to borrow one.)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The next thing GSC will do for you is provide you with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.johnfdoherty.com\/google-webmaster-tools-impression-data-worthless\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">sometimes controversial<\/a> impressions data. Basically, as <a href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/webmasters\/answer\/6155685\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Google puts it<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"small\"><div class=\"quote-content\"> [Impressions represent] How many links to your site a user saw on Google search results, even if the link was not scrolled into&nbsp;view&nbsp;<\/div><\/blockquote>\nIn short, what this means is that any serious problem with your SEO visibility will be reflected in your impressions graph. You can see it by going to <em>Search Traffic \u2192 Search Analytics.<\/em>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-17375\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/search-analytics-impressions-graph.png\" alt=\"Search Analytics in GSC\" width=\"763\" height=\"289\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/search-analytics-impressions-graph.png 763w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/search-analytics-impressions-graph-680x258.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 763px) 100vw, 763px\"><\/p>\n<h4>Using Ahrefs to identify lost rankings<\/h4>\n<p>To my taste, Google\u2019s tools force you a bit too much into doing a lot of guessing work if you want to check where you rank for a keyword. Google is (more or less) open against any sort of keyword-based rank tracking. Ahrefs is more straightforward in the way it presents your rankings changing.<\/p>\n<p>First, you can track specific keywords - by adding them to <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/rank-tracker\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rank Tracker<\/a>&nbsp;- and then examine how they\u2019ve been performing over&nbsp;time.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-17374\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/rank-tracker-link-1.png\" alt=\"Rank Tracker in Ahrefs\" width=\"900\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/rank-tracker-link-1.png 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/rank-tracker-link-1-768x128.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/rank-tracker-link-1-680x113.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><\/p>\n<p>For each individual keyword, you get a full chart going all the way back to the moment you added that keyword to Rank Tracker.<\/p>\n<p>Apart from that, you can also monitor recent ranking changes of your website as a whole if you go to <em>Organic keywords \u2192 Movements<\/em> from the main sidebar:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-17127\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/movements.png\" alt=\"Movements in Ahrefs\" width=\"560\" height=\"366\"><\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re unlucky - read: if you\u2019ve got hit - you can see something like&nbsp;this:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-17369\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/positions-loss.png\" alt=\"search visibility loss\" width=\"900\" height=\"241\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/positions-loss.png 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/positions-loss-768x206.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/positions-loss-680x182.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><\/p>\n<p>This is your ultimate confirmation - you\u2019ve just lost your SEO visibility.<\/p>\n<p>Now, what can you do about&nbsp;it?<\/p>\n<h2>Understanding the reasons behind SEO visibility loss and fixing it<\/h2>\n<p>At this point, you know that you\u2019re experiencing an SEO visibility loss \u2026 but what could be the reason of it, and more importantly, <em>how to bring things back to normal?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Those can be plenty, but the most common one might be surprising:<\/p>\n<h3>Reason #1: Technical glitches<\/h3>\n<p>That\u2019s quite a broad topic actually, so I will split it in a few sub-reasons:<\/p>\n<h4>Updates causing havoc<\/h4>\n<p>A lot of strange things can happen right after you update your website software (like WordPress) or some plugins that you have running on the&nbsp;site.<\/p>\n<p>For instance, you might find out that some of your custom settings or custom redirects are gone, simply because a badly designed update failed to keep those backed up throughout the update.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe some of your pages simply stopped working altogether after a new update introduced some incompatibility between the different plugins that you have running in parallel.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, the reasons can be plenty, so what you should do first is go back to those GA charts, narrow down on the first day when your traffic dropped, and check if you did any changes to your site either that day or a couple of days before.<\/p>\n<p>Reverse-engineer from&nbsp;there.<\/p>\n<h4>Site not being mobile friendly<\/h4>\n<p>I\u2019ve mentioned this before, but it deserves a more in-depth examination. As we all know, mobile is king these days. In fact, more people use mobile devices in 2017 than desktop (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/mobile-marketing\/mobile-marketing-analytics\/mobile-marketing-statistics\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">data says<\/a>), so if your site isn\u2019t optimized to receive mobile visits, you\u2019re setting yourself up for failure big&nbsp;time.<\/p>\n<p>You can use GSC to check how mobile friendly your site is. Just go <a href=\"https:\/\/search.google.com\/test\/mobile-friendly\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a> and input the URLs from your site that got&nbsp;hit.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-17373\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/mobile-friendly-test-1.png\" alt=\"Mobile-Friendly Test\" width=\"900\" height=\"287\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/mobile-friendly-test-1.png 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/mobile-friendly-test-1-768x245.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/mobile-friendly-test-1-680x217.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><\/p>\n<p>If there are some serious problems found, you will most likely need to change your theme\/design to a more modern and optimized one.<\/p>\n<h4>Server offline<\/h4>\n<p>I know, this might sound silly. This is probably the first thing you checked. However, <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/googlebot\/\">Googlebot<\/a> might have still tried to crawl your website while your server was&nbsp;down.<\/p>\n<p>In general, it\u2019s a good practice to have your site hooked up to a tool like <a href=\"https:\/\/uptimerobot.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Uptime Robot<\/a>. It will notify you whenever your site goes offline.<\/p>\n<p>After a while, you can have a look at your overall server uptime chart. If there\u2019s too much downtime, Google might start penalizing you for&nbsp;it.<\/p>\n<h4>Wrong \u201ccanonical\u201d tag&nbsp;use<\/h4>\n<p>The <code>canonical<\/code> is still often misunderstood or (and) misused by webmasters.<\/p>\n<p>In its core, the tag tells Google which version of a given page you\u2019d prefer to have indexed and displayed in the&nbsp;SERPs.<\/p>\n<p>Google explains everything in depth <a href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/webmasters\/answer\/139066\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>With that, there are also some very common mistakes that people do when using this tag. Things like pointing it to the <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/rel-prev-next-pagination\/\">first page of a paginated series<\/a>, or mixing up relative\/absolute URLs. Google has a <a href=\"https:\/\/webmasters.googleblog.com\/2013\/04\/5-common-mistakes-with-relcanonical.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">separate whole resource<\/a> on those mistakes. It\u2019s worth a&nbsp;read.<\/p>\n<p>(By the way, the same goes for the <code>hreflang<\/code> tag. <a href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/webmasters\/answer\/189077?hl=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Read here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p>Again, these sort of troubles can appear whenever you change anything about your website\u2019s structure or software.<\/p>\n<h4>Unoptimized site redesign<\/h4>\n<p>Technical glitches sometimes tend to appear in the process of redesign or maintenance of your website. Basically, a lot is going on whenever you\u2019re changing anything about the structure of your&nbsp;site:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>pages get deleted,<\/li>\n<li>URL structure gets changed,<\/li>\n<li>internal linking gets altered (without proper redirects set in&nbsp;place),<\/li>\n<li>pages get blocked from crawling,<\/li>\n<li>the new theme itself may introduce its own SEO settings that double what your SEO plugin used to&nbsp;do,<\/li>\n<li>the HTML structure of your content pages changes, and so&nbsp;on.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In short, there\u2019s plenty that can go wrong during a redesign.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s a checklist of the things that you might want to go through in order to make sure everything is&nbsp;fine:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Check your <code>robots.txt<\/code> file and make sure you\u2019re not blocking any URLs or bots by accident.<\/li>\n<li>Check your <code>.htaccess<\/code> file for similar issues.<\/li>\n<li>Check how you\u2019re using the aforementioned <code>canonical<\/code> and <code>hreflang<\/code> tags.<\/li>\n<li>Go back to GSC and see if the number of 404 pages on your site hasn\u2019t increased. Also, check if there isn\u2019t any drop in the number of your indexed pages overall.<\/li>\n<li>If you\u2019re using hard redirects, make sure they\u2019re code 301 - seen as permanent by the search engines.<\/li>\n<li>Make sure you don\u2019t have competing pages trying to rank for the same keyword. Rather join those pages into one, stronger page.<\/li>\n<li>Check if your URL structure isn\u2019t completely different after the redesign.<\/li>\n<li>Check if your internal links still point to the right pages, and if they haven\u2019t been \u201cnofollowed.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Reason #2: Competition upping their&nbsp;game<\/h3>\n<p>Sometimes, nothing bad needs to be going on with your website in order for you to lose SEO visibility.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s not forget that we\u2019re all in a huge ecosystem of websites, and every single webmaster is trying to improve their SEO. For that reason, your drop might be a result of a competitor simply upping their game and overtaking you in the&nbsp;race.<\/p>\n<h4>Examine your competitors\u2019 websites<\/h4>\n<p>Use a tool like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.similarweb.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">SimilarWeb<\/a>&nbsp;to check how your website compares to the competition.&nbsp;Go to the main tool and look it up vs. your top 3-5 competitors. You can adjust the date range to only display the period that you\u2019ve identified earlier through GA as the moment when you started losing your traffic.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-17372\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/similarweb-traffic-overview.png\" alt=\"SimilarSeb Traffic Overview\" width=\"900\" height=\"347\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/similarweb-traffic-overview.png 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/similarweb-traffic-overview-768x296.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/similarweb-traffic-overview-680x262.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><\/p>\n<h4>Look at their past content<\/h4>\n<p>If your competitors indeed experienced a gain, you should look into the content they either published recently or the past content that they fixed\/improved.<\/p>\n<p>A tool that\u2019s great for looking up any website\u2019s past content is the good ol\u2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/web\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Wayback Machine<\/a>. See what your competitor\u2019s content used to look like prior to it gaining more SEO visibility.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-17371\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/wayback-machine.png\" alt=\"Wayback Machine\" width=\"900\" height=\"463\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/wayback-machine.png 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/wayback-machine-768x395.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/wayback-machine-680x350.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><\/p>\n<p>Oftentimes, you will find that your competitors work really hard on improving past content. Having this sort of knowledge is a great starting point to figuring out what you can do to improve your own content game.<\/p>\n<h4>Check if they built new&nbsp;links<\/h4>\n<p>Since link building is a huge part of anyone\u2019s SEO efforts, it\u2019s safe to assume that your competition probably has a bunch of shiny new links to brag about. You can look those up via Ahrefs.<\/p>\n<p>You can add any competitor\u2019s website to your Ahrefs dashboard and then monitor their sites like your own. All you need to do is go to <em>Backlinks \u2192 New<\/em> from the sidebar.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-17131\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/new-links.png\" alt=\"New links panel in Ahrefs\" width=\"432\" height=\"314\"><\/p>\n<p>Once there, you can adjust the time period that you want to examine, and you can even sort the list by parameters like <em>Domain Rating (DR)<\/em> or <em>URL Rating (UR)<\/em> to see the strongest links&nbsp;first.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-17370\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/new-links-list-1.png\" alt=\"List of new links in Ahrefs\" width=\"900\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/new-links-list-1.png 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/new-links-list-1-768x427.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/new-links-list-1-680x378.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><\/p>\n<p>If you find something of really high value, there\u2019s a big chance it\u2019s the reason why your competitor has taken over your spot. See how you can build links from the same site too and earn back some of your SEO visibility.<\/p>\n<h4>HTTPS vs&nbsp;HTTP<\/h4>\n<p>Lastly <a href=\"https:\/\/motherboard.vice.com\/en_us\/article\/xygdxq\/google-will-soon-shame-all-websites-that-are-unencrypted-chrome-https\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Google admitted<\/a> that they basically want to kill unencrypted internet and will soon begin flagging all non-HTTPS websites as unsafe.<\/p>\n<p>But even long before that, Google made it very clear that&nbsp;HTTPS is a ranking signal. The original announcement <a href=\"https:\/\/webmasters.googleblog.com\/2014\/08\/https-as-ranking-signal.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">dates back to 2014<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>So what does that mean? Quite simply, maybe your competition has already adopted SSLs and you haven\u2019t?<\/p>\n<h3>Reason #3: Hosting issues<\/h3>\n<p>I know that \u201cblame your host\u201d sounds a bit cliche, perhaps. But that\u2019s actually a real problem, and it happens more often than it should.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, if you\u2019ve been wondering where I got all those Ahrefs and GA screenshots from - the ones presenting real numbers and real drops - the answer is simple - we\u2019ve experienced a huge drop of our own. It happened at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.codeinwp.com\/blog\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">CodeinWP.com\/blog<\/a> (a site I take care&nbsp;of).<\/p>\n<p>One morning, I simply saw&nbsp;this:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-17369\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/positions-loss.png\" alt=\"SEO visibility loss\" width=\"900\" height=\"241\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/positions-loss.png 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/positions-loss-768x206.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/positions-loss-680x182.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cOkay \u2026 this can\u2019t be good\u201d<\/em> - I remained calm, trying not to lose my composure. <em>\u201cCool \u2026 whatever \u2026 maybe it\u2019s just a glitch\u201d<\/em> - my delusion continued. I tried to carry on with my morning as if nothing ever happened.<\/p>\n<p>As I was soon to discover, however, after another 10 days of no love from Google - this wasn\u2019t a glitch at all. It was quite serious. <em>Around 80-90% of the blog was gone from Google.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Who\u2019s to&nbsp;blame?<\/p>\n<p>As it turned out, our web host indeed.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m not entirely an advanced technician when it comes to hosting, so the only summary I can give you is that our hosting company added a new HTTP directive named X-Robots-Tag (set to \u201cnoindex\u201d) to some of our blog pages. This tag was not visible when viewing the page\u2019s source, only when doing a direct HTTP request.<\/p>\n<p>(If you\u2019re interested in the whole story, and why you should be careful when picking your host + what to do to prevent this type of trouble, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.codeinwp.com\/blog\/transparency-report-30\/#3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">read this - it\u2019s our CEO\u2019s transparency report<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p>The lesson here? Whenever you\u2019re experiencing any serious SEO trouble at all, contact your host and ask them if everything\u2019s okay on their end. Maybe they\u2019re moving servers, maybe they\u2019ve been hacked, or maybe there\u2019s something else you should know&nbsp;about.<\/p>\n<h3>Reason #4: Algorithm updates<\/h3>\n<p>Long story short, Google is very proficient with algorithm updates. And for a good reason - those updates are what makes them the best search engine around. Still, though, they can be stressful.<\/p>\n<p>So the challenge is, how do you find out if you were hit with an algorithm update?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/barracuda.digital\/panguin-seo-tool\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Panguin Tool<\/a> seems to be doing a great job at that. It shows you correlations between your search engine traffic and the <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/google-algorithm-updates\">known Google algorithm updates<\/a>. All you have to do is go to the tool, log in with your GA account, and select the desired GA profile.<\/p>\n<p>It will present you with an overlay view of your organic traffic vs. Google algorithm updates. The great part here is that this works on any screen within GA, so you can look into the overall numbers, individual pieces of content, devices, and so&nbsp;on.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-17368\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/panguin-tool-1.png\" alt=\"Panguin Tool\" width=\"755\" height=\"312\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/panguin-tool-1.png 755w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/panguin-tool-1-680x281.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 755px) 100vw, 755px\"><\/p>\n<p>If you can see any correlations, look into a given Google update more closely and figure out what the problem is and what you can do to solve&nbsp;it.<\/p>\n<p>Some of the more recent updates you might want to learn&nbsp;about:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/anchor-text\/\" data-ahr=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/anchor-text-after-penguin-4\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Case Study: How Penguin 4.0 Has Affected Anchor Text Optimization<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.link-assistant.com\/news\/google-algorithm-updates.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Google Algorithm Updates Cheat&nbsp;Sheet<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Reason #5: Featured snippets<\/h3>\n<p>Here\u2019s an example of a featured snippet:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-17367\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/snippet-1.png\" alt=\"Search snippet example\" width=\"900\" height=\"726\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/snippet-1.png 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/snippet-1-768x620.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/snippet-1-527x425.png 527w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><\/p>\n<p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/featured-snippets-study\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ahref\u2019s study<\/a>, more than 12% of search queries have <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/featured-snippets\/\" data-ahr=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/find-featured-snippets\/\">featured snippets<\/a> in their SERPs. Although those snippets can be genuinely helpful to whoever\u2019s doing the search, they aren\u2019t always great if you\u2019re trying to rank for that keyword.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve found that featured snippets tend to steal clicks away from the #1 ranking result.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/ahrefs-featured-snippets-ctr.jpg\" alt=\"Featured snippets' CTR according to Ahrefs' study\" width=\"900\" height=\"556\"><\/p>\n<p>What this means for you is that even though you might still rank #1, if a competitor takes the featured snippet spot, you will get less clicks.<\/p>\n<h3>Reason #6: Lost backlinks<\/h3>\n<p>Further above, we talked about how you can check if your competition has gained links. The very same way, you can check if you perhaps have lost yours, for whatever reason.<\/p>\n<p>Again, we\u2019re doing this via Ahrefs. For that, go to your dashboard, and then <em>Backlinks \u2192 Lost<\/em> from the main sidebar. There, you can adjust the time period that\u2019s of interest to you and sort the list by the most valuable domains or URLs (respectively the <em>DR<\/em> and <em>UR<\/em> columns).<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-17366\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/lost-links-1.png\" alt=\"Discover lost links in Ahrefs\" width=\"900\" height=\"505\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/lost-links-1.png 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/lost-links-1-768x431.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/lost-links-1-680x382.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><\/p>\n<p>If there\u2019s a big number of links on the list, or there are highly valuable links on it, you best reach out to the webmasters managing those sites and try asking what\u2019s up.<\/p>\n<h2>Conclusion<\/h2>\n<p>I know that this guide is a lot to take in, and that we\u2019ve covered a lot of ground here. However, I really wanted to make this as complete of a resource as I&nbsp;could.<\/p>\n<p>Frankly, when you lose SEO visibility, when your site drops, when you don\u2019t get as much traffic anymore, this is usually a very serious and stressful condition, and you will do literally anything you can to get to the bottom of what\u2019s going on. So I hope a resource like this one, even though huge in word count, will help you get the answers you&nbsp;need!<\/p>\n<p>Going forward, I\u2019d really recommend you check out what <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ahrefs<\/a>&nbsp;can do for you in terms of SEO visibility and keeping your finger on the pulse when it comes to your SEO efforts in general. Acting fast is key when bad stuff is going on with your website. With Ahrefs\u2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/alerts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">notifications and alerts<\/a>, you will know what\u2019s going on right&nbsp;away.<\/p>\n<p>That pretty much sums up this guide on what can be done if you experience any sort of SEO visibility\/ranking problems. At this point you should know:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>what the areas of your site are that got affected the&nbsp;most,<\/li>\n<li>what the likely reasons are,<\/li>\n<li>whether or not your competitors played a&nbsp;role,<\/li>\n<li>how to fix the situation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So what\u2019s your take here? Is there anything you\u2019d like share about your own experience with SEO visibility loss?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sometimes diagnosing a loss of SEO visibility is rather straightforward. But not always. If you\u2019re not entirely out of luck, things might be a bit more subtle. So, if you\u2019re worried that your website might be experiencing an SEO visibility<span class=\"ellipsis\">\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\">Read more \u203a<\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":17400,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[335],"tags":[],"coauthors":[363],"class_list":["post-7095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-seo","odd"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>SEO Visibility - The Complete Guide to Fixing a Search Visibility Loss<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Learn how SEO visibility impacts website traffic. 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