How to Investigate Google Ranking Drops using GSC

When a website’s Google ranking drops, the immediate reaction is often panic. After all, search ranking drops directly translate to decreased traffic, lost conversions, and revenue declines.

However, with the right approach and tools, it’s possible to investigate and reverse the ranking decline effectively. One of the most valuable tools at your disposal is Google Search Console.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore how to use GSC to understand and investigate Google ranking drops, provide troubleshooting steps, and share strategies to regain your lost rankings. 

Stay tuned!

Introduction to Google Ranking Drops

Search rankings determine the visibility of your website on search engine results pages. Maintaining high rankings is crucial for driving traffic and conversions. But even well-optimized websites can experience unexpected drops in rankings.

First, is it Google’s Fault?

Surveys show that 33% of all Google rankings drops are due to updates and changes to the algorithms of search engines. If this is the case, the change in rankings that you’re seeing has nothing to do with your website but is Google’s doing.

Check the SERP where you noticed the drop to see whether other web pages have been similarly affected. Or, see if competitor websites in your niche have also experienced the same Google ranking drop. If so, then search engine updates may have likely caused it.

To verify this, stay tuned to X posts from famous SEO gurus and updates from Google’s social media channels, such as John Mueller, Google Search Liaison, and Google Search Central.

Often, rankings will soon return to normal after this type of update has caused your rankings to drop. But in other cases, you must recalibrate your SEO strategy to adapt to the update.

Understanding Search Engine Ranking Factors

Google’s ranking algorithm considers over 200 factors when determining a page’s rank. Some of the most critical factors include:

• Content quality and relevance: Does the content satisfy the user’s search intent? Does the content effectively demonstrate E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness)?
• Backlinks: Considered one of Google’s top three ranking factors. How many backlinks does your content have? How many of those backlinks originate from reputable sites?
• User experience: How well does the site perform in terms of usability, speed, and mobile-friendliness?
• Technical SEO: Is the site crawlable and indexable? Are there any technical issues that could prevent search engines from properly reading the site?

Any complications among these aforementioned aspects will certainly result in Google ranking drops.

5 Common Causes of Drops in Google Rankings

Algorithm updates are the easiest cause to spot when experiencing a drop in SERP rank. 

You can easily follow the breadcrumbs and determine whether an algorithm caused it, since SEO people will not stop talking about it on X or writing about it on their websites. Moreover, Google Search Liaison and John Mueller will also join in the conversation to address any inquiries.

But what if an algorithm update didn’t cause it? 

Google ranking drops can happen for more pressing website-originating reasons, including:

1. Technical issues

If it’s not a search engine update that’s led to a temporary change in your site’s rankings, you’ll have to do a little digging around the site.

First of all, check that your website itself is loading as intended. A crashing or slow-loading site is the most obvious reason for your rankings and traffic to drop. 

A few-second delay in loading time can significantly increase your bounce rate. This signals to Google that your site isn’t well maintained, which might be the culprit behind the Google ranking drop.

Use the Core Web Vitals report to identify pages that need optimization:

Secondly, check if your pages are returning a bad status code following some changes you made to your site. Perhaps their URL addresses only need updating.

You can check the status code for one of your web pages with an HTTP status checker. A page URL working properly should read ‘200’ (OK). Page URLs not working will read ‘404’ (page not found) or ‘410’ (page permanently removed).

In addition to web page addresses, you can implement robots.txt best practices, like checking the robots.txt file in the directory of your web server. This file determines how much access bots have to your site, which has a major impact on how searchable and, by extension, how rankable the pages are.

2. Manual actions

A manual action happens when a human reviewer at Google penalizes your website for violating Google’s Search Essentials (formerly Webmaster Guidelines). 

Unlike algorithmic changes, these actions are not automated but are applied manually after someone at Google identifies spammy or manipulative behavior. This includes:

• Keyword stuffing
• Unnatural links to (backlinks) and from your site (external links) 
• Cloaking or showing different content to users and Googlebot
• Providing misleading data or false information 

In Google Search Console, you’ll find a notification under the “Manual actions” report, along with the reason and affected URLs:

Manual actions will also directly result in your pages’ Google rankings to drop sharply. It may even disappear completely from SERPs. 

To recover, you must fix the issue, submit a reconsideration request, and wait for Google’s team to review your site again. Regular audits and staying compliant with SEO best practices can help you avoid these penalties in the first place.

You may also use tools such as IndexCheckr to automatically monitor your pages’ indexing status on Google. Removal from SERPs may indicate an underlying SEO issue—manual actions included.

3. Loss of backlinks

Backlinks are one of the most significant ranking signals Google uses to determine a website’s perceived authority and trustworthiness. 

The more backlinks pointing to your site, the better. There are just two problems:

• Not all backlinks offer the same value (backlinks from high-DA sites have more weight compared to low-DA, less popular websites)
• Not all backlinks are perpetually present (most of them go through link decay or link rot)

Losing backlinks from reputable sources can weaken your authority, causing Google ranking drops. And attempting to regain those backlinks from spammy or low-quality sites will not restore your rankings. It may even cause more harm to your already-declining rankings.

Secondly, we found that you lose almost half of all your backlinks within 7 years, because of a phenomenon known as link rot.

Google Search Console won’t directly show backlink losses, but a ranking dip paired with fewer referring domains (visible through third-party tools like Linkody) often signals this issue.

4. Competitor actions

Sometimes, your rankings drop not because of something you did wrong, but because your competitors did something right (or wrong to you!). 

Competitor actions like publishing fresh, optimized content, earning new backlinks, or improving their site speed and mobile experience can put their pages high up the rankings while pushing your pages down in SERPs.

Remember: Google’s algorithm constantly reevaluates pages to show the most relevant and high-quality results. 

So, if a competitor updates their content to better match search intent or launches a strong SEO campaign, their pages might start outranking yours, especially if your strategy hasn’t improved.

To respond, analyze the top-ranking competitors for your target keywords, compare content quality and backlink profiles, and update your pages accordingly. Staying competitive means consistently improving and not just maintaining your SEO.

Conversely, your competitors may also deliberately sabotage your SEO efforts using negative SEO. That is, employing black-hat SEO tactics that negatively damage your site’s reputation in Google’s eyes, such as building spammy backlinks to your site.

In Google Search Console, you might notice an increase in referring domains, but be sure to evaluate whether those websites are reputable or not. Otherwise, they might cause more harm than good. It’s important to monitor these backlinks and disavow the links that may negatively affect your website.

You can also use dedicated backlink monitoring tools, like Linkody, to track your backlinks and their metrics: 

• Spam Score
• Moz DA
• Rel attribute
• anchor text
• Top-Level Domain
• Number of external dofollow links on the page

Here is an example Linkody backlinks report:

5. Content-related issues

Google’s mission statement is to make information universally accessible and useful. This tells us that Google places the heaviest importance on content when ranking pages in search results. 

If your pages experience Google ranking drops, review your content to see if the quality is deterring search engines from giving it a decent rank.

Firstly, statistics show that the optimum length for written content on a web page that ranks highly for search engines is over 2000 words.

Not only is longer-form content shared more widely on social media, it allows for the integration of more links and keywords, and is actually rewarded by one of Google’s search algorithms. Algorithms like this are less likely to favor shorter pages which are thin on content.

Poor quality content, on the other hand, will be one of the biggest turn-offs for potential repeat visitors to your website. 

There are simple steps you can take to shore up the appeal of your content. You can fix broken links and keep the meta descriptions for your site that users see on SERPs up-to-date.

If a page’s content is unexpectedly failing to generate decent rankings, perform an A/B test to hone in on elements which might be the problem. It could be an over-the-top title, a lack of expertise in the writing, an inadequate blurb, or distracting advertising.

Understanding what triggered your ranking drop is essential for taking corrective action. That’s where Google Search Console comes in.

Why Google Search Console?

Google Search Console is a free tool offered by Google that provides insights into how your website performs in search results. GSC is essential for troubleshooting ranking drops because it:

• Offers a wealth of data, including your site’s impressions, clicks, and average position on Google search results.
• Provides reports on technical issues such as crawl errors, security issues, and mobile usability.
• It helps diagnose manual actions and other penalties that might affect your site’s rankings.

Through GSC, you can quickly identify whether a technical issue, a penalty, or a change in user behavior causes a ranking drop.

Setting Up and Accessing Google Search Console

Before investigating ranking drops, you must ensure your site is set up in Google Search Console.

Creating a Google Search Console Account

If you still need to, the first step is to create a Google Search Console account. Simply visit the Google Search Console website and sign in with your Google account. Once logged in, you’ll be prompted to add your website.

Verifying Ownership of Your Website

To access data for your site, you’ll need to verify that you own the domain. There are several methods for verifying ownership, including:

1. HTML file upload: Google provides a small HTML file that you can upload to your website’s root directory.
2. HTML tag: You can add a meta tag to your homepage’s section.
3. DNS verification: You can verify ownership through your domain name provider by adding a TXT record to your DNS configuration.

Once you’ve verified your ownership, Google will begin tracking data for your site.

Linking Google Search Console with Other Google Tools

For a comprehensive view of your website’s performance, you can link Google Search Console to other Google tools like:

• Google Analytics: For in-depth analysis of user behavior.
• Google Tag Manager: To manage tags for marketing and SEO tracking without having to modify the site’s code.

These integrations allow you to cross-reference data and gain deeper insights into your site’s performance.

Initial Steps to Identify the Drop in Search Positioning

Once you’re set up with Google Search Console, you’ll want to follow a structured approach to investigating your ranking drop.

Step 1: Know when the dip occurred

One of the first questions to answer is: When did the ranking drop happen?

Using GSC’s Performance report, you can examine your site’s performance over time. Look for any sudden changes in impressions, clicks, or average position. 

Correlating the timing of the drop with recent events (algorithm updates, site changes, etc.) can help you pinpoint what caused it.

Step 2: Identify the affected pages

The next step is to identify which pages have been affected. You can filter the Performance report by individual URLs to see which pages experienced the most significant traffic declines.

Compare these pages with pages that haven’t dropped to identify differences in content, structure, or backlinks.

Step 3: Determine if it is a manual or algorithmic drop

Determining whether the drop is due to a manual penalty or an algorithmic change is crucial. 

Check the Manual Actions report in GSC for any penalties Google might have imposed on your site. If no manual action is found, the drop could be due to an algorithmic update, such as a Google core update, local search updates, page experience updates, etc.

These updates can impact your site’s performance if it’s not aligned with Google’s ever-changing ranking factors, such as content quality, user experience, and technical SEO aspects. Regular monitoring and adjustments are key to recovering rankings.

Essential GSC Reports for Investigating Changes in SERP Rank

Google Search Console provides several reports and tools instrumental in investigating ranking drops. 

Here are the most important reports to look at when you experience a decline in rankings:

Performance Reports:

The Performance Report tab is where you’ll spend most of your time analyzing your website’s search performance and any sudden changes in ranking.

This section shows detailed information about the essential site metrics you must track, including:

• Total clicks: How many users clicked on your site after seeing it in the search results?
• Impressions: How many times has your site appeared in search results?`
• Click-through rate (CTR): The percentage of impressions that resulted in a click
• Average position: The average ranking of your site for a particular search query

By reviewing this data, you can:

1. Identify the queries that are driving traffic to your site
2. Compare query performance before and after the drop to see which terms have been affected
3. Look for patterns in the affected queries (e.g., are they all related to a specific product or topic?)

Indexing Report:

The Indexing tab provides insights into how Google crawls and indexes your pages. It highlights issues that could be preventing certain pages from being indexed, such as:

• Crawl errors: Pages that Google tried to crawl but couldn’t access.
• Excluded pages: Pages not indexed for reasons like duplicate content or canonicalization errors
• Soft 404s: Pages that return a 200 status code but display “not found” content.

Ensure that the important pages are indexed correctly to appear in the search results. If the page is not indexed correctly, you may face a drop in rankings, and it will disappear entirely from search results.

Experience Report

Google places a high emphasis on Page Experience, and the Core Web Vitals report in GSC helps you measure key user experience metrics, including:

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)

This metric measures how long it takes for the large elements to load on a page. Here are some tips to improve it: 

• Optimize Images: Compress and use next-gen formats (e.g., WebP) to reduce load times, especially for mobile users.
• Improve Server Responses: Reduce Time to First Byte (TTFB) by optimizing server configurations and using Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) for faster global access.
• Upgrade Web Hosting: Choose a reliable hosting provider with faster servers to improve loading times, particularly for mobile devices.

First Input Delay (FID)

FID measures how long it takes for a page to respond to a user’s first interaction, either by clicking a button or link. Here are some ways to improve FID: 

• Reduce the Impact of Large Tasks: Break down long-running tasks to allow the browser to respond faster to user interactions, improving mobile responsiveness.
• Optimize Third-Party Code: Limit third-party scripts and ensure they are optimized to reduce delays in page response times.
• Minimize JavaScript Execution Time: Defer or minify JavaScript to reduce the amount of code executed during the initial load, enhancing mobile performance.

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

CLS measures visual stability, focusing on unexpected layout shifts as a page loads. A good CLS score is below 0.1, ensuring elements don’t shift unexpectedly as users interact with the page. There are certain tips to improve Cumulative Layout Shift:

• Reserve Space for Dynamic Content: Allocate fixed space for ads, images, or embeds to prevent unexpected layout shifts as the page loads, ensuring mobile stability.
• Preload Fonts and Set Fallback Fonts: Preload critical fonts and define fallback fonts to prevent layout shifts due to font loading on slower mobile connections.
• No Content Above the Fold: Ensure content above the fold remains static to avoid shifts. This is especially important for mobile views where space is limited.

Poor performance in any of these areas can lead to lower rankings, especially after Google’s Page Experience Update.

Security Report

Security issues in Google Search Console refer to problems like malware, phishing attacks, or hacked content that can harm users and negatively impact your site’s performance. 

How to Combat Security Issues:

• Scan Your Website: Use tools like Google Safe Browsing or third-party services to identify and remove malicious code.
• Restore Clean Backup: If your site has been hacked, restore it from a clean backup to undo the unauthorized changes.
• Update Software: Ensure your CMS, plugins, and themes are up-to-date to prevent future security breaches.

Manual Actions Report

Manual actions occur when a Google reviewer determines your site violates the Google Webmaster Guidelines. 

Unnatural links, due to link schemes or buying-and-selling links without proper rel attribute, may trigger manual actions. Other causes of manual actions may be thin content and spammy behavior, like cloaking, hidden texts, and keyword stuffing. Here are ways to fix manual actions:

• Identify the Violation: Check the Manual Actions Report in Google Search Console to see the specific issue Google flagged.
• Correct the Problem: Remove or update the violating content, disavow harmful links, or improve thin content to comply with Google’s guidelines.
• Submit a Reconsideration Request: Once the problem is fixed, submit a Reconsideration Request to explain your steps to resolve the issue.

Troubleshooting Ranking Drops: What to Check First

Once you’ve gathered data from Google Search Console, the next step is troubleshooting. 

Here are key areas to investigate:

A. Reviewing Recent Changes to Your Website

Consider whether you’ve recently made any changes to your website, such as:

• Redesigning or restructuring your site.
• Implementing a new content management system (CMS).
• Changing your URL structure.

Any major changes to your site’s architecture, content, or technical setup can temporarily lower its rankings.

B. Monitoring Algorithm Updates (Core and Niche)

Google regularly rolls out both core algorithm updates and smaller updates targeting specific issues (e.g., spam, reviews). Use resources like Moz’s Google Algorithm Change History to check if any updates coincide with your ranking drop.

C. Analyzing Backlink Profile 

A sudden loss of high-quality backlinks can result in a drop in rankings. Use tools like Linkody to monitor your backlink profile and identify any significant losses. It analyzes the quality of each backlink and evaluates factors such as domain authority, spam score, and relevance of the linking site. 

Google Search Console’s Links report can also help you track links pointing to your site.

D. Competitor Analysis

Keep an eye on your competitors’ rankings and SEO efforts. Linkody can help you analyze your competitors’ backlink profiles and content strategies, giving you insights into why they may outperform you. By analyzing where your competitors get their backlinks, you can identify new opportunities for building quality links for your website. 

Advanced Techniques in Google Search Console for Deeper Insights

For more detailed analysis, Google Search Console offers several advanced features.

Custom Search Filters: 

In the Performance report, you can apply custom filters to segment your data:

• Device: Analyze how your site performs on desktop vs. mobile.
• Country: See if the ranking drop is isolated to a specific geographic region.
• Search type: Filter by web, image, or video search to pinpoint where the drop occurred.

Query and Page Comparisons

GSC allows you to compare query and page performance across different periods. Use this feature to analyze:

Which queries saw the most significant declines

A drop in clicks or impressions for specific queries may indicate that the page is no longer ranking as well as it used to. 

As a site owner, one can use Google Search Console to identify which queries saw declines and analyze the context. 

Refreshing the content to ensure it meets current user expectations and aligns with the search intent could also help.  

Whether certain pages saw a drop in performance while others remained stable

In this scenario, specific pages may experience declines in performance metrics while others continue to perform well.

This situation indicates that some pages might be affected by factors, such as technical issues, outdated content, or less effective SEO strategies, while others are optimized or more relevant.

In such cases, site owners can compare the content of the declining pages with that of those that are stable or performing well.

Focus on improving user experience by optimizing for mobile devices, ensuring fast loading times, and creating engaging layouts can also reduce bounce rates.

Date Range Comparisons

Use the Date range comparison feature to analyze performance over time. By comparing data from different periods, you can identify trends, such as seasonal fluctuations or gradual ranking declines.

Inspecting Individual URLs

The URL Inspection tool provides detailed insights into how Google views a specific URL. This tool allows you to:

• Check indexing status: See if the page is indexed and how it was crawled.
• Request a re-crawl: If you’ve made changes to the page, you can request Google to re-crawl and re-index it.

Recovering from a Google Ranking Drop

After identifying the cause of your ranking drop, the next concern that may revolve in your head must be how to recover SEO rankings. So, here is the answer:

Implement corrective actions using GSC data

Based on the insights you’ve gathered from GSC, implement the necessary fixes. For example:

• Fix indexing issues using the Index Coverage report.
• Optimize Core Web Vitals by improving page speed and user experience.

Prioritize which pages to optimize

Start by focusing on the pages that generate the most traffic. Use GSC’s Performance report to prioritize improvements based on the potential impact.

Conduct content audits and refresh strategies 

Conduct a content audit to identify outdated or thin content. Refreshing and updating content can help restore rankings. Implementing internal linking best practices can also be useful to ensure your site structure is well-connected and all essential pages are within clicks.

Perform proactive measures to prevent rank drops

Prevention is better than cure. Here’s how to stay ahead of ranking drops:

• Stay informed about algorithm updates: Follow SEO blogs and forums to stay updated on algorithm changes.
• Regularly monitor GSC reports: Look at key metrics like clicks, impressions, and average position to spot potential issues early.

Integrate Google Search Console with other SEO tools

Google Search Console can be integrated with other tools for more effective SEO management. Remember, analytics is only one facet of your SEO repertoire.

Some of the top SEO tools we use are: 

• Mongools: for keyword research
• Linkody: for backlink monitoring and link-building
• LinkStorm: for internal linking
• Screaming Frog: for SEO auditing and website management

Conclusion

Fluctuations in search rankings are a natural part of SEO. By leveraging Google Search Console, you can effectively investigate and address ranking drops.

GSC provides invaluable insights into your site’s performance, allowing you to identify when drops occur and pinpoint potential causes. By monitoring user experience metrics and analyzing query and page performance, you can uncover opportunities for improvement.

Remember, SEO is an ongoing process. Stay proactive, monitor your website’s performance, and adapt your strategies to the ever-evolving landscape of search engine algorithms.

FAQ

What is the difference between manual and algorithmic drops?

Both manual and algorithmic drops result in a website’s decline in SERP positioning or performance. However, manual drops are deliberate actions taken by Google administrators after observing violations. Conversely, algorithmic drops happen when there are changes in search engine algorithms, user behavior, or industry competition.

What are the common causes of SERP ranking drops?

Common causes of ranking drops include algorithm updates, increased competition, poor user experience (like slow load times or high bounce rates), outdated content, and technical SEO issues such as broken links or improper indexing.

How to recover from Google ranking drops? 

To recover from a ranking drop, analyze Google Search Console data for affected queries, update and optimize content for relevance, fix technical issues, improve user experience, and monitor competitor strategies to adapt your SEO approach.

---

The above is a combined content of the following guest authors: