This short case study shows how we restored our client’s keyword rankings and, more importantly, their reputation as the leading experts in their industry.
It also highlights the business value of expert SEO services.
A client’s keyword rankings plummeted yesterday because they inadvertently changed the URL of a page that was ranking #1 for a core business service.
Here’s how we identified the problem, fixed it, and restored their rankings and reputation:
Identifying the problem:
1. We spotted the keyword rankings drop in the client’s Semrush project:
2. We did some manual spot checks on Google to confirm the drop.
3. We inspected the URL using Google Search Console’s URL Inspection tool to check how Google ‘sees’ the page. We learned that it had dropped out of the index (making it invisible):
4. We checked the page on the client’s site.
While the content was the same, the URL now looked like this: www.client.com.au/blue-widgets-2/
This usually happens in WordPress when you make a copy of an existing page. The CMS will append -2 to the URL.
Why is this a problem?
From a business perspective
Our client recently landed a lead from a large global company. They are always asking how prospects heard about them (an excellent habit by the way).
In this prospect’s own words:
You kept coming up #1 when we Googled ‘X’ so we see you as the experts.
Now our client was no longer ranking #1 – and potentially no longer seen at the leading experts.
You can now see the crucial role that SEO plays in your business success.
From an SEO perspective
Google now sees /blue-widgets-2/ as a brand-new URL without any ranking signals.
In our client’s case, the original URL had earned some very high authority backlinks, that were helping it rank #1.
Those backlinks were now useless.
We’d worked very hard over the past 18 months to get our client such strong search visibility through:
- Keyword research and on-page optimisation.
- Building topical authority around their ‘Blue Widgets’ service to help position our client as experts.
- Building (and earning) highly relevant backlinks – not link farm rubbish that is the domain of cheap SEO companies.
This was a huge problem because the client was essentially back to square one.
Fixing the problem:
1. Changed the URL back to www.client.com.au/blue-widgets/
2. Scanned the site to ensure all internal links point to the proper URL instead of /blue-widgets-2/
3. Cleared the website cache.
4. Asked Google Search Console to crawl the original page again using the ‘Request Indexing’ feature.
5. Submitted the client’s sitemaps to Google Search Console.
Rankings (and reputations) restored:
This example is why AI won’t replace switched on SEOs and web developers anytime soon.
If you’d like another set of eyes on your website, reach out to the team at Eurisko, today.
We’ve got your back.
