It’s infuriating when you invest so much time and effort, not to mention a heck of a lot of hope, into building a webpage, and it just won’t budge. Meanwhile, other people’s webpages are sitting pretty on top of Google’s results, even though yours is superior to those-no bias there, right? Your content belongs at the top of Google’s results, so what’s taking so long?
You’d need to take a step-by-step approach to unravel why your page isn’t ranking. More than anything else, you will definitely need data, industry insights, and a pretty methodical mindset to unravel this mystery. The first thing to do is ascertaining whether your page is ranking poorly or simply not ranking at all. That’s a distinction of critical difference.
If your page is not ranking well, that would mean there is a disconnect between how Google perceives your content and what the user is trying to find. You would want to do some more optimization in such a case. On the other hand, if this is not ranking at all, it may mean Google has not found it yet, or it just can’t index properly.
Let’s begin by using Google Search Console as a simple method to assess whether your page ranks for any keywords. Access the performance report within Google Search Console and apply a filter to isolate the results for the particular page under scrutiny.
Check if the page has gained any impressions or clicks. If it does, take notice of the keywords that belonged to the same. On the other hand, if it hasn’t, this only means it probably isn’t ranking at all yet.
Now, extend the date range of your chart to maximum. Take a look at the impressions and clicks graph over the period. Did this page receive traffic in the past, while recently it’s going down? Or it simply never has ranked for any keyword? It’s also helpful to know whether the issue is with your site as a whole, or confined to a single page or group of pages. This again can help you to start ruling in/eliminating possible causes and remedies.
Okay, let’s explore some of the technical reasons that could possibly be causing your page not to rank as well. It can include new issues, like development changes, or longer-standing problems, such as rendering issues.
First, we are going to get rid of code complications, architecture, or any other technical complications.
Crawling Blocks
For Google to rank a page, it must be able to access and interpret its content. If a page isn’t ranking, it’s possible that Google is unable to access it. Sometimes, SEO practitioners implement several techniques to prevent search engine bots from crawling certain pages. For instance, they might use the robots.txt file or password protection to block access.
It’s crucial to find out whether any of these methods have been applied to the page in question, especially if it’s unintentional. For example, if developers accidentally restore an older version of the robots.txt file, it may end up accidentally blocking the page.
Indexing Issues
If your page isn’t ranking, the problem could be one of indexing-meaning either it’s unavailable to Google to index, or Google doesn’t think it’s worthy of indexing.
The indexing status of any given page can be identified instantly with the help of Google Search Console. For this, you need to insert the URL of the page into the “Inspect page” tool. It will notify if the page is indexed by Google and also will highlight issues in crawling. Sometimes it also informs you why the page is not part of the index.
Internal Linking
Another technical problem that may hamper the ranking of a page is the linking of the page to the internal structure of the site. In fact, when a page is linked from elsewhere in the website, it tells Google that the page has some relevance to be shown to users. Without internal links pointing to the page, it can be an indication of the unimportance of the page.
Second, internally linked anchor text-such as “click here” or “view more products like this-acts like signals about the relevance of the page that the link is on, too. The absence of internal links or poor usage of anchor text may also explain why the page isn’t ranking better.
Page Speed
Over the last several years, Google has increasingly weighted signals it receives from user experience in determining the rank of a page. First among these signals is how long a page takes to load. More specifically, it looks for three critical improvements in page load speeds called Core Web Vitals: Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), Interaction to Next Paint (INP), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS).
While Google representatives have said these are secondary signals and may, in fact, only be used as a sort of “tie-breaker” when competing pages are otherwise fairly evenly matched in other ranking signals, they still have the potential to play a role in the ranking of your page versus others.
Google’s Search Liaison Explains Reasons for a Webpage’s Failure to Rank
Rendering Issues
Aside from issues related to crawl and indexing, another important signal for ranking a page could be rendering.
In essence, when a browser attempts to access a page, it must render it, transforming HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code into an interactive interface. Although Googlebot doesn’t behave exactly like a browser, it still processes and executes this code.
If anything obstructs Googlebot’s ability to render a page may fail to comprehend its content. You can use Google Search Console to check how effectively Google can render your page.
- Content-related Factors: While trying to solve ranking issues, you do have to evaluate the page for content quality. Is it useful, informative, and relevant to the query being searched? It’s not easy to pinpoint any specific content problems.
Keyword Cannibalization
Keyword cannibalization happens when too many different pages of the same website target the same keyword with similar content. This may happen because several pages about the same topic have been created with similar messaging. Indeed, it could even be more technical-for instance, when products are differentiated only in minor ways, like color or size, and a system of tagging is used.
Where Google might respond by identifying one of those page duplicates as the “canonical,” or the version that should be ranked. The fastest way to tell if a web page is the canonical, out of a set of similar pages, is via Google Search Console. It will show which URL Google considers the “canonical” via the URL inspection tool.
In cases where the canonical URL is different from the one to be inspected, that implies they are duplicates to Google. The chances of ranking well with the inspected URL, hence, become minimal since Google considers another version for ranking.
While canonical tags do give a hint to which one to consider, Google might still decide otherwise. In such instances, the selected version may have more internal links expressing its importance or it may just be better optimized than the checked URL.
Content Format
Even though your content might be informative, useful, and unique, Google would still prefer to rank a different content format. Due to this, your page struggles to rank higher in the search results. Let me give you an example. Suppose with your plumbing website, you’re trying to rank a page that talks about techniques related to waterpipe leakage. You browse for some keywords, which you think your page should rank for, such as:
- How to replace a water pipe
- Causes of waterpipe leakage
You notice that Google highlights videos in SERPs for each of these questions. So even though you have prepared good written content on the methods to fix waterpipe leakage, it may not be able to outperform these video results.
This would intimate that Google believes the users are better satisfied with videos for answers to such queries. Adding a video to your written content may give your page a better chance of competing against such video-oriented SERPs.
Searcher Intent and Relevance
Apart from the format of the content, alignment to searcher’s intent can also be a ranking factor of your page. Let’s take the example above once more: supposing you target the keyword “how to fix water pipe leakage” but your page is all about the best materials for water pipe.
Google would then understand that there is a mismatch between what the user has queried and what your page is on. That way, the users won’t get the answer they need, no matter how elaborative the information provided could be.
Similarly, if a user is searching for “cheap water pipe,” Google will not rank the page discussing how to fix water pipe leakage. It’s a commercial query and the users are ready to buy. Therefore, Google favors pages offering products over informational content.
It’s important to consider the overall structure of your page. Mixing diverse search intents—such as educational content about how to fix water pipe leakage followed by product listings—can confuse Google in determining which user needs the page addresses.
Top Competitor Content
Sometimes, you may find your page ranking very low simply because it is of low quality compared to other competitors. It may not be deep enough, or it does not adequately deliver what the user needs to know. Under such circumstances, you have to keenly analyze the top-ranked pages by Google and find out why they are better than yours.
Language
Is your webpage in a language that the searchers predominantly use in your target location? If it’s not, that could explain why you’re not ranking well, though your content is valuable.
Uniqueness Factor
While your page may answer satisfactorily in an appropriate format, it has to be uniquely different. Otherwise, why would Google rank your page for the very same thing it already has many others ranked for?
Make it special. To compete with this, add some individuality to your page by including unique features on it. Offering fresh insight or even directing users to something that is exclusive may give Google a reason to include your page in the mix of results already ranking for the topic.
Manual Action
The manual actions are penalties by Google because of serious or egregious offenses against their policies. These may also include the exclusion of a webpage or an entire website from search results in Google. The most common violations include spammy content, low-quality content, and cloaking. If your webpage violates the Spam Policies of Google, then it might fall prey to a manual action. You should go to the Manual Actions report in Google Search Console to find out if your website has any manual actions on it.
Credibility Factors: Google is heavily relying on assessing the credibility of a page to determine how useful it is to searchers and where it should rank. This assessment covers many factors.
Backlinks
As said earlier, links on your site send a feature of relevance to Google. But links off your site are way more important.
When a high-ranking website in an industry related to you links back to you, that is assurance on a human level that your content is worth reading and relevant. This external endorsement contributes significantly to your page’s credibility.
If your page isn’t performing well in rankings, it may be due to a lack of backlinks from reputable sources. Alternatively, your competitors’ pages might benefit from more endorsements from relevant, authoritative websites.
E-E-A-T Signals
E-E-A-T means “experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.” The concept is from Google’s search quality rater guidelines. Basically, it is the guideline for ranking quality on websites.
This becomes particularly very important for pages in the “your money or your life” category that stand to cause harm to a reader unless the information provided to them is proper. Examples include medical, financial, and legal advice.
For such pages, Google emphasizes the signals much more that it is created by a subject matter expert-which actually has experience in the field. Also, it considers pages on websites that are recognized authorities in the subject matter and show trustworthiness signals.
Algorithmic Factors
When a page that once ranked well starts sliding down the SERPs, it’s very tempting to point at “algorithm updates” as the cause. That’s the easy answer, and it’s a quick way to explain the situation to stakeholders without having to provide concrete evidence. Having said that, this is an excuse that only goes so far.
Even if the drop in rankings for your page coincides with a “system” update, as Google terms its algorithms these days, you still have to investigate the issue to determine how to better optimize your page and regain rankings.
You would need to rule out all other possible problems first before you can blame a system update for a fall in the rankings. It is also worth your time to study various case studies and other impact reports of other affected websites for ideas as to what you need to do to make your page more conducive to ranking well after the update that affected its ranking.
Reasons Your Website is Not Ranking in Google
Your webpage might not rank due to one great huge technical glitch or a combination of different issues that prevent its performance. Rather than rushing into making great changes, precise focus needs to be brought to the problems that can prevent it and measure the changes one after another.
You might be making things worse than they are, meaning you try to make your page more visible but accidentally cause it to drop even further down in the rankings on Google.
