A 5 stage problem solving cycle approach to identifying core algorithm update impact & key actions to recover from its search visibility loss 1) Identify what exactly is the problem 2) followed by the root causes and general causes of why they occur 3) we then find the best appropriate, speedy solution by impact/value 4) implementing the changes 5) rinse and repeat (re-examine or re-evaluate)

1. @Khushal
Identifying core-algorithm impact &
key actions to recover from its search
visibility loss
SMX London | Khushal Khan

2. @Khushal
Senior SEO Consultant
KHUSHAL KHAN

3. @Khushal
How do you recover from SEO
visibility drop?

4. @Khushal
The Problem
Solving
Cycle
1
2
34
5

5. @Khushal
1. Identifying the problem

6. @Khushal
Most common indicators:
● Organic traffic/conversions going down
● Google Search Console shows similar
trend?
○ is the drop more than normal?
○ is the decline consistent?
○ compare traffic/clicks over similar
duration pre & post drop

7. @Khushal
Site Region Sessions (Pre-Update) Sessions (Post-Update) Traffic Loss % Change
.com 840,723 588,099 -252,624 -30%
- UK 502,066 390,604 -111,462 -22%
- US 127,098 65,353 -61,745 -49%
- AU 76,463 42,434 -34,029 -45%
- FR 54,586 37,197 -17,389 -32%
- DE 44,681 29,613 -15,068 -34%
- NZ 15,835 9,786 -6,049 -38%
- IE 14,497 8,726 -5,771 -40%
- CA 12,090 8,330 -3,760 -31%
- UAE 12,788 9,860 -2,928 -23%
Page Sessions (Pre-Update) Sessions (Post-Update) Difference % Change
/landing-page1 35,587 21,384 -14,203 -40%
/landing-page2 38,433 25,912 -12,521 -33%
/landing-page3 54,432 43,918 -10,514 -19%
/landing-page4 17,478 10,023 -7,455 -43%
/landing-page5 17,496 10,273 -7,223 -41%
/landing-page6 13,052 6,886 -6,166 -47%
/landing-page7 12,150 7,503 -4,647 -38%
/landing-page8 5,380 842 -4,538 -84%
/landing-page9 3,991 1,204 -2,787 -70%
/landing-page10 4,489 1,761 -2,728 -61%
/landing-page11 4,462 1,797 -2,665 -60%
/landing-page12 7,473 4,953 -2,520 -34%
/landing-page13 2,791 336 -2,455 -88%
/landing-page14 3,992 1,646 -2,346 -59%
/landing-page15 3,323 1,085 -2,238 -67%
/landing-page16 6,641 4,463 -2,178 -33%
/landing-page17 6,113 3,940 -2,173 -36%
/landing-page18 5,644 3,473 -2,171 -38%
/landing-page19 5,082 3,206 -1,876 -37%
/landing-page20 6,062 4,247 -1,815 -30%
/landing-page21 2,834 1,271 -1,563 -55%
/landing-page22 6,543 5,005 -1,538 -24%
/landing-page23 4,155 2,700 -1,455 -35%
/landing-page24 3,179 1,752 -1,427 -45%
/landing-page25 3,381 1,976 -1,405 -42%

8. @Khushal

9. @Khushal
Most common indicators:
● Important keywords are dropping in
ranking
○ drop in rankings for relevant & high demand
keywords?
○ is the decline consistent?
○ compare trend over similar duration pre &
post drop

10. @Khushal

11. @Khushal
2. Determine the causes

12. @Khushal
Ruling out the issues still in our control
● Website/CMS migration gone wrong?
Read: Recovering from a faulty web site migration by Aleyda Solis - https://bit.ly/1Xwy59m

13. @Khushal
Ruling out the issues still in our control
● did you pull a LinkedIn? make any
technical, structural, URL change?
○ URL structure changes
○ Faulty canonicals e.g. staging URL
○ Hreflangs incorrectly setup
○ GSC Site removal tool
○ Blocked crawlers in robots.txt
Reverse & use best practices
○ CMS forced new settings
○ Set to noindex
○ HTML structure changed
○ Hosting issues
○ Faulty redirects or loops

14. @Khushal
Ruling out the issues still in our control
● Links lost?
○ Identify
○ Attempt to regain
○ Rebuild

15. @Khushal
Moving to issues we can partially manage
● Manual link penalty?
• Comprehensive Link Audit
• Link Spam Identification > Disavow (use with caution)
• Reconsideration request

16. @Khushal
Moving to issues we can partially manage
● Google Algorithm update?

17. @Khushal
● Search Visibility dropped around
algorithm update?

18. @Khushal
● Drop in Users/Sessions in line with update?

19. @Khushal
● Impact on top performing content?

20. @Khushal
Most significant search visibility
loss often coincides with a Core
Algorithm update, if you’ve been following the best practices!

21. @Khushal
Competitor’s upping their overall game
● Issues we can learn from and evolve
Case Study - 2009 vs 2019 SEO - Hometogo vs Airbnb in Germany https://bit.ly/2EI8lCY

22. @Khushal
3. Finding the best solution
that improves website performance for every scenario!

23. @Khushal
SERoundtable: Google March 2019 Core Algorithm Update - Survey https://bit.ly/2kCalGE

24. @Khushal
Google Ranking Factors 2019 Survey

25. @Khushal
Survey by SparkToro - https://bit.ly/2lvoDJk
Google Ranking
Factors Survey 2019
● Content > links & keywords
● Mobile friendliness & page
speed are bigger than
expected
● Amount of content & age
are still crucial factors to
how site/content is ranked

26. @Khushal
Quality Raters Guidelines
Last Updated: December 5, 2019
TL;DR: 5 takeaways from changes to QRG between May 2019 & Sept 2019 https://bit.ly/2m7p6ln

27. @Khushal
Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness (E-A-T)
The QRG document mentions E-A-T elements a total of 160 times
Note*: Quality Raters Guidelines is only a benchmark used by real humans for improving algorithm only
Expertise 96 times
Authoritativeness 52 times
Trustworthiness 12 times

28. @Khushal
Classify by impact
Content
Technical
Links
Prioritise by value

29. @Khushal
Attack it from all the angles
Don’t just “a little SEO” it.

30. @Khushal
It's an all or nothing commitment. Doing "a little
SEO" is the same as doing none at all.
It's now an operational commitment &
discipline no longer a growth hack.
@JHTScherck

31. @Khushal
4. Implement the changes

32. @Khushal
You can win If you implement the
recommendations…FAST
● Good results come from working collectively with the wider team &
speedy/timely execution
● Your race with your search competitors is also about the SPEED, not only
on product/price/market share etc.

33. @Khushal
SEO is an execution problem, not a knowledge
problem.
The best SEOs have the resources and back-up
to get things done. They don’t know something
others don’t.
Kevin Indig

34. @Khushal
and YES, core update losses can
be recovered

35. @Khushal
IT
TAKES TIME
….
BUT WORTH
IT

36. @Khushal
5. Re-examine & evaluate

37. @Khushal
Don’t stop

38. @Khushal
Future proof your site for core
algorithm updates
Must Read: LILY RAY – Future-Proof Your Site For Google Core Algorithm Updates

39. @Khushal
Case Study

40. @Khushal
47% - 62% organic visibility drop after Core Algorithm
Update March 2018 until Medic update 2018

41. @Khushal
Our approach
● Comprehensive impact assessment
● Technical Audit & opportunities
● Content Audit, opportunities & prioritised list of
actions
● Link analysis & recommendations

42. @Khushal
Tech
priority
actions
1. Help content discovered by improving navigation structure and
internal search results for informational/editorial content
2. Reduce index bloat noindex, nofollow on extended filtered facet
pages with multiple filters
3. Schema mark-up – authorship, products, breadcrumb, editorial
content schema, trust & reviews
4. Fix internal broken links by pointing them to correct versions
5. Fix pages with:
• Duplicate/missing titles & meta descriptions
• Duplicate content
6. Fix HREFLANGS / Clean up XML Sitemaps from
• with noindex
• canonicalized pages
• Broken or redirected URLs
7. Add ALT text to product images to capitalise on images traffic

43. @Khushal
Content
priority
actions
1. Produce content filling the gap around highly sought after topics
around the brands focusing on Expertise-Authority-Trust.
2. Split content density by forming micro topical hubs to make
content more specific – this worked well for winning competitors
3. Author bio pages to be made content rich with biographical
information, links to their professional memberships, social media
and areas of expertise.
4. Category pages required more depth mainly on category pages to
increase the topical relevance and user intent
5. Internal linking for content on category/product pages need an
enhanced internal linking strategy to other categories of the
website
6. Repurpose & update popular content - repurposed for 2019/20
trends, & reproduce (trans-localise) in regional languages

44. @Khushal
After only content optimisations/production
& minimal tech changes...

45. @Khushal
Full recovery in 11 months…38%+ further increase
after recovery

46. @Khushal
What we could have done to make it even
better…
● Prioritized by value/long term impact – should’ve started from content
● Not stop trying after a few attempts to get involvement & buy-in from
wider team e.g. Ecomm/PR
● Utilise a massive pool of experts within the niche at the brand’s disposal
to help enrich/review/feedback editorial content
● Focused on branded and not only on commercial/editorial
It’s part of this year strategy

47. @Khushal
Share these #SMXInsights on your social channels!
• If you’ve dropped in organic visibility, rule out the technical,
structural, URL changes before assuming it’s algorithmic
• Prioritise recommendations by value/long term impact
• Utilise available experts as opposed to Marketing team to
improve content quality and E-A-T

48. @Khushal
Thank you!
kkhan@resignal.com
www.resignal.com
@khushal