Author: Ryan Walsh

Date: 15/05/2025

On-page / Off-page / Technical SEO / Google algorithm updates

20-minute read | Author Ryan Walsh |

If a business’s rankings drop on Google, it can be a heart-stopping moment.

That is because businesses globally still rely on Google for some or all of their organic visitors.

For those who do not know what “organic visitors” mean, the traffic that comes via the links on Google’s results is free for a business to advertise their company. This is therefore very different from Google AdWords. You can see how many organic visitors your business receives using your Google Analytics account.

But we have seen a sharp decrease in organic traffic- what could be causing this?

Therefore, this could be because of technical gremlins plaguing the site, such as no-index tabs being left on.

We are a helpful bunch here at Walsh & Partners, so we highlighted some common issues that could be causing a decrease in organic traffic and how to fix such a problem.

 

Be quick

You need to have your fingers on the pulse and use the best SEO tools to spot organic traffic declines.

Also use Google Analytics as well as Google Search Console- these are a must, and also we recommend using a paid marketing tool as well so that you have as much SEO data as possible.

Various agencies use tools, such as SemRush, Ahrefs and Moz, all of which are good- well really good in matter of fact.

What you find with the leading agencies, the best in the world, is that we use a combination of as many tools as possible.

 

How to monitor Google ranking drops?

You need to keep your finger on the pulse (its worth saying this twice).

Businesses sometimes have persistent issues which don’t get fixed for some time. For example, a lot of “content-thin” pages, these can basically negatively effect your businesses organic SEO.

 

Instead be an expert

So, whether you sell plastic buckets or hyper cars online you need to show you’re an expert at what you do. So, you need quality links and the best content marketing. Think about Google EEAT whenever writing new content marketing or improving existing content.

 

Keep up to date

Keep a careful eye on the news, for example, Search Engine Land is a fantastic website for gaining the latest SEO news. Another favourite of ours is Moz, checkout the Moz blog another great place to gain SEO advice and news from.

 

Organic traffic declines- what you should do

If organic traffic falls off a cliff or shows a trend of decline overtime, then this obviously should be a significant concern.
You should take action and improve your organic SEO and the various ranking factors. Try not to be rash, don’t make sudden changes, instead come up with a plan, then implement slowly. Record your changes, plus then monitor results each month.

 

Don’t be afraid to change direction

If something is not working don’t keep doing it. Instead, regroup, strategies with your marketing team and come up with a new plan. If somethings not working, not fixing the issue, or the decline in organic traffic gets worse, then this is sign you need to come up with a better marketing strategy.

That sounds like commonsense right?

Well, sometimes businesses keep striking with the same hammer, doing the same things to there SEO making the problem worse. Such as for example, they may keep writing “content thin” content marketing add adding it, yet this could be issue that is causing lower organic traffic in the first place.

 

Don’t panic during “ranking flux”

We will come to this point later in more depth in this article, but it is a prevalent issue, a prevalent trap that some businesses find themselves in.

During ranking flux, (when Google is rolling out an update) a business panics, then they start making sudden changes to say the on-page SEO. This is ill-advised; this is not the way to go, as sudden changes can exacerbate a developing problem.
It’s like changing multiple car parts, without knowing and diagnosing exactly what the issue is.

 

Google Search Console Performance

Your Google Search Console account is essential to any-sized business, it provides important data on how well your businesses marketing is working.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a sole trader or running a multibillion-pound business, your GSC account is critical.

 

Your Google Search Console account can tell you the following:

• Keyword and average position information
• List of linking incoming backlinks
• Number of clicks
• And much more

 

What is causing the Google rankings drop (deep breaths are needed)

So, first things first, and we can’t over emphasise this enough, during a Google algorithm update, you must sit tight and see if it’s just “ranking flux” come to an end.

Then at the end of the update, you can work out what caused the website to move up or down. But first let the Google algorthim update come to an end.

Let’s walk you through some scenarios, plus what we think you should be doing about it:

 

Google algorithm updates and Google penalties.

Google penalties, you may have heard about Google Panda, Penguin and the Helpful Content Update- they’re all-important Google updates?

These basically act like filters, just as filters in your hoover aim to trap dust and bits floating around your living room, Google’s algorithm works similarly. Google wants to filter out spam.

 

Google core updates

Google core updates can sometimes cause massive and sometimes lasting flux. When we say lasting, from our personal experience, we have seen rollouts causing keyword positions to fluctuate, that’s moving about, for around 3 weeks.

Sometimes the flux lasts hours or a few days. Again, don’t panic; go to Search Engine Land and Google around to see if other businesses are experiencing the same issue. Sometimes Google gives early notice that a rollout is underway or about to roll out. However, at the time of writing in 2025, we would have to say that there’s often no prior notice to many Google updates before they roll out.

Google, we think here at Walsh & Partners is testing and rolling out more updates than ever before.

Why?

Well, because of AI, it’s shaking everything up and changing how Google works.

Has my website received a Google manual penalty?

If you believe the drop in rankings and organic traffic is so severe that you may have received a penalty, you should consult an expert. This may only require a few hours to diagnose. However, it’s essential to be sure whether or not a Google penalty is in place.

You can also run a quick check yourself, go into your Google Search Console dashboard and have a look to see if a manual action penalty has been placed on the website by checking the relevant tab. If so, Google should offer some advice on what caused the penalty to be issued, for example, was it a link penalty?

Alternatively, algorithmic penalties are penalties that Google issues without any warning or alerts; you should use the help of an expert to diagnose these. For example, they may conclude that an influx of spam incoming links, corresponding with a drop off in organic traffic shortly after, means Google applied a link penalty to the website. A strategy then needs to be put into place to fix this.

 

What can cause a loss in organic traffic?

Hosting and website downtime

Hosting can go offline for all sorts of reasons. However, from a search engine optimisation perspective, you want it be fixed as soon as possible. Downtime causes “Googlebot”, the bot Google uses to “crawl and index” your website, to notice your website is offline.

If your website is offline for a long time, it gets deemed unreliable. By clicking on your business in the SERP, anyone wanting to purchase that product or service from you will just be greeted by an error code.

That could be 404 or, more likely, a hosting/server error code.

Meanwhile, that doesn’t help the person who wants to buy a product or a service from you.

So your business eventually, well, in the worst-case scenario, gets “de-indexed” as it’s offline for so long.

If your business is offline for a short period, Google could just lower your business by a few places in the organic SERP’s.

 

Technical issues can cause significant effects on your rankings

 

Not being indexed

We have experience of on working on websites, where the previous marketing/web design business has been publishing content marketing for an extended period. This was aimed at improving the rankings and search engine optimisation.

However, in Google Search Console, those pages show that they could not get indexed (no-index tab or orphan pages). The pages were not appearing in the SERP’s therefore were not improving the companies SEO at all. Customers or shoppers could not access them, and writing them was a waste of time until they could get indexed.

For some unknown reason, perhaps better detection by Google and other search engines, we see more websites with indexation issues.

You can check whether your website has any indexation issues, by checking your Google Search Console account.

Indexation issues again can be caused by a whole host of reasons and problems, ranging from a no-index tag being left on to other reasons, such as the hosting being off for an extended period.

 

Over-optimisation issues

This feeds into our earlier point, when we talked about Google penalties, or penalties that other search engines could apply.

So, over optimisation issues are more common than you may think. A business or a marketing company is simply trying too hard to optimise the website, either with on-page or off-page SEO.

Let’s give you an example, “link velocity.”

This means if you build too many links too fast, it can look like you have purchased those backlinks.

Google most definitely does not want you to buy links.

Therefore, building links too fast can cause a penalty.

 

Bounce rate is super high.

It could be that the bounce rate is impacting your conversion rates and sales rather than a Google algorithm or a manual penalty.

If the bounce rate is super high, something may need to change with, say, the websites design or the user experience. For example, the website could be slow, leading to shoppers just getting annoyed and leaving the website.

Sometimes, the bounce rate is caused by the design not being logical, its hard therefore for shoppers to get to the product they want to buy.

This can mean a loss in revenue, and shoppers may find the website hard to use, causing a negative user experience, which constitutes higher bounce rates.

Some businesses, such as large online retailers, spend millions per year refining and improving the user experience.

The reason is to increase sales, increase dwell times and lower bounce rates. This is why web developers, UX designers, and SEO agencies globally all use “split testing” and gradually improve the design to enhance customer experience.

 

Backlink issues

So, we have mentioned this earlier.

However, it’s worth mentioning again. We think one of the most significant reasons why businesses globally can see a sharp decline in their organic traffic is often due to the business building spam links.

On top of that, there are also “negative SEO attacks” where a business can build spam links to damage a competitor’s SEO.

This aims to affect a competitor’s ranking by building spam links against that website. This is obviously against the law, as it can damage a business’s marketing. However, it does go on, and this is why companies need to be vigilant and make sure that they check the health of their backlinks regularly. If there are spam links, then you will need to take action.

 

Introduction of AI

It could be that your company’s digital marketing is as strong as ever.

However, your business could be directly affected by “zero-click searches” caused by Google AI Overviews.

With the introduction of Google AI Overviews, more and more companies may notice that their organic traffic is decreasing.

That’s often because the shopper, instead of clicking on your website, has their answer answered directly within the SERP.

This leads to fewer visitors coming to the website. Therefore, there are fewer shoppers.

 

Content marketing

Many businesses may not incur a Google Penalty, but they may notice that their organic rankings have decreased and fewer visitors are coming to their website.

What could be causing this is that the content marketing is “content thin”.

There was a significant Google update called the “Google Helpful Content Update”.

Also, you must keep Google E-EAT in mind when writing content marketing.
Google is looking for content marketing that shows the authors experience, their expertise in terms of what they are writing about, the authority and trustworthiness of the work.

Now, if a page is “content thin, ” this often means that it does not offer much helpful information. It’s a bit vague and does not offer useful information.

Now, Google doesn’t want these pages on the first page. What happens, therefore, is that the helpful pages, which are more useful, are the pages that get ranked on page one of Google.

 

Are your backlinks strong enough?

Businesses might have been building better backlinks for some time; however, it’s after a major Google update that the reshuffling of businesses often happens.

Businesses that are more often have stronger backlinks will then rank higher.

Pushing companies with weaker links down Googles ranks.

Links are still a very important ranking factor that Google uses as one way to work out where your business should rank in the organic results.

Come to the experts in Cardiff.

Google updates are now becoming commonplace, almost as regular as clockwork. Therefore, you need an agency with its finger on the pulse to help you improve your organic SEO.

Ryan Walsh runs the business and is one of the best SEO experts in whole of Cardiff.

Contact us for a free quote.