What does it mean for a website to be demoted? What is the reason for the website to be demoted?

A few days ago, one of the editor's websites suddenly could not be searched on Baidu, but it still appeared when searching for Site. What was going on? The editor quickly searched on Baidu and found that it had been downgraded by Baidu. Then I searched on Baidu again what did it mean to downgrade a website? What is the reason for the website to be demoted? Today, editor Dongguan SEO Feng Chao will share these with some novice friends, hoping that they will be useful to you.

What does it mean for a website to be demoted?

Website demotion refers to the lowering of the search engine's rating of a website, which is a form of punishment imposed by search engines on websites. This is usually caused by cheating on the website itself, and the error will recover after a period of time.
What is the reason for the website to be demoted?

1. Snapshot stops suddenly

If the website was normal before, and then suddenly stopped or took a long time to update, I believe many sites have experienced this situation, so be careful, this is likely a symptom of the website being demoted.

2. Keyword rankings have dropped significantly

The website's keywords have dropped sharply, suddenly falling from the front to more than ten pages or even dozens of pages. In addition, a large number of long-tail keywords that were previously on the homepage have also disappeared. This situation can basically be judged as the website's authority being downgraded, especially the performance of long-tail keywords. If the main keyword drops from the front to the second page or the first few pages, this may be a change in the algorithm.

3. A sudden drop in external links

Many webmasters have often experienced this phenomenon. When a search engine is updated, the number of external links on the website drops by thousands or even tens of thousands. This is mostly a problem with the quality of the website's external links. Of course, if it decreases by dozens or hundreds, it may be that the search engine integrates information on the Internet and deletes duplicate information. There is no need to worry about this, but if the external links drop to more than half of the normal number, then you have to be careful.

4. A large reduction in the number of records

If the number of entries for a website suddenly decreases, or the entry stops suddenly, or even only the homepage is included, then there is no doubt that the website has been demoted by the search engine.

5. Site and domain are not in the first place

This depends on the situation. If the new site or domain is not ranked first, don’t be too worried. Because the website has just been launched, its weight is relatively low, so it is normal not to be ranked first. However, if an old website used to be ranked first in site and domain, but is no longer ranked first after the update, then you should pay attention. Generally, there is something wrong with the website, but this is not absolute. But it should be enough to attract attention.

6. Searching for a website name or a specific text website is not the first

The website names mentioned here are those that are relatively unique, such as the name of a company or the name of a website. If you search for your company name or a more unique website name and your website is not the first one, it may have been demoted by the search engine. In addition, if you search for text that is unique to your website, such as phone number, address, etc., if your website is no longer ranked first, you may have been targeted.

7. If a certain situation occurs on the website, it cannot be absolutely determined that there is a problem with the website. It may also be a search problem. Therefore, we cannot arbitrarily conclude that the website has been demoted based on one phenomenon. In this case, multiple situations must be analyzed together. For a problematic website, the phenomenon it exhibits after being demoted by the search engine will never be single, so integrate the above situations and make an overall judgment. Then carefully analyze what exactly caused the demotion. Only by finding the symptoms can we prescribe the right remedy!

(1) Whether the articles on the website are plagiarized or pseudo-original and of low quality.
(2) Check whether the website of the friendly link has been downgraded. If so, revoke it immediately.
(3) Check whether most of the websites under the same IP address have been downgraded or just your own website has been downgraded (if most of the websites have been downgraded, please change the space IP address).
(4) Check whether the website has been hacked and whether you have purchased any black links.
(5) Is the content on the website repetitive? If the content on the website is repetitive, it may also lead to a demotion.
(6) Is the website updated regularly? If not, it will also lead to a demotion.
(7) Are black hat techniques used, such as keyword stuffing?
(8) Check whether the website's external links have increased or decreased significantly. Excessive spam links on the website will also lead to a demotion.
(9) Changes in search engine algorithms may also cause some websites to lose rank.
(10) If the website is revised, the URL path changes, or the website is modified too frequently, its authority will also be downgraded.

How to solve the problem of website being demoted?

1: Check robots.txt Robots.txt is the first page that search engines visit when crawling a website. When you find that your website has been penalized, the first thing to do is to check the robots.txt file. Not only does it require careful manual inspection, but webmaster tools are also needed to verify whether there are any errors that would prohibit search engines from including certain pages and directories.

2. Check websites with the same IP. Although search engines do not punish websites on the same server very strictly, if you are unlucky enough to be on the same server with a lot of spam websites or even illegal websites, then the chances of you being punished are very high. At this time, you need to use the webmaster tools to view the article collection of the website with the same IP, and select a part of it to check the inclusion and keyword ranking. If most of the website has problems, please change the host provider as soon as possible.

3. Check whether the website uses redirection code. In addition to 301 redirection, other redirections such as JS redirection may be judged as cheating. Even if you make these redirections accidentally or it is necessary, the search engine will punish you mercilessly. Therefore, if there are a large number of redirects on your website, please delete them as soon as possible.

4. Check the page META code. If the Meta code is hacked by competitors or the technical staff operates improperly, such as adding a nofollow attribute to robots.txt or adding a 301 redirect code, this is also very important.

5. Check whether there is suspicion of over-optimization. It is not advisable for webmasters to be eager for quick success when doing SEO. When being punished, pay attention to whether there is keyword accumulation on the page, whether there are excessive internal links, and whether there are too many anchor texts in the footer that are meaningless to users and are only set up for website optimization? If there is over-optimization, do not hesitate to improve it and reduce the degree of optimization. Everything has its own principle of degree, and mastering the degree of optimization is a skill that SEO personnel must master.

6. Learn to stay calm and don’t blindly modify the website. If you are sure that your website is not cheating, then when you encounter trends such as declining keyword rankings and declining inclusions, you must remain calm and not blindly modify the website. Observe for a few days or weeks first. A drop in rankings may not necessarily be a problem with our website. It may be caused by changes in the search engine's algorithm. Search engines are constantly introducing new algorithms. If the new algorithm does not meet the user experience, it is likely to be modified back, and your efforts will then be in vain.

The above six methods to solve the problem of website demotion[1] can basically solve the problem of demotion. The key is to do it carefully.

The above are some of the reasons and solutions for website demotion that I have summarized and sorted out. There is another point to keep in mind. You must pay more attention when changing friendly links. Don’t change them casually, otherwise you will end up being demoted and the loss will outweigh the gain.