We used to rank #1 for a niche keyword and I noticed that we no longer appear in the SERP. I checked Google webmaster and don't see any warnings /errors. How do I go about finding the reason for this and fixing it?
This is a very open ended question. I would need to be able to see the website in question and gain access to google webmaster tools and analytics.
I can say, if you fell entirely out of Google's results, it is a major error or you were caught doing some aggressive spamming.
If it was a minor drop, it may be normal fluctuations.
First, gather more details about the lost:
1. Is the page still indexed? (site:yourdomain.com/inner-page-if-it-applies/)
2. If still indexed, are you still somewhere between page 1 and 10?
3. Make sure you don't have a meta noindex on the page or a password, robots disallow, ip based redirection, etc. preventing the bots to crawl the page/site.
4. In Webmaster Tools, try the "Crawl > Fetch as Google" tool to see if they can read the page. If not indexed and they can read, click "submit to index".
5. Look for traffic loss correlation with Google Update (http://panguintool.barracuda-digital.co.uk/). Maybe you've been hit by Panda 4.0 or one of the "Other" updates.
6. Look at your overall organic position recent changes in SEMRush.com to confirm an overall ranking lost.
7. Look for correlation between the lost and any change made to the site in the weeks preceding the lost.
8. Look for suspicious new backlinks preceding the lost with ahrefs.com.
If you don't find your problem, send me a message with your URL and details about the steps above, it'll be a pleasure to take a look and tell you if I can help.
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