Title: Addressing Sudden Keyword Ranking Fluctuations: The Impact of Schema Markup and Technical SEO Issues
Introduction
SEO professionals and website owners often experience unexpected drops in search rankings, which can be perplexing and challenging to diagnose. Recently, a local service business encountered such a situation—a sudden decline from first or second page to the third page for multiple local keywords. This article explores the potential causes behind this abrupt change, particularly focusing on schema markup and crawling configurations, and offers insights into how technical SEO factors can influence search visibility.
Understanding the Situation
The website in question had enjoyed stable, high-ranking positions for years, primarily occupying the top spots for targeted local keywords. However, without prior warning, rankings began fluctuating between pages two and three. Notably, this decline coincided with the detection of critical schema markup issues in Google Search Console. Additionally, there were discrepancies concerning the site’s robots.txt file and multiple conflicting schema implementations.
Investigating the Root Causes
- Schema Markup Errors
Structured data plays a vital role in helping search engines understand website content. In this case, issues identified included improper or conflicting schema markup related to LocalBusiness and Review types. Having multiple sources of schema—such as a plugin and hardcoded code—can lead to inconsistencies that may hinder Google’s comprehension of the site’s data.
Action Taken:
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Removed redundant or conflicting schema code.
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Retained a single, correctly formatted JSON-LD implementation.
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Validated the schema markup using Google’s Rich Results Test, confirming no errors remain.
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Crawl Blockages and Robots.txt Configurations
Search Console also indicated that certain pages were blocked by the robots.txt file, even though the file responded with a 200 status and appeared correctly configured. Such blockages can prevent Google from indexing or properly crawling essential pages, diminishing their perceived authority.
Action Taken:
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Reviewed the robots.txt file to ensure it did not unintentionally restrict vital pages.
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Removed or adjusted blocking directives where necessary.
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Conducted a site crawl to verify accessibility and indexability of important pages.
Possible Impacts of Technical Issues on Rankings
While schema markup and robots.txt configurations are primarily technical SEO elements, they can indirectly influence rankings. For example,:
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Improper schema can prevent rich snippets, impacting click-through rates and perceived relevance.
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Crawl restrictions can limit indexability, leading to lower visibility.
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Google’s algorithms may reassess the site’s trustworthiness if they encounter persistent structural errors or accessibility issues.
Conclusion
Technical SEO factors