If you’ve just noticed your rankings have dropped and you’re panicking, that’s understandable, but panic decisions are how good websites get worse. Let me walk you through what’s actually going on and what to check, based on years of dealing with this exact problem for clients.
I’m Kieran, I run InfaCloud, and this is genuinely one of the most common calls we get. Ninety percent of the time, the fix is simpler than you think.
Is It Actually a Ranking Drop, Or Just a Bad Day?
Before we go any further, let’s rule out the obvious. Google rankings fluctuate day to day, sometimes hour to hour. What looks like a drop on Tuesday morning might be back to normal by Thursday afternoon.
Check Google Search Console rather than eyeballing it in a private browser tab. Look at the last 28 days and compare against the previous 28 days. Is there a genuine downward trend, or just normal wobble? If your average position has moved from 4 to 5 for a few keywords, that’s just Google having a think. If it’s dropped from page one to page three across the board, then yes, something’s going on.
Also worth checking: are you searching from your usual location, on a fresh browser session, with location services matching your target area? Personal search history skews results and can make it look like you’ve dropped when you haven’t.
Did Google Just Roll Out an Algorithm Update?
This is genuinely the number one cause of sudden ranking drops, and it’s the one most business owners never think of. Google rolls out major algorithm updates several times a year, and each one shuffles the rankings for millions of websites overnight.
Check Google’s official ranking updates page or Search Engine Land to see if an update landed in the last week or two. If it did, and your drop lines up with it, that’s likely your answer.
Algorithm update drops are the hardest to fix quickly because they usually reflect Google changing how it values certain content signals. Sometimes you recover naturally over a few weeks, sometimes you need to genuinely improve the affected pages. Don’t do anything drastic yet, wait for the update to fully roll out (usually 2 to 3 weeks) before deciding on action.
Have You Changed Anything On Your Website Recently?
Right, honest question. Have you? Or has someone working on it changed something?
Common culprits I see include: a new theme or design that dropped H1 tags on key pages, a redirect that got set up wrong (or removed entirely), a plugin update that broke your XML sitemap, someone accidentally ticking the “discourage search engines” box in WordPress settings, or a robots.txt file getting overwritten.
We had this exact situation with a client last year, their agency had “improved” the site and accidentally set the whole thing to noindex. Two weeks of rankings gone before anyone noticed. Always check your Search Console coverage report first if you’ve had recent site changes.
Also, if you migrated hosts or changed hosting configuration, check that everything still resolves correctly and your sitemap is submitting properly. Sites like ACM Media and Hamilton Steel Buildings stayed stable through migrations because we planned the technical side carefully, but rushed migrations are a common ranking killer.
Have Your Competitors Just Done Something Better?
This one’s often overlooked. Your rankings didn’t necessarily drop because you got worse. They might have dropped because someone else got better.
Search your target keywords manually and look at who’s now above you. Have they launched a chunky new guide? Have they built new pages targeting the exact terms you rank for? Have they picked up new backlinks?
SEO isn’t a “set and forget” job. If you stopped publishing new content or stopped updating existing pages a year ago, and your competitors kept going, then this is likely the reason. The fix is to get back to it. Publish, update, improve.
Has Your Site Slowed Down Or Broken Something Technical?
Google measures site speed and Core Web Vitals as part of ranking. If your hosting has degraded, if a new plugin is bloating the site, or if you’ve added something like a heavy chat widget or tracking script, your site speed can tank and rankings can follow.
Run your homepage and a couple of key pages through Google’s PageSpeed Insights. If your Core Web Vitals scores are red or your Largest Contentful Paint is over 4 seconds, that could be the issue.
Also check Search Console for coverage issues. Pages that used to be indexed but now show as “crawled but not indexed” or “excluded” are a big warning sign. Google might be quietly dropping content it doesn’t rate anymore.
Have You Been Hacked or Hit By Spam?
Nobody wants this to be the answer, but sometimes it is. Hacked sites often get injected with hidden spam pages, dodgy outbound links, or full redirects to gambling and pharmacy sites. Google will drop your rankings fast when it spots this.
Check your site through Google’s Safe Browsing tool. Look at your Search Console for manual actions or security issues. Run a scan through something like Wordfence or Sucuri if you’re on WordPress. If you’ve been hacked, ranking recovery is possible but requires cleaning the site properly, requesting reindexing, and (in bad cases) requesting a manual review from Google.
What Should You Actually Do Right Now?
Here’s my honest checklist in order:
Check Google Search Console for any manual actions, security issues, or coverage drops. Check for a recent algorithm update. Review any recent site changes and undo anything suspicious. Run PageSpeed Insights on your key pages. Search your keywords manually and see who’s above you. Only then start making changes.
The biggest mistake I see business owners make is panicking and doing five things at once. If you change your title tags, add new content, buy some dodgy backlinks, and update your plugins all in the same afternoon, you’ll never know which action helped or hurt when your rankings move again.
Change one thing, wait a week, measure. Change the next thing, wait a week, measure. Slow and steady wins with SEO recovery.
When To Get Someone Else Involved
If you’ve checked all of the above and still can’t figure it out, or if you’re just too close to the site to see the problem clearly, get another set of eyes on it. Sometimes a fresh perspective spots the issue in ten minutes when you’ve been staring at it for a week.
Want us to have a look at your Search Console data, contact us here.
