How to get out of omitted results (Google) for a relevant search term on aged domain?

[Neil23]

This is on a domain over 10 years old that 2-3 years ago was on page 1 for THE 2-word search term that describes the content.

A few years ago the domain was on page 1 for several years and then for the past 2 years, the domain has slowly dropped - first to 20+ then to 40+ and then to 100+ 3 months ago. (A disavow file has been created with some spammy niche-wide backlinks)

The hosting that it was on (moved last summer to new host but the new host was very slow) had significant speed problems (there were a LOT of domains on the server and at varying times of the day download of data in Google Search Console was high - peaking "Time spent downloading a page" peaking at over 2,000 ms. Page download speed in Google analytics was also slow(ish) this was rectified a few weeks ago.

The average download in the crawl data was over 500ms. (it is now 470ms)

Then moved hosting (to Siteground) but there was an https issue as Siteground automatically creates new migrated sites to https (and the site was displaying as http) - and Google was trying to crawl https for js etc - and the site wasn't 'mobile friendly' on Google Mobile Checker. (although it actually displayed okay on mobile phones) - the site was changed to https fully about 4 weeks ago.

The problem is that the main keyword search term is in the 'omitted results' - when Fetch and render the homepage (and also one or two updated pages) goes briefly (for a few hours) into the SERPS - either around 140 or around 170 - and then drops back into omitted results.

When I look at the backlink profile and the content, I cannot see why the site isn't ranking quite highly. It has good unique content. A REAL person with a real social presence on facebook - also from about 2 weeks ago, a Google MyBusiness Account with about 15 real legitimate reviews.

When moving hosting is it necessary to remove all content from the old server? Or witll a change of DNS suffice? (I can't see how Google or Bing can crawl any data on old server- although PowWeb did seem to retain a copy of the homepage on their server (recently discovered that and deleted it)

Any suggestions?

How to get out of omitted results?

ps... for several other 3-4 keyword phrases including the two-word words.. the site is on page 1 of Google.

 

[rozzski89]

This is on a domain over 10 years old that 2-3 years ago was on page 1 for THE 2-word search term that describes the content.

A few years ago the domain was on page 1 for several years and then for the past 2 years, the domain has slowly dropped - first to 20+ then to 40+ and then to 100+ 3 months ago. (A disavow file has been created with some spammy niche-wide backlinks)

You can get top 1 Google search result today but not mean you will get same position on tomorrow.

Disavow didn't really help you to remove spammy links though.

The hosting that it was on (moved last summer to new host but the new host was very slow) had significant speed problems (there were a LOT of domains on the server and at varying times of the day download of data in Google Search Console was high - peaking "Time spent downloading a page" peaking at over 2,000 ms. Page download speed in Google analytics was also slow(ish) this was rectified a few weeks ago.

Web page loading time is not a ranking factor but it also helps you to keep your visitors if they can see your web pages under 3 seconds.
Otherwise, they can leave your site if it loads slowly.

The average download in the crawl data was over 500ms. (it is now 470ms)

Does this matter?

Then moved hosting (to Siteground) but there was an https issue as Siteground automatically creates new migrated sites to https (and the site was displaying as http) - and Google was trying to crawl https for js etc - and the site wasn't 'mobile friendly' on Google Mobile Checker. (although it actually displayed okay on mobile phones) - the site was changed to https fully about 4 weeks ago.

I don't know what you are wanting to say in these lines.

The problem is that the main keyword search term is in the 'omitted results' - when Fetch and render the homepage (and also one or two updated pages) goes briefly (for a few hours) into the SERPS - either around 140 or around 170 - and then drops back into omitted results.

When I look at the backlink profile and the content, I cannot see why the site isn't ranking quite highly. It has good unique content. A REAL person with a real social presence on facebook - also from about 2 weeks ago, a Google MyBusiness Account with about 15 real legitimate reviews.

I don't understand you are trying to explain these things will help SEO or not.

When moving hosting is it necessary to remove all content from the old server? Or witll a change of DNS suffice? (I can't see how Google or Bing can crawl any data on old server- although PowWeb did seem to retain a copy of the homepage on their server (recently discovered that and deleted it)

Any suggestions?

Definitely when moving to a new hosting, you need to move all old content (database) to new hosting. If not, some pages could generate 404 error page on search engine and you will lose rankings/traffic for that.

 

[Neil23]

Thanks for input.

THIS is the problem... "The problem is that the main keyword search term is in the 'omitted results'" I don't expect to be on page 1 or 2 or 3 etc but WHY in the omitted results?

I don't understand why moving hosting would cause a problem with any content left behind on an old hosting server. How could these lead to 404s when the Name Servers have been changed to the new hosting - the old hosting server does not resolve any urls at all. ALL urls resolve at the new hosting.

 

[Marc van Leeuwen]

Thanks for input.

THIS is the problem... "The problem is that the main keyword search term is in the 'omitted results'" I don't expect to be on page 1 or 2 or 3 etc but WHY in the omitted results?

What are omitted results that you are seeing now? can you show a screenshot?

I don't understand why moving hosting would cause a problem with any content left behind on an old hosting server. How could these lead to 404s when the Name Servers have been changed to the new hosting - the old hosting server does not resolve any urls at all. ALL urls resolve at the new hosting.

Moving to a new hosting doesn't affect to SEO unless you did wrong configurations with new web hosting which can affect to your website run.

How could these lead to 404s when the Name Servers have been changed to the new hosting - the old hosting server does not resolve any urls at all. ALL urls resolve at the new hosting.

Can you show a screenshot with detailed error? Are you sure you change DNS completely? or old DNS records are still existing on your DNS management?
Don't know details about your problems, no one can help you out.

 

[Neil23]

I have checked the resolving of the domain on new hosting and all of the pages have been amended via the new hosting. The DNS appears to be working fully okay. Also checking DNS checker via domain whois and all is good.

The domain is on Wordpress and all uploaded and worked with the new hosting. I cannot see that there is a DNS problem.

Specifically: THE problem is that when searching for a two word search term - the website doesn't appear in the first 200 results - ie.. and appears in what are called the 'omitted results'
ie "In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 200 already displayed.
If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included."

However, when clicking Fetch and Render in Google Console the site goes back into the SERPS - around 140 - 170 for an hour or so (for this particular search term) and then goes back into Omitted Results.

The site ranks on page 1 or 2 for extended variations of thats earch term. There are many sites that don't appear to be as relevant to the search term, but these are in the top 200. This site WAS on page 1 (positions 1-2) a couple of years ago but has steadily dropped and not sure why.

Obviously, websites move up and down in the SERPS, but I wonder if there is a particular reason for this site being in omitted results - as the content and backlinks look fairly strong in comparison to other websites ranked on page 1 for example.