One SEO professional asked John Mueller about what happens if they lose rankings for their brand name queries?
Their question was: What are the possible steps for investigation if a website owner finds their site is not ranking for their brand term anymore? And they checked everything and it does not appear to be related to any of the usual causes?
John explained that from his point of view, he would primarily focus on Google Search Console.
He would also focus on reaching out to the Google Search Central Help Community and post all of your details there.
Because this is the place where all of these escalations go, and where the product and Help forum can take a look at this, and can give you a bit more insight into what may be going on.
They can also give you their personal opinion on some topics, which may not match 100 percent what Google might say, but perhaps they’re more practical, where, while they may not be relevant to this site, but you might post something and say that your site is technically correct, and provide even more details about it.
It could also be the case that one of Google’s product experts looks at this, and says “While this may be technically correct, it’s a terrible site, and you need to get your act together and create much better content.”
From Google’s perspective, they would focus on technical correctness. But what you might really need is someone to give you that site-specific feedback.
If they are not able to figure out what’s going on there, then they also have the ability to escalate these topics to the Help forum’s community manager, and this manager can also bring things back to the Google Search team for further investigation.
If there are things that are really weird, and every now and then something really weird does happen regarding search, it’s a complex computer system, and anything can break. But, the community managers and product experts can bring that back to the Search team, and they can examine this and see if there is something they need to fix.
Or, is there something they need to tell the site owner?
But that’s how John recommends dealing with these questions: by asking for more detail in the community Help forums, and if something strange is truly amiss, then they can eventually escalate these types of questions.
This happens at approximately the 25:05 mark in the video.
John Mueller Hangout Transcript
John (Question)
What are the possible steps for investigation if a website owner finds their website is not ranking for the brand term anymore? And they checked all of the things and it doesn’t seem to be related to any of the usual things.
John (Answer)
So from my point of view, I would primarily focus on the Search Console or the Search Central Help Community, and post all of your details there. Because this is kind of the place where all of those escalations go and where the product and the Help forum, they can take a look at that, and they can give you a little bit more information.
They can also give you kind of their, their personal opinion on some of these topics, which might not match 100% what Google would say, but maybe they’re a little bit more practical. Where, for example, like, probably not relevant to this site, but you might post something and say, Well, my site is technically correct, and post all of your details.
And one of the product experts looks at it and says, Well, it might be technically correct. But it’s still a terrible website, you need to kind of get your act together and write/create some better content. And from our point of view, we would focus on technical correctness. And what you really need is someone to give you that personal feedback, almost. But anyway, in the Help forums, if you post the details of your website, with everything that you’ve been seeing, oftentimes, the product experts are able to take a look and give you some advice on specifically your website and the situation that it’s in.
And if they’re not able to kind of figure out what is happening there, they also have the ability to escalate these kind of topics to the community manager of the Help forums, and the community manager can also bring things back to the Google Search team. So if there are things that are really weird, and every now and then something really weird does happen with regards to search. It’s a complex computer system, anything can break. But the community managers and the product experts can bring that back to the search team, and they can take a look to see “is there something that we need to fix? Or is there something that we need to tell the site owner? Or is this kind of just the way that it is?” Which sometimes it is.
But that’s generally the direction that I would go for these kinds of questions. The other thing that that is kind of like subtly mentioned here, is I think, the site not ranking for its brand name. One of the things to watch out for, especially with regards to brand names, is that it can happen that you say something is your brand name, but it’s not actually a recognized term from users. For for example, you might say, I don’t know, you might call your website best computer mouse.com. And for you, that might be like what you call your business or what you call your website, best computer mouse. But when a user goes to Google and enters ‘best computer mouse,’ that doesn’t necessarily mean that they want to go directly to your website, it might be that they’re looking for a computer mouse.
And in cases like that, there might be a mismatch of what we show in the search results with what you think you would like to have shown for the search results for those queries, if it’s something more of a generic term, actually. And these kinds of things also play into kind of search results overall. The product experts see these all the time as well. And they can recognize that and say, well, actually, just because you call your website, best computer mouse.com. I hope that site doesn’t exist. But anyway, just because you call your website this, doesn’t necessarily mean it will always show on top of the search results when someone enters that query. But that’s kind of something to watch out for.
But in general, I would definitely go to the Help Forums here. And I would include all of the information that you know, that might play a role here. So if there was a manual action involved and you’re kind of, I don’t know, ashamed of that which is kind of normal. But all of this information helps the product experts to better understand your situation. And to give you something actionable that you can do, to kind of take as a next step or to understand the situation a little bit better. So the more information you can give them from the beginning, the more likely they’ll be able to help you with your problem.
