Search
The pages that bring you business are holding their position
cross.converting-page-declining
Why this matters
Most ranking changes do not matter. A page slipping two places for a term nobody converts on costs nothing, and chasing it wastes the afternoon that should have gone somewhere else. What matters is when a page that actually produces enquiries starts losing ground — because the loss compounds quietly, and by the time it shows up in the monthly figures the position has usually been going for weeks.
Who fixes it
You can, usually
Roughly how long
a day per page
Care needed
Test before and after
How to fix it
Take the worst one and find out what moved. Search its main term and look at what is above it now that was not before — usually a competitor who has published something more complete, or a Google result format that has pushed the organic block down. Then check whether you changed anything on that page in the period: a rewritten title, a removed section, a template change that dropped internal links. Because this page converts, it is worth treating as a priority rather than a task: getting the position back is usually cheaper than replacing the enquiries somewhere else.
How we score it
Failing this check takes up to 26 points off your search score. This one is a measurement rather than a fact about your markup, so two scans of an unchanged site can legitimately differ a little.
Does your site pass this one?
This check runs on every scan, along with the other 121. Free, no account, and you see the evidence for each result.
Check my siteOther search checks
- Canonical tags point somewhere validA canonical tag tells Google which address is the real one for a page. When it points somewhere wrong — another domain, a dead page, or the wrong protocol — Google follows it anyway, and the page you wanted indexed can be dropped in favour of one that does not exist.
- Content has been updated recentlySome content is meant to sit still, and age alone is not a fault. But prices, opening hours and staff pages that have not been touched in over a year are usually wrong by now — and a visitor who acts on the wrong opening hours does not come back to check whether the rest was right.
- Descriptions are a sensible lengthLong descriptions get truncated mid-sentence; very short ones waste the space you are given.
- Each page has exactly one title tagA page can only have one title. When there are several, the browser and Google each pick one — and they do not always pick the same one, so what you see in the tab may not be what appears in search.
- Each page has one main headingSeveral top-level headings makes the structure of the page ambiguous. Worth checking rather than urgent — modern HTML permits it, and Google handles it, but it usually signals that headings are being chosen for their size.
- Each search you rank for is served by one page rather than severalWhen several of your pages answer the same search, the things that decide ranking — links, engagement, relevance — are divided between them instead of accumulating on one. Google picks whichever it currently thinks is best and can change its mind week to week, and the result is that a search you should own is served by two or three pages, none of which does well. It is invisible from inside the site: every page looks fine on its own.