Your Website Has Backlinks, but Rankings Not Improving: What to Check?

You have done the hard work. You created content, got in touch with websites, and earned your backlinks. The report shows a healthy number of referring domains. However, your rankings have not changed for a while, and there is no sign of improvement. It is a devastating feeling, and it is more common than you think. One of the most common mistakes businesses make is to assume that the more backlinks, the better. In most cases, backlinks are only one of the many ranking factors. If there is an issue with any other element, increasing the number of your backlinks will not bring improvement. Luckily, most problems that can occur are easily solved. More often than not, the issue is with the website’s infrastructure, code, or internal linking. That is why a good web development company in Mumbai would always look at the larger picture and analyse the entire website, not only the backlinks profile.

In this guide, we will go over the different problems that might occur and the solutions for them, in the order of priority.

Why Backlinks Alone Do Not Influence Rankings?

Google takes into account hundreds of different signals when it decides what pages should be shown on the search engine results pages (SERPs) and in which position. The quality and relevance of your backlinks is one important aspect, but it is not the sole determining factor.

Some of the other criteria include:

• Google crawler’s ability to access and index the page.
• The relevance and quality of your content.
• The overall quality of the website and its user experience.
• The website’s trustworthiness and relevance to the specific search query.
• The content’s competitiveness and how it compares to the top results.

Backlinks are like a fuel to the engine. If there is a technical issue with the engine, adding more fuel will make it work harder but not necessarily make it go faster. That is why, before you proceed to build more backlinks, it is important to make sure that the website is not losing the potential traffic due to some other issues.

1. Check if Pages Are Indexed

Probably one of the most obvious reasons why your rankings are not improving is that the pages you are optimising are simply not indexed. You can check if a specific page is indexed by typing in site:example.com/page into the Google search engine. You can also use the search console and go through the pages in the Pages report to see if any are not indexed or have indexing issues. Another option is to utilise the URL Inspection tool in the Google Search Console to see if there are any crawl errors or indexing problems on the specific page.

The reasons why the pages might not be indexed include:

• A noindex tag that was accidentally added to the page during the development or staging process.
• The directory with the page was blocked in the robots.txt file.
• The canonical address specified on the page is set to another URL.
• The page has too little content or it is a duplicate, so it was excluded by Google.
• The interlinking structure does not allow the search engines to reach that page.

Accidentally adding a noindex tag or blocking a directory is one of the most common mistakes during the launch of a new website or after a redesign, so it is good to double-check it.

2. Review the Quality and Relevance of Your Backlinks

While quantity is important, there is no doubt that quality always beats quantity. It is completely normal for businesses to earn lower-quality links when they are growing their link building efforts. There is nothing wrong with it, but it is important to make sure that you are not focusing too much on the quantity and not checking the quality and relevance of your links.

Here are a few different criteria that you can use to review your backlink profile:

Is the domain relevant to the niche?

A backlink from a random lifestyle blog will not be as valuable as a link from a technology or business publication for a company based in Mumbai that provides IT services.

Does the linking domain have a substantial audience and authority?

A link from a high-authority website will always be more valuable than a link from a low-authority one.

Where exactly is the link placed on the linking website?

Is it a part of the main content or is it placed in the footer, sidebar or comments section?

Are there a significant number of nofollow or sponsored links among your backlinks?

They do not pass any authority, but they still contribute to your overall profile.

Does the anchor text of the links vary?

Having a diverse set of anchor texts is important for your SEO. Having too many exact-match anchors will look spammy.

Some of the red flags that might suggest that your backlink profile is weak enough to affect the rankings include:

• A sudden appearance of many low-quality, irrelevant or foreign-language backlinks.
• A significant portion of your backlinks are paid or come from directories, forums or other websites that exist solely for the purposes of SEO.
• You have many links pointing to your homepage and few linking to the inner pages.

If you decide to build more backlinks, it is important to remember that quality is much more important than quantity.

3. Check for Penalties and Manual Actions

If all of the above seems to be in order and there is no sign of improvement, it might be worth checking if Google has penalised your website in any way. The best place to start is to go to the Google Search Console, select the Security & Manual Actions tab and see if any manual actions have been applied. It is also a good idea to look at the overall traffic graph in the Search Console and see if there has been a decrease in traffic that coincides with any algorithm updates. If that is the case, it is likely that the issue is not with your backlinks, but with the overall quality of your content or website. Manual actions are rare, but they still happen, and it is always better to rule them out before proceeding to the next step. If you do encounter a manual action, it will most probably instruct you on what steps you need to take to fix the issue. In most cases, resolving it will prevent the penalty from affecting your rankings further, but it will unlikely improve them.

4. Check the Search Intent

One of the most subtle issues that can affect your rankings is the search intent. While it is almost impossible to say with certainty what the search intent for a particular query is, it is possible to guess it based on the type of content that Google shows as the top result for a given keyword. In most cases, it is a good idea to look at the first few results on Google and see what type of content is shown. Sometimes the results will be dominated by service pages, sometimes it will be product pages or blogs. After that, it is important to consider if your page offers the same type of content.

For an example, let us take a look at a business that specialises in providing web development services in Mumbai. If the top results for the query “web development company in Mumbai” are dominated by service pages, it would be beneficial to review the page and see if it is similar to the top-ranking results. While a blog post about the importance of web development can still be useful, it is unlikely to rank as high as a service page with keywords optimised throughout the content, trust signals in the form of reviews and other trustworthy signals.

5. Review the Quality of Content

While many people overlook this step, it is crucial for the improvement of rankings. No matter how many relevant and high-quality backlinks you acquire, if the content on your page is not up to standard, it will never rank as high as you want it to. The content on your page needs to be substantially better than the content on your competitors’ pages. That means that it should provide more information, have better structure and be more detailed. It is also important for the content to answer any questions that a potential customer may have. If you are unsure if the quality of your content is up to standard, it is always a good idea to ask for a second opinion. Thin content, duplicated from other sources with few changes, is one of the most common problems that lead to lower rankings. If your competitors have significantly better content than you and your page has only a few hundred words while theirs has several thousand, any amount of backlinks will make little difference.

6. Check for Cannibalisation

Cannibalisation occurs when multiple pages on your website compete for the same keyword. This leads to those pages ranking lower than they otherwise would because they effectively cancel each other out. To check if your website is experiencing cannibalisation, try typing in site:yourwebsite.com “your keyword” into the Google search engine. If you see several links to your website, it is likely that more than one page is optimised for the same keyword and that they are competing against each other. There are a few different ways to combat cannibalisation. One is to consolidate the content on two or more pages onto a single page. Another is to add 301 redirects to point some of the weaker pages to the stronger one. Lastly, you can edit the content on the weaker pages to target a different keyword.

7. Check the Website Speed

Website speed and performance are important factors that affect the rankings as well as the bottom-line results. It is necessary for the website to load quickly and not crash under pressure. Google has a set of metrics known as Core Web Vitals that it uses to determine how quickly a website responds and how favourable the experience is You can check how your website is performing in relation to these metrics using the Google PageSpeed Insights tool and the Core Web Vitals report in the Google Search Console.

Some of the website speed problems that a web development company in Mumbai can fix include:

• Large image files that take up too much space and slow down the website.
• Heavy scripts that are slowing down the website’s performance.
• Too many plugins that consume memory and CPU.
• Slow servers that take too long to respond.
• Render-blocking scripts or CSS.
• The lack of a content delivery network (CDN).

While speed is not a major ranking factor, it can be decisive in the battle for the top spot on the SERPs. It can also affect the overall performance and profitability of the website, as a slower-loading website will lose potential customers that are turned away by the poor experience.

8. Check for Mobile Usability Issues

Google uses the mobile version of the website as the basis for the indexing and ranking. This means that it is critical that the mobile version of the website is as functional and fast as the desktop version.

Some of the mobile usability issues that you can check for and fix to improve the rankings include:

• A mobile website with a different layout that makes it difficult to navigate.
• Elements on the mobile website that are too small to be tapped or read comfortably.
• Text that cannot be read without zooming.
• Website features that are not available or do not work on the mobile version.
• Pop-up windows that hide important elements of the page.

After making any changes, it is always a good idea to test the mobile version of the website on actual devices to make sure that everything is working correctly. It is also advisable to use emulators to look for any issues that may not be apparent at first glance.

9. Review the Overall Website Architecture

The value of the backlinks that you earn or purchase is determined by the weight of the linking page. This means that the most valuable backlinks will come from high-authority pages. If the website that you are linking to has a poor architecture, the value that it passes to your page will be significantly lower. One of the best ways to increase the amount of value that you receive from backlinks is to improve the architecture of your own website. The simplest way to do this is to make sure that your most popular and high-authority pages link to the pages that you want to rank. Additionally, it is always a good idea to utilise the power of interlinking to build a network of pages that support each other.

Some of the most important steps in improving your website architecture include:

• Using high-authority pages to link to your target pages.
• Making sure that the important pages on your website are close to the homepage in terms of architecture.
• Linking to related topics and building topic clusters.
• Eliminating any orphan pages.
• Removing broken links and 404 errors.
• Creating redirects where necessary.

It is always a good idea to review your website architecture from time to time and make sure that it is not inhibiting your link-building efforts.

10. Review Technical SEO Issues

There are many different technical issues that might occur on a website, and Google has a number of tools that will allow you to scan for them automatically. Some of the most important problems that you should be on the lookout for include:

• Broken pages and redirects.
• Duplicate content.
• Missing or duplicated title tags and meta description.
• Incorrect hreflang tags.
• Invalid sitemap entries.
• JavaScript issues.
• Insecure pages.
• Lack of structured data.

Some of the technical issues that your SEO company may want to fix require the intervention of a professional web developer. That is why it might be helpful to enlist the aid of a web development company in Mumbai that has expertise in both SEO and website development.

11. Check if Backlinks Are Live and Counted

It is possible that the issue with your backlinks is that some of them are not live or that they are not counted by Google. For example, the linking web page might have been taken down or redirected, and the backlinks might not be counted by Google. That is why it is important to review your list of backlinks to make sure that they are live and valid. It is also a good idea to make sure that the backlinks are not coming from noindex pages or that they are not blocked by robots.txt. You can check if the links are being picked up by Google by using the Google Search Console and the backlink checker tool of your choice. If you find that some of your backlinks have been lost, redirected or blocked, it is always a good idea to fix those issues by contacting the webmasters. Alternatively, you can install 301 redirects on the redirected or removed pages to point the traffic to new pages.

12. Review the Competition

It is entirely possible that the issue is not with your website, but with your competition. You can use a number of SEO tools to review the websites that currently rank above you and determine what they are doing better.

Some of the most important qualities that your competitors might possess and that you do not include:

• A greater number of referring domains.
• Higher-quality referring domains.
• A greater number of backlinks.
• Higher-quality backlinks.
• Better content.
• A better website architecture.
• Better trust signals such as reviews, testimonials and trust badges.
• A more extensive range of offerings.
• A more extensive range of relevant keywords optimised.
• More trust due to the company’s history and brand image.

It is always a good idea to review the competition to get an idea of what you need to improve upon to get better rankings. In some cases, especially in competitive markets such as the SEO market in Mumbai, it might be useful to adjust your strategy and focus on building trust and offering something that your competitors do not.

13. Review the Local SEO Signals

If your business is focused on a specific location and you are targeting customers that are local to that area, it will be worth your while to review your local SEO signals and strengthen them. For example, if you are a business that provides web development services in Mumbai, it would be helpful to make sure that all of your local SEO signals are in place.

Some of the most important elements of local SEO for a business in Mumbai include:

• Google Business listing that is complete and up to date.
• Contact details that are correct and consistent across directories.
• Online reviews from real customers.
• A page on the website that is dedicated to the local area and includes relevant keywords.
• The inclusion in local directories.
• Local backlinks.

While local backlinks are not always necessary – depending on the industry and the target audience – they can be a great asset in building local trust signals.

14. Be Patient and Track the Metrics

It is possible that there is no particular issue that is holding you back. It is entirely possible that the backlinks that you have built are influencing the rankings, but it takes some time for that to happen. Search engines tend to take backlinks slowly, and it can take several months of steady link-building to make a noticeable difference. As a rule of thumb, the improvements that you make will be reflected in the rankings after 3-6 months of steady work for moderately competitive keywords and a longer period of time for highly competitive keywords. You can track your progress using a number of different metrics, including the rankings, impressions, clicks and the traffic to the specific pages that you are targeting.

Quick Checklist: What to Check First

If you are looking for a shorter list of issues that you can check in order to improve your rankings, here are the most important ones:

Indexing: is the page indexed, is there a noindex tag or are the page and its location blocked?

Penalties: are there any manual actions applied in the Google Search Console?

Search intent: is the page similar to the pages that are ranking the highest?

Content quality: is the quality of the content higher than on the competing pages?

Link quality: are the links relevant and of good quality?

Cannibalisation: are there multiple pages competing for the same keyword?

Technical health: are there any issues with the speed, mobile usability or indexing?

Internal linking: is the linking structure optimal and does it pass enough authority?

Local signals: are the local trust signals in place?

Competition: are the competing websites significantly better in terms of technical performance, content quality, backlinks and brand image?

When to Bring in a Web Development Company?

If you have gone through this entire list and you still cannot identify the issue, or you have found an issue that requires the expertise of a web developer, it is time to bring in a web development company in Mumbai to take a look at what is going on.

A professional web development company can assist you with a number of different tasks, including:

• Technical and SEO auditing.
• Fixing indexing, speed and mobile usability issues.
• Improving the website architecture.
• Redirecting, eliminating or consolidating pages with poor rankings.
• Updating outdated content.
• Enhancing conversion pages.
• Assisting the link-building and link-earning efforts of your SEO department.
• Collaborating with the development and marketing teams to ensure that everyone is on the same page.

The issues that are detrimental to rankings often originate from the technical side of the website, which is why it is always best to involve a web development company as early in the process as possible. Not only will they be able to offer expert insight into the potential issues, but most of them can be resolved from the ground up, which is much more effective than trying to fix it from the SEO side of the operation.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. Why are my rankings not improving even after getting backlinks?

Backlinks are only one part of the equation. Your rankings can stagnate or fall for a variety of reasons, including technical issues with the website, the quality and relevance of the content, keyword cannibalisation, poor local SEO signals or strong competition. It is important to check all of these aspects before you proceed to build more links.

2. How long do backlinks take to improve rankings?

It can take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months for the links to begin to influence the rankings. For highly competitive keywords, it can take even longer.

3. Can bad backlinks hurt my rankings?

While Google claims that it does not take bad backlinks into account, there are certain practices that can raise concerns and might lead to a manual penalty or action.

4. Do nofollow links help SEO?

Nofollow links do not pass any authority, but they can still help with branding and building a diverse link profile.

5. How do I know if my page is indexed?

You can check if the page is indexed in a number of ways, including using the Google Search Console, the URL Inspection tool and simply typing in a query in Google.

6. Can website speed impact rankings even if I have good backlinks?

While speed alone will not influence rankings, it does play a role in the overall user experience. A fast website will have an advantage over slow websites, especially if the content on both is similar.

7. What is keyword cannibalisation?

Keyword cannibalisation happens when multiple pages on the same website compete for the same keyword, and it affects their rankings. It is usually resolved by consolidating the content on a single page or redirecting some pages to others.

8. When should I hire a web development company in Mumbai for SEO issues?

You should contact a web development company in case of any technical issues with the website that you are not able to resolve on your own, if you are looking to improve the rankings through architectural improvements or if you are considering a redesign or migration.

Final Thoughts

The quality and quantity of backlinks are important, but they are only part of the larger picture. As much as it is important to invest effort and money into link-building, it is even more important to make sure that the rest of the website is not inhibiting the efforts of the link-building team. When the rankings are stagnant, it is best to approach the issue systematically. That means starting with the basics, such as indexing and technical issues, moving on to content quality, search intent and local SEO, and finishing with a review of the competition and an analysis of the link profile. Addressing these issues in this order will typically lead to improvement in the rankings. If you have done everything that is in your power and the results are still not there, it is time to seek outside assistance.

Our agency can perform a complete technical and SEO audit, identify the issues and fix them, making sure that your link-building efforts are not wasted on an unoptimised website.