Lost and New Keywords – Why Finding Them Matters for SEO

Identifying lost and new keywords matters for sustainable SEO practices. It’s a long-term, ongoing process of measuring content performance and optimizing it. Lost keywords tell you against which search terms your website content is losing ranking. If you find them early and understand why they dropped, you can take action to reclaim those rankings before losing a considerable amount of traffic. 

New keywords, on the other hand, point to growth opportunities. You can double down with optimization or new content to capture traffic by identifying queries where your site is newly visible. Together, these metrics ensure you’re aware of both the setbacks and the forward momentum in your SEO efforts.

Here, I will explain what they are, why they matter, and what causes keywords to get lost. 

What are Lost Keywords?

Lost keywords are search queries that your website used to rank for within the 100th position in Google but no longer does (or ranks so low that it’s considered lost). At one point, your site appeared in Google’s results for those keywords. But now it has dropped out of the top results. 

You can also define “lost” keywords as those a domain previously ranked in the top 100 for, but now ranks nowhere in the top 100​. 

When you lose a keyword ranking, you lose the visibility in SERPs and traffic generated by it. If a high-traffic keyword slips from page 1 of Google to page 2 or beyond, the impact can be dramatic. 

Remember, page 1 results capture about 92% of search traffic, whereas page 2 results get only around 5%​. 

For example, imagine an online store that used to rank #1 for “men’s wear.” If a competitor overtakes them and they drop to page 2, they’d see a noticeable drop in visitors for that term. This might lead them to lose out on online sales as well. Losing many keywords can snowball into a significant overall traffic decline and lower search visibility for your business.

What are New Keywords?

Z drugiej strony, new keywords present search intent that your website has recently started ranking for. These could be keywords you never ranked for in the past, but now your content appears in the search results.

These new keywords can also be looked at as those now ranking in the top 100 that the domain didn’t rank for in the previous period​. 

You can claim them to be fresh opportunities for traffic growth. With each new keyword, a new path opens through which users can find your site. New keywords often appear when you publish Nowa treść (e.g., a blog post targeting a topic you haven’t covered before) or when search engines start to associate your site with additional topics. 

They can also appear when changes in user behavior or trends occur.  An example would be a sudden surge in a trendy search term that your content happens to match.

Look at it this way. A fitness company notices a rising search trend for “10-minute home workouts.” Sensing an opportunity, they created a blog series and videos around quick home workouts. Within weeks, their content starts ranking for terms like “quick home workout for beginners”, new keywords they never ranked for previously.

This helps them capture new traffic from people searching those keywords, boosting their visibility and customer reach. By identifying and targeting new keywords, the brand tapped into a growing interest and improved its search rankings and visibility. 

Why Finding Lost and New Keywords Matter

Tracking and managing lost and new keywords plays a key role in ensuring long-term SEO success. Many professionals monitor their rankings but overlook the keywords that have dropped off​. These “lost” keywords often signal where your traffic is falling, while new keywords point to fresh opportunities for growth​.

Regaining Lost Traffic

When important keywords slip away, your organic traffic and visibility suffer. HubSpot’s blog saw the number of its top-3 ranking keywords plunge by 78% (from about 138,000 down to 30,000) in one year​. This loss of rankings corresponded with roughly a 60% drop in the blog’s organic traffic​.

In such cases, the traffic doesn’t just vanish; it moves to competitors who fill the gap. As one SEO expert noted about HubSpot’s decline, “this traffic hasn’t evaporated. It just moved to the other websites that filled the gaps”​.

Recovering lost rankings (by updating content, fixing technical issues, or building links) is critical to win back those visitors before your rivals cement their hold on them. Businesses that act quickly can stem a traffic free-fall.

DILO remedied issues and reclaimed its high-value keywords and saw a 36% increase in organic clicks within 6 months of recovery​, illustrating the importance of recapturing lost terms.

Capitalizing on New Opportunities

Searching and identifying nowy keywords helps create new ways to attract online visitors. There are always emerging queries and topics that no one was searching for yesterday. Optimizing your website content for these new terms can add more organic traffic that your site wasn’t getting before.

If you identify the keywords early and create relevant content, you can tap into search demand that’s on the rise. To promote their new Civic hatchback and Accord models to South American audiences, Honda looked at revamping their SEO tactics and created new keyword targets to follow. It resulted in a 40% increase in dealer inquiries and a 200% increase in traffic. 

Adding new keywords to your SEO plans allows for fresh, engaging posts and can help zoptymalizować istniejącą treść. It especially benefits sites looking to update their content library.

Developing a Long-Term SEO Strategy

Lost and new keywords provide invaluable direction for your long-term SEO and content strategy. You need to continuously track keywords so that you can adapt to search engine updates. Google’s algorithms update constantly, which can cause your rankings to fluctuate even if user interest remains the same. 

A sudden loss of many keywords (or a big rankings drop) can be an early warning of an algorithm change or a site issue. In fact, your keyword rankings often provide the first indication of a problem with your SEO. 

If, for example, a Google core update rolls out and several of your keywords drop from page one to page two, you’ll spot that decline in your “lost keywords” data before you get an official word of the update. You can immediately start diagnosing the cause. Maybe Google is favoring fresher content or a different content format. 

Getting the Competitive Advantage

Lost and new keywords also help you stay ahead of the competition. Every time you lose a keyword ranking, a competitor will take your SERP spot. If you’re not watching your rankings, you might not notice when a rival’s content leapfrogs yours until it’s too late. The competitors will replace you and start drawing clicks away from you. 

As the founder of Search Engine Journal puts it, there’s never a point when you can “sit back and relax” with SEO rankings – if you reach the top, you must work to stay there. 

Being the first to create content around a rising query means you can start ranking before others even realize the opportunity. If you spot your content ranking against a hot topic that is gaining search volume (for example, a sudden spike in “AI product marketing” searches or a new product name in your industry), you can publish optimized content while your competitors are still oblivious.

By the time they catch up, your site could already be the authoritative source, making it harder for them to overtake you.

Data-Driven Decision-Making

A clear picture of which keywords are performing and which aren’t helps you allocate resources effectively. You can concentrate paid campaigns, content investments, and link-building efforts around the opportunities with the highest potential return.

Demonstrating how keyword gains or losses affect site visibility, lead generation, and revenue can help stakeholders understand the value of SEO. Data on lost and new keywords becomes a crucial KPI for continuous performance tracking.

SEO success involves persistent growth, where you not only fight to keep existing keyword positions but also look for fresh angles and emerging markets. Tracking new and lost keywords ensures you maintain a forward-thinking and adaptable strategy, feeding into your decisions. 

Causes for losing keywords

It’s important to understand Dlaczego keywords get lost in the first place. Here are some common reasons websites lose keyword rankings:

Google Algorithm Updates: 

Major Google updates (like core updates) can shuffle rankings overnight. If Google changes how it evaluates content quality or relevance, pages that once ranked well might suddenly drop. For example, an update might reward sites with better expertise or fresh content, causing older or less authoritative pages to lose rankings.

Increased Competition: 

If a competitor publishes new, superior content targeting a keyword you rank for, or a bunch of new competitors enter your niche, you can lose ground. Competitors might build more backlinks, create longer or more useful content, or target new angles that better satisfy search intent. As they move up, your ranking can slip.

Content Decay or Outdated Content: 

Over time, content can become stale or less relevant, a phenomenon sometimes called “content decay.” If your page hasn’t been updated in a long time, it may not satisfy searchers as well as it once did. Information can become outdated, and newer content elsewhere might provide more up-to-date answers. Additionally, user search intent for a keyword can shift. 

For instance, a few years ago, people searching for a term might have wanted basic info, but now they expect the latest tips or trends. If your content doesn’t meet the current intent, it can lose rankings.

On-Page SEO Issues: 

Internal website or webpage issues can also make you lose ranking. Maybe your title tag isn’t as optimized as it could be, or you accidentally changed it to something less relevant. Perhaps the page isn’t targeting the keyword anymore (e.g., you edited the content and removed important keyword mentions or headings). 

Meta tags, headings, and keyword usage still matter. If they get out of sync with the keyword, Google might downgrade the page’s relevance. Another on-page issue could be duplicate content. Do you have multiple pages targeting similar terms? They could be cannibalizing each other. Or maybe you added a bunch of ads or pop-ups that hurt user experience and Google’s page experience signals.

Technical SEO problems: Technical issues can silently undermine your rankings.

• Crawl/Indexing errors: If a page gets accidentally nonindexed or blocked by robots.txt, it will vanish from search results. Sometimes, after site changes or migrations, important pages might not be crawled properly (for example, a removed internal link means Google can’t reach that page easily).
• Site speed and performance: A sudden drop in site speed or the page failing Core Web Vitals could impact rankings. Google wants to serve fast, user-friendly pages. If your page becomes sluggish or unstable, it could lose favor.
• Mobile usability issues: If the page isn’t mobile-friendly or has new mobile errors, and most users search on mobile, Google may rank it lower in mobile search.
• Broken links or media: If your page has broken images, broken outbound links, or other errors, it can hurt the user experience and indirectly affect rankings.
• Structured data errors: If you had rich results and your schema broke, you might lose those enhanced SERP listings, which can reduce your CTR and, eventually your ranking.
• Server or availability issues: If Google tried crawling and your site was down or throwing errors, it might temporarily drop your rankings if the issue persists..
  

Manual Penalties or Spam Issues: 

Meeting Google’s webmaster guidelines (now Google Search Essentials) is a must for any site.  If it does not, you could receive a manual action that demotes or removes your pages from the results. Keyword stuffing, cloaking, sneaky redirects, or having thin, low-value content can trigger penalties​

Changes in SERP Features: 

You can also lose traffic for a keyword because the search results page has changed. For example, Google might introduce a new featured snippet, local map pack, or video carousel that pushes organic listings down. 

Or maybe a competitor grabbed the Featured Snippet for a query you used to get a lot of clicks from, meaning even if you’re technically still ranking #1 organic, the snippet steals the click. If your click-through rate drops due to such changes, your ranking might eventually follow.

Content Removal or Site Changes: 

Removing or consolidating pages, intentionally or accidentally, might lead to losing the keywords those pages were ranking for. For example, if you delete a page that was ranking, obviously, you lose those keywords. Unless you properly redirect it, another page will take over. 

A site redesign or CMS change can also cause unexpected losses. URLs might change, or content might shift, causing temporary drops if not managed well. 

How do you fix lost keywords?

Losing keyword rankings can be painful, but the good news is you can often recover lost keywords with a strategic approach. 

You need to first identify which keywords and pages lost rankings. Then, you should diagnose the cause of the drop. Once you know the culprits for the drop, improve and update your content. 

Additionally, you must optimize on-page SEO and UX factors. Besides that, rebuild authority with backlinks. 

After implementing fixes, give search engines some time to re-crawl your site and re-evaluate. Continuously monitor your keyword rankings (via your rank tracking tool or Search Console). If you see improvements, great, keep the momentum by maintaining the content quality. If not, rework your strategy and implement. 

How do you find new keywords?

Improving lost keywords requires one type of strategy and process. Finding new ones needs another.

One of the quickest ways to find new opportunities is to see what keywords your competitors rank for that you don’t. SEO tools like GetGenie, Ahrefs, Semrush, or Moz have features (often called “Luka w treści” or “Competitor Keyword” analysis) where you input your site and competitors’ sites to get a list of keywords your competitors rank for that your site is missing. 

Another way is to use your own data to reveal new keywords you’re starting to get impressions or clicks for. In Google Search Console, check the Performance report and sort queries by impressions. You might find queries that are new or that you had few impressions for in the past but are rising now.

You can also explore niche forums, Q&A sites, and social media for trending keywords in your niche. Browse platforms like Reddit, Quora, Stack Exchange, or industry-specific forums related to your niche. Look at the questions people ask or the topics that keep coming up. These often contain long-tail keywords or problem statements you can target.

Best tools to find lost & new keywords

There are excellent tools (both free and paid) that can help you monitor your rankings, discover new opportunities, and catch drops in performance. Here are some of the best tools for the job:

Narzędzie	Typ	Opis
Konsola wyszukiwania Google	Bezpłatny	Tracks SEO health, providing an accurate source of information on search queries and their rankings. It helps identify lost keywords and uncover emerging ones by comparing date ranges in the Performance report.
Ahrefs	Paid	toolset known for its robust keyword tracking and site explorer features. It allows users to see all the keywords their site ranks for and filter them by “newly ranked” or “lost.” The tool maintains historical data, alerting users of new or lost keywords for their site.
Semrush	Paid	Platform for keyword and competition analysis, offering a Position Changes report that allows users to filter keywords by “New”, “Lost”, “Improved”, or “Declined” keywords for any domain. It also has a Keyword Gap tool to compare sites against competitors and find missing keywords. Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool helps discover related terms and niches not yet targeted.
Moz Pro	Freemium	Includes a Rank Tracker and Keyword Explorer, which can monitor keywords and report on any drops or gains. While not as extensive as Ahrefs/Semrush in terms of database size, Moz’s strength lies in its user-friendly interface and metrics like “Priority” that help identify which keywords are worth focusing on.
Google Analytics	Bezpłatny	Useful for identifying pages with traffic drops and identifying keywords tied to those pages. It also shows traffic trends that can correlate with keyword changes.
Other popular names: Ubersuggest, AnswerThePublic, Google Trends, KeywordTool.io, SE Ranking, AccuRanker, SERPWatcher, etc.

Podsumowanie

Don’t panic when you lose keywords; investigate and improve. Always look for the next keyword opportunity. You can always use the numerous SEO tools out there to gather data and insights. 

Most importantly, focus on delivering the best content and experience for the keywords you target, whether old or new. If you consistently provide value to online searchers, you’ll stand the test of algorithm changes and stay ahead of the competition.