Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Is there a way to pull historical rankings for a keyword?
-
I have someone who's come to me and said that they have lost all of their organic keyword rankings. They did launch a site redesign a few months back so that could be a reason as to why. But after looking at the site, link profile, etc. It doesn't look like they could have been ranking for the terms they say they were. They have never implemented any SEO on their sites btw. I did not build this site and have not done any SEO, they are coming to me to solve the problem. I did notice in SEM rush that a couple months ago they were ranking organically for more terms (20 in July vs. 5 now), so they did lose some. Is there any way to see what terms they WERE ranking for?
-
SpyFu (paid version) can do this rather nicely. Not every keyword, but it can give you the Google rankings of a site against an assortment of keywords going back for at least a year. You can enter custom keywords and it will give you the data if it has it. It seems to not work on obscure, low volume keywords, which is to be expected. If it comes back empty, it means that either it doesn't have the data for that keyword, or the ranking was 51+. Don't use it for branded keywords, for example, if your company is ABC Enterprises and you check that keyword, it will likely come back empty. Don't assume ABC Enterprises did not rank for it's own name, but rather, that the search frequency is too low for SpyFu to include it in its automatic data collection process.
Google Webmaster Tools gives historical keyword data but it only goes back 90 days.
-
I use semrush for this. It can only go back a few months but does give you some incite.
-
Did you check their Google Webmaster tools in the Search Queries report? That should show you what terms were driving traffic
Otherwise check Analytics for organic keyword traffic and have a look at landing urls, you may be able to piece something together
-
Short answer, nope.
-
I don't know of a way to get that info. That's why sometime back I started a spreadsheet that tracks my ranking on certain keywords I think are important. I have a spreadsheet for brand based keywords and one for product category keywords. This way I check my ranking over time. I would recommend starting a spreadsheet and pulling the campaign keyword ranking reports each week from an SEOmoz campaign. They will keep some historical data as the campaign ages. I still pull them each week and add them to a spreadsheet just in case.
I know this doesn't help your current situation but will help prove that you are making progress. You could also see if they have historical keyword data in Google Analytics to see if they were getting visitors and/or sales on terms they claim they used to rank highly one.
-
I don't know of a good way to find this out after the fact.
What I would do in your situation is look at their Google Analytics (or whatever analytics package they have) and look at the organic traffic and see for yourself what type of change has happened in terms of traffic and associated organic keywords.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How can I discover the Google ranking number for a keyword in Brazil?
Hello, how can I discover the Google ranking number for a keyword in Brazil location. I need to know what is the position in Brazil location for the keyword "ligação internacional" in the Google search engine for the webpage www.solaristelecom.com/ligacao-internacional. I tried to use the Moz tools to discover it but only shows that I am not in the top 50, then I want to know where I am, and if I am listed or not. I tried to search it in my browser and didn't show the name of my website. Thank you.
Algorithm Updates | | lmoraes1 -
Using Brand value for SEO: Can we use keyword with brand name?
Hi Moz community, I am curious to know this. Let's say there is a brand value for a company. It has it's own popularity that it's been mentioned across the internet and social media directly with brand name without their service or industry keyword. Now if the company started promoting themselves like keyword along with their brand name, will it help them to rank for that keyword. For example, Moz is already famous, now they want to rank for "SEO" and related keywords, so they started calling themselves on internet "Moz SEO"; will this fetch them in ranking for keyword SEO? My ultimate question is, using primary keyword along with brand name will work out in ranking for that primary keyword or not? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Google ranking impact: Returning visitor vs New visitor
Hi all, If a website's traffic increase in "New visitors"; will this impact rankings? Do the website overall traffic affect rankings? How much this is related with ranking improvement for main keywords? Just because thousands of visits increased for website, will it count as a strong ranking improvement signal? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Ecommerce or E-commerce as a Keyword?
I have done a good bit of research but am not sure which word to focus on. I feel that the trend is moving towards no hyphen but I do not have any data to justify that other than google trends. Here is the research I found: Google Trends says ecommerce is more popular
Algorithm Updates | | Manseo
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=e-commerce%2C%20ecommerce&cmpt=q Ngram says e-commerce
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=ecommerce%2Ce-commerce&year_start=1990&year_end=2013&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cecommerce%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Ce%20-%20commerce%3B%2Cc0 Google Adwords Keyword tool says e-commerce:
e-commerce has 33,100 monthly search volume
ecommerce has 14,800 monthly search volume What do you think, will ecommerce overtake e-commerce in the future monthly search volumes? Ecommerce or E-commerce?0 -
Special Characters in Keywords
Do search engines consider keywords such as "1099 E-File Software" & "1099 "EFile Software" the same? Many of the keywords for my website will have a dash "-" when properly spelled out but there are many users who would simply omit it when spelling the word. Another example would be "W-2 Software" as opposed to "W2 Software".
Algorithm Updates | | Stew2220 -
Proper Way To Submit A Reconsideration Request To Google
Hello, In previous posts, I was speaking about how we were penalized by Google for unnatural links. Basically 50,000 our of our 58,000 links were coming from 4-5 sites with the same exact anchor text and img alt tags. This obviously was causing our issues. Needless to say, I wen through the complete link profile to determine that all of the links besides this were of natrural origins. My question here is what is the accepted protocol of submitting a reinclusion request; For example, how long should it be? Should I disclose that I was in fact using paid links, and now that I removed (or at least nofollowed) them? I want to make sure that the request as good as it should so I can get our rankings up in a timely manner. Also, how long until the request is typically aknowledged? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | BestOdds0 -
Low Domain Authority - Rank Well For Competitive Keywords
I have been following a competitor's link profile on OSE for over 8 months. Their linkbacks have remained the same (3 follow, 9 nofollow links), all from low-quality directory sites. However, my competitor continues to improve in rankings and is now #1 for competitive keyword searches. How is this possible? Is there a way to hide your link profile or links from OSE? Any tips are appreciated - Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | TheSEODR0 -
Keyword Research for Real Estate Industry
I just finished reading the Beginners Guide to SEO at SEOMoz and joined as a Pro Member. I have created a campaign for my new SEO project and feel like I have a good understanding now of on-page optimization. I am going to start fixing title tags and on page content for our top 50 pages and start a new campaign to go after some keywords. Our website is 360dwellings. I am struggling to determine what the best keywords are for us to target. Right now our primary markets are Denver and San Diego, we also display listings for all of Colorado as well. We had originally gone after competitive keywords like "Denver Homes for Sale". What I am learning is that even ranking bottom of page one for that term doesn't bring a ton of traffic. Meanwhile, we rank well for a lot of niche content like "5280 best neighborhoods" "Denver Lofts for Sale" and "Denver Neighborhood Map". My questions is do we completely abandon going after big keywords like 'Denver CO Homes for Sale", and 'Denver Real Estate" and go as far as removing them from title tags? We have pages for every Denver neighborhood like Park Hill and the Highlands, but there is no search data for these searches in Google Keywords. My gut says that if each of those pages ranked for terms like "Denver Highlands Neighborhood Homes for Sale" that it would bring good targeted traffic. Does anyone know of search terms for Real Estate that are low competition but have some search volume? Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | 360ryan0