Is this a google dance?
-
My website keeps moving up and down in ranking but stays within page 2 to 3. Everyday its at a new position.
-
Marie, I totally agree with you I have a site I am working on that keeps going from 2 to 7 then to 3 then to 7. It is hard to know what is working and what isn't and if it is working at all. I guess I will just sit tight for a while.
I agree, just keep making good content and you can't loose.
-
My site settled in on the 2nd page. I think it had to do with google re-evaluating my sites back links. I had done some a few weeks earlier.
-
It can be really tough to separate the Google "dance" from "bounce" from daily fluctuations. The "Google dance" was originally a reference to monthly algorithm/data updates - that actual phenomenon has been gone for years now. Data is updated all the time, and the algorithm can change daily at this point. If you suspect an algorithm change has impacted your site (for example - a Panda update), you typically have to look at the dates of the updates and how the factors in that update are represented on your site. We keep an ongoing history here:
http://www.seomoz.org/google-algorithm-change
When I think of "bounce", I tend to think of sites that are moving up and down a lot for a sustained period of time (while other sites in the same rankings don't move). That can, in some cases, be a sign of an impending penalty or Google re-evaluating something about your site (your indexed pages, links, etc.).
Unfortunately, it can be really tough to separate "bounce" from daily fluctuations. I'm working on a project to track daily changes in rankings, and one thing I can tell you is that Google is far from stable. The average change in any given Top 10 day-to-day is surprisingly high. Anecdotally, the changes in deeper pages of the SERPs (2, 3, etc.) are even larger.
So, this could be perfectly normal. I'd keep an eye on a few things:
(1) Are you tracking using a 3rd-party tool, with personalization, localization, etc. off? It's really easy to see different SERPs these days, just by changing computers, being logged in, etc.
(2) Are you bouncing up and down daily, or is it a gradual change?
(3) Are other people in the Top 20 bouncing as well?
(4) Is this bounce having any real impact? This gets into @stubby's reply - if the bounce isn't impacting search traffic, the number of keywords you get traffic from, the pages that get traffic, etc., it may not be worth worrying about. Dig into Google Webmaster Tools and your analytics and find out what impact these ranking changes are really having on visitors to your site.
-
My site just disappeared from rankings. Just my home page for my main keyword. Other pages of my site can still be found. In fact, one of my pages are on the 5th page. This is the 2nd time this week my home page dropped out entirely from SERP. Should I now be worried?
-
Something funky is definitely going on in the SERPS in one of my niches for the last few weeks. For our main keyword, our site is jumping from #3 to #10 or anywhere in between.
I can see why people would say not to do any linkbuilding while this is happening, because if your position dropped or increased you wouldn't know if it was due to your linkbuilding efforts. However, I look at this a different way. I wouldn't do any risky linkbuilding in this time period. Gaining great quality links by developing great content, for example, is only going to help you.
I do personally think there is a major shakeup going on with the algorithm right now...and who knows how long that will last fror!
-
I have to disagree on the page 2 or 3 being useless. 70% of visits come from long tail searches. the better you rank for your keyword, even if not on page one, the more long tails you will get. Sometimes we get too raped on main keywords when the real money is in long tails.
-
I wouldn't worry about what you call the "google dance." SEO can be done at any time. The key is to do it properly. You can do as much of it as you want as long as it's not creating problems like the recent "over optimization" penalties being leveraged.
Keep building up your on page optimization, keep doing what it takes to get great natural links and if possible, continue to build relationships both offline and on and you should be fine.
-
I was told not to do SEO stuff like link building during a google dance. Also, im just curious since I was also told that after the google dance is done, I might position much better than before, possibily on page 1.
-
I hope you don't find this harsh:
The question is irrelevant. If you are on page 2 or 3, who cares if it is page 2 or page 3, you might as well be on page 10. Take some good action to improve so that you get on page 1, then worry about what nickname you wish to call the minor daily fluctuations.
Good Luck!
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
-
Google Cache showing a different URL
Hi all, very weird things happening to us. For the 3 URLs below, Google cache is rendering content from a different URL (sister site) even though there are no redirects between the 2 & live page shows the 'right content' - see: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://giltedgeafrica.com/tours/ http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://giltedgeafrica.com/about/ http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://giltedgeafrica.com/about/team/ We also have the exact same issue with another domain we owned (but not anymore), only difference is that we 301 redirected those URLs before it changed ownership: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.preferredsafaris.com/Kenya/2 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.preferredsafaris.com/accommodation/Namibia/5 I have gone ahead into the URL removal Tool and got denied for the first case above ("") and it is still pending for the second lists. We are worried that this might be a sign of duplicate content & could be penalising us. Thanks! ps: I went through most questions & the closest one I found was this one (http://moz.com/community/q/page-disappeared-from-google-index-google-cache-shows-page-is-being-redirected) but it didn't provide a clear answer on my question above
Technical SEO | | SouthernAfricaTravel0 -
Local Google vs. default Google search
Hello Moz community, I have a question: what is the difference between a local version of Google vs. the default Google in regards to search results? I have a Mexican site that I'm trying to rank in www.google.com.mx, but my rankings are actually better if I check my keywords on www.google.com The domain is a .mx site, so wouldn't it make more sense that this page would rank higher on google.com.mx instead of the default Google site, which in theory would mean a "broader" scope? Also, what determines whether a user gets automatically directed to a local Google version vs. staying on the default one? Thanks for your valuable input!
Technical SEO | | EduardoRuiz0 -
Some competitors have a thumbnail in Google search results
I've noticed that a few of my top competitors have a small photo (thumbnail) next to their listing. I'm sure it's not a coincidence that they are ranked top for the search phrase too. Is this really a help and how can it be done? Many thanks, Iain.
Technical SEO | | iainmoran0 -
How to know which pages are indexed by Google?
So apparently we have some sites that are just duplicates of our original main site but aiming at different markets/cities. They have completely different urls but are the same content as our main site with different market/city changed. How do I know for sure which ones are indexed. I enter the url into Google and its not there. Even if I put in " around " it. Is there another way to query google for my site? Is there a website that will tell you which ones are indexed? This is probably a dumb question.
Technical SEO | | greenhornet770 -
Site being indexed by Google before it has launched
We are currently coming towards the end of migrating one of our retail sites over to magento. To our horror, we find out today that some pages are already being indexed by Google, and we have started receiving orders through new site. Do you have any suggestions for what may have caused this? Or similarly, what the best solution would be to de-index ourselves? We most recently excluded anything with a certain parameter from robots.txt - could this being implemented incorrectly have caused this issue? Thanks
Technical SEO | | Sayers0 -
Google sitemap just for a part of site?
Hi, I am about reorganize (content and seo-wise) a part of a larger site and I wondered if it is possible to use a Google sitemap just for some but not all pages of a site? Does anyone know if this has any impact on pages that are not included in the sitemap? Thanks
Technical SEO | | haest0 -
301 mistake in Google Webmaster Tools?
Google webmaster tools has a warning for our site map saying that this url (and a couple of others) have a 301 redirect in them. http://www.aquinasandmore.com/catholic-gifts/Immaculate-Heart-of-Mary-Bookmark/sku/59682 I've checked the link and don't see that it actually is redirecting. Any thoughts on why this is popping up?
Technical SEO | | IanTheScot0 -
Google causing Magento Errors
I have an online shop - run using Magento. I have recently upgraded to version 1.4, and I installed a extension called Lightspeed, a caching module which makes tremendous improvements to Magento's performance. Unfortunately, a confoguration problem, meant that I had to disable the module, because it was generating errors relating to the session, if you entered the site from any page other than the home page. The site is now working as expected. I have Magento's error notification set to email - I've not received emails for errors generated by visitors. However over a 72 hour period, I received a deluge of error emails, which where being caused by Googlebot. It was generating an erro in a file called lightspeed.php Here is an example: URL: http://www.jacksgardenstore.com/tahiti-vulcano-hammock IP Address: 66.249.66.186 Time: 2011-06-11 17:02:26 GMT Error: Cannot send headers; headers already sent in /home/jack/jacksgardenstore.com/user/jack_1.4/htdocs/lightspeed.php, line 444 So several things of note: I deleted lightspeed.php from the server, before any of these error messages began to arrive. lightspeed.php was never exposed in the URL, at anytime. It was referred to in a mod_rewrite rule in .htaccess, which I also commented out. If you clicked on the URL in the error message, it loaded in the browser as expected, with no error messages. It appears that Google has cached a version of the page which briefly existed whilst Lightspeed was enabled. But I though that Google cached generated HTML. Since when does cache a server-side PHP file ???? I've just used the Fetch as Googlebot facility on Webmaster Tools for the URL in the above error message, and it returns the page as expected. No errors. I've had to errors at all in the last 48 hours, so I'm hoping it's just sorted itself out. However I'm concerned about any Google related implications. Any insights would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Ben
Technical SEO | | atticus70