Keyword keeps fluctuating between a high rank and no rank?
-
I've searched around and I can't seem to find anyone else describing the issue I'm seeing. Basically for a very long time our website (snappages.com) has always ranked in the tens and twenties for "create a website". It's a high volume keyword and we get a lot of traffic from it. Around May 16th it suddenly disappeared completely from search results on Google and now it will sporadically show back up with a SERP in the twenties every 5-10 days for a few hours and then completely disappear again. This pattern has continued to this day.
I've checked and there are no manual penalties and nothing has really changed dramatically from a content perspective or anything like that. I would understand if we got penalized and our ranking dropped, or even if it just completely disappeared? This is the only keyword that this is happening for, all the others remain unaffected. Anyone know how I can find out why this is happening or have suggestions on how to fix it?
-
That's a good point. I've tried incognito etc. I even use a few SERP tracking tools and they reflect the same thing. SERPWoo for instance will send me an alert saying they keyword "started ranking" instead of the normal alert that says it went up or down.
I guess it's comforting to hear someone else is seeing something similar though b/c I haven't seen anyone report this and I've done a lot of searching for it.
-
I have experienced something similar this year - it's not something I've seen before.
Everyday it can change. One day my client is number 5 for "keyword" - the next day it has gone.
This has been happening for about 3 months now.
I am putting faith in Google eventually settling down and keeping them on the first page. It is a very difficult one to explain though and I don't have the answers.
This is not about having a better SEO strategy - this is about something I'm calling GHOST RANKINGS
Anyone else seen this .. and what happened?
P.S I'm am incognito when I check. I also track it in MOZ rankings. I have also got people to check from different locations - this is not the reason!
-
Maybe.
But, if some of these have grabbed all or most of your text, then filing DMCA is what I would do. Before you file DMCA be sure that you know the risks and especially know the rules related to fair use. See an attorney before doing it if you have any doubts about your understanding.
-
No problem, here is another question somewhat similar to yours that has been answered https://moz.com/community/q/why-keyword-ranking-fluctuate
-
Thanks for the feedback. I do understand it's very competitive so I would understand going up and down in ranking but it literally shows up at 23, then gone for 4 days, then 27, then gone for 6 days, then 21, then gone for 5 days, etc.
This fluctuation has been happening for months and prior to this I was very steadily always ranked high.
-
That's a good question. I'm looking into it but it doesn't seem to be a way to check this reliably. Would switching up the content that is being used by those other sites make a difference?
-
I hope I can provide some useful insights in regards to this somewhat of an anomaly.
After reading your explanation carefully and doing some research on the keyword, it is apparent that this is quite an important keyword to rank for even if just in the first 20 SERPs. Due to the difficulty of this keyword, I am not very surprised with the fluctuation in your rankings since there is a lot of content generated around the topic on a daily basis.
Here are my suggestions if you're willing to invest a good amount of effort on regaining or securing a good position for this keyword:
- Create a new website page with the URL https://snappages.com/create-a-website
- Add the page in the navbar with an attractive CTA
- Differentiate it the new page from the home page
- Get your technical on-page SEO right for the new page.
- Then Publish a series of blog posts that are related to the keyword. In ex: Basic rules of web design, how to build a website for converting visitors, how to make your own website, etc. Try to find some low difficulty keywords, and link all of the posts back to https://snappages.com/create-a-website through a call-to-action at the bottom of each post. This will not only increase the new page's relevancy to search engines but if you do a good job at finding keywords will also yield some traffic.
- Make sure the blog posts are not product centric instead, make them as helpful as possible.
- Work on getting some backlinks to the new page, and repeat.
This strategy will require a good bit of time to create new and unique content, on-page SEO, off-page SEO, designing the page, etc. Though it might be worth it since it is very relevant to the company.
-
Are you going into the supplemental index or are you totally gone?
If you are going into the supplemental index then these guys using your content might be having an impact.
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
-
Will "repurposing" a keyword on our website affect rankings gained over time?
Hi team! Thinking of "repurposing" a keyword on our website. Reason: when researching this particular keyword, GMS are quite high, however, the new content we're creating is more up to date, better in general, than the old content this keyword is attached to. How will this affect rankings we've gained over time? (i.e., will any "age" benefits gained as that keyword has been in use on our website for a few years, be lost?) Will Google see the keyword/URL as totally new because it's attached to new content/something that has gone live recently? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MariaPuche-Jimenez_Parker0 -
Ranking without use of keywords on page & without use of matching anchor text??
Howdy folks. So, here is a dilemma. One of competitors of ours is somehow ranking for a keyphrase "houston chronicle obituaries" without any usage of these keywords on the page, without any full or partial anchor text match ("chronicle" is not used anywhere). The rest of competitiors' rankings make sense. Any ideas?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DmitriiK0 -
January 2016: Massive Rankings Fluctuations
Hi guys. For past 2.5-3 weeks We've been experiencing lots of changes in our rankings, unfortunately, mostly going down. Our website is regexseo.com. I Know there was a January 12 "core update" in Google Algorithms, but there is no any specific information I can find. Now, here is what doesn't make sense to me and it's the same reason I'm worried if we are doing something wrong (or not doing something right? 🙂 - we've been rankings for "web design houston" in positions 2-4 for years, and recently after months of work we finally got to positions 4-6 on "seo houston". But during last two weeks we got down to beginning of the second page 😢 Our backlink profile is growing, traffic to website is growing over all and stable to main landing pages (+/- 5%), new content is being released/updated every week, nothing stupid or drastic is being done. All the metric tools are saying we are "supposed" to do really good. Now, while we are going down, our competitors have some fluctuation (+/-2 positions, but not anything close to what we are experiencing). Any ideas, thoughts, suggestions?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DmitriiK2 -
Negative SEO and big decrease in main keyword ranking
Hi about 4 months ago, I had ranking #1 to #4 for "SEO" in Persian in my country; but someone made about 1000 spam links to my site and some other industry sites. I disavowed the links when I see (after 2-3 days of OSE detection). But now I'm in the page 2 of rankings for the most important keyword I ever had. The point is, My visits increased in this months, but I lost my rankings for this keyword not others. The spammy links targeted my main keyword. Whats you idea to get my ranking back? I'm writing content about SEO, Marketing and blogging for about 4 years and I don't have any bad resume in buying links or stuffing keywords or ... All natural.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | masoudfatemi0 -
What next to help with my rankings
I'm after a fresh set of eyes and any suggestions to help me with my site on what next I should be doing to help increase rankings. The site is: http://bit.ly/VR6xIm Currently the site is ranking around 9-11th on google.co.uk for it's main term which is the name of the site. The site is around a year old, when it launched it went initially up towards positions 3-5 but has since settled at around where it is now. I have a free tool webmasters can use to implement our speed test into their sites which also includes a link back to our site in it to recognise that we are providing the tool for free, I periodically change the link achor text so it is not always the same anchor text that every site uses. Is there anything obvious I should be doing or that is missing that would help with my rankings? *Just as a note, I am not after a review on the actual speed test on the site, a new one will be developed to help further increase accuracy.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Wardy0 -
Competitve keyword ranks on mobile but not on laptop
When i search for a very competitve keyword on a smart phone , my site ranks #6 but on laptop or desktop ranks #24. I do not have a mobile verison of my site just to clarify it. I have cleared the cache on my mobile and laptop. still the same. What is the reason for this?, I d appreciate an insight on this thanks. Nick
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | orion680 -
Keyword cannibalization
I ran the SEOMoz onpage diagnostic, and i got an alert for keyword cannibalization. My taxonomy is: www.mysite.com www.mysite.com/category (category page) www.mysite.com/category/category-keyword (supporting page) Links will be exact match in the primary navigation. www.mysite.com anchor text "category" => www.mysite.com/category www.mysite.com anchor text "category keyword" => www.mysite.com/category/category-keyword www.mysite.com/category anchor text "category keyword" => www.mysite.com/category/category-keyword and example would be /IT-support linking with anchor text "IT Support Servers" => /IT-Support/IT-Support-Servers I'm not going to have a cannibalization problem, am I?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CsmBill0 -
Why is google ranking me higher for pages that aren't optimised for keywords those that are?
I am finding that our homepage and other pages are being ranked higher against keywords that we have optimised other pages for. e.g Keyword: Luxury Towels Google Ranks our homepage http://www.towelsrus.co.uk at 20 for this and the page I am trying to rank for it is nowhere to be seen http://www.towelsrus.co.uk/sport-spa/luxury-towels/catlist_fnct498.htm Why is this and is this why our position for certain keywords fluctuates? How do I remedy this problem?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Towelsrus0