Slooooow motion SEO impact
-
I could do with some help if anyone's got a minute.
We've got this one client, no matter what we did (and we worked very hard on this site), nothing would really move. You'd get the usual fluctuations, and maybe some very small progress at times. This went on for an age... much, much longer than usual (and it wasn't even that competitive for keywords).
Then suddenly, "Bam!" it shot up like a rocket for all it's main keywords and has stayed there since... more or less (and this was over a year ago). It was as if all the work we'd been doing was building up behind a door and then the door flew open so it could take affect.
Anyway... it seems to be happening again, just to a different client with a different website (at least I hope that's what's happening or it might just stay non-affected by anything we do forever).
We've checked everything. There's no crawling problems, again it's not all that competitive, the site already has some pretty good trust and authority, and it already ranks well for a bunch of stuff. The site and pages have plenty of age behind them too.
Any ideas?
-
That makes some good sense too. Thanks Bemcapaz. I'll dig around a bit and see if I can find anything on that
-
Im currently working on two sites. One in a very low competitive keyword and other in a mid competitive keyword.
Whats hapenning is, in the mid competitive keyword site, everything SEO related that I do end up taking effect really quick, the longer I have to wait to see new links showing up or see my changes taking effect is 24 hours.
However in the low competitive keyword site the opposite seems to happen. I change things, create links, but those changes seem to not take any effect.
Maybe those slow motion SEO would be related to the keyword in question, at least, If i were google I would focus my computacional power on the more searched keywords since this is what will reach the biggest ammount of users and so, what will make Google be seen as a good or bad search engine, also would let the keywords with few searchs have their rank updated once a month (or more).
-
Yeah it's hardly competitive at all, that's what's so strange about it. Maybe I just have to wait it out... I hope so anyway.
-
Erm well I guess it depends on how dominant and broad the keywords your going after are.
Are you tracking long tail and still seeing no results?
Comparing to a pre seo report you'd expect to see at least something.
-
Hmm, I hadn't thought of that. You think there might be something in the algorithm to literally target sites at random? Seems a bit unethical of Google as it affects business but I guess there's not a lot we could ever do about it... and they're probably right to do it in the sense that it's for the greater good.
Would you say it is likely that it is another delay like the first one then?
I mean, have you ever SEO'd something for 3 months and seen literally nothing happen from it. It's really been that long now. All other clients have been fine, just this one and the one a year ago. Do you think there could be a chance that it will never move?
-
Yea strange one although I have seen it take month myself with very little improvement and then rapid growth.
At least you can use this as an example to the new client
Good luck man.
-
Once something becomes predictable it can be manipulated.
Google is getting tired of being manipulated
If I was Google I would be adding a random delay on the impact of any possible SEO action that is used to promote the rankings of a website.
It would shut down a lot of the bragging that SEOs are inclined to indulge in.
-
Well it was a while back but no I'm pretty sure there was no major updates.
Both domains, the first one it happened to, and this one date back to around 2000.
I just need to figure something out because I hate having to send reports to the client that make it look like we're doing nothing.
There's just got to be something... it's so weird, like a kink in the hosepipe or something lol
-
Well done first of all, result!
What was the age of the domain?
Otherwise was it around the time of any major updates? It could have been one of the many minor changes to the algo that could have just tipped the balance for you?
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
-
Lightboxes and SEO
Do lightboxes (AKA popup boxes when you click "learn more" type CTAs) have any negative effect on SEO? We are looking at revamping our sites to have more of a tiled approach, and a lightbox with summary content popping out with additional CTAs, directing to pages with more information or free trial pages. Is there any downside to this approach from an organic perspective? is there anything specific to keep in mind when creating these if not?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Chris81980 -
Five best practice for SEO
Hello Everyone, I am new to SEO and need some help. I have 6 sites and I need to know what are the top 5 strategies for Off page seo. I mean the most important ones. Thanks Abie
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | signsny0 -
Domain Forwarding - SEO Impacts?
I have a site that has been active for years - thinkbiglearnsmart.com. Awhile ago I had purchased about 50 domain names that were relevant to my company. I still have those urls and would like to use them to point to different pages on my site - just because they have good key words in the URLs. For example - one is dreamweavertrainingclassesonlinelive.com. Currently they are all redirecting to my homepage. A. is that hurting me? B. I would like to redirect to the more relevant page. ie the page dedicated to Dreamweaver training (http://thinkbiglearnsmart.com/dreamweaver-creative-cloud-training-course/ ) Will this hurt my Dreamweaver keyword for example because there is already a 301 redirect on that page from a very old Dreamweaver link which was something like thinkbiglearnsmart.com/dreamweaver C. On my hosting account where I can select where the URL forwards to - it has an option for "Location forwarding" and "Frame forwarding" - currently they are set to Frame forwarding - which one is best? Any help is much appreciated!!! Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | webbmason0 -
Real Estate Local SEO
My site hovers on page 2 of google for the key search phrase. I have a blog that gets updated often, I have genuine links coming in, I promote on all social media channels, I do email campaigns, I have a site map, I have my local address on what I believe are the most important sites like Yelp, Manta, Google Local etc. All this and my site is still on page 2 while other sites with less of everything are on page 1. What is missing?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bronxpad0 -
Mobile SEO
Hi there, My website when searching via mobile is now showing the mobile version of the site in SERPs, well for quite sometime now to be honest, anyway the ranking in mobile are no different to what they are on desktop, is there actually anything I can do to influence my mobile SERPs? 9 times out of 10 it's desktop websites that are ranking about me in mobile search. Any help would be appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Paul780 -
SEO Strategy for Microsite
I am working on a project to build a microsite of sorts that will represent a joint program between two large organizations with established web presences and strong domains. Each of the organizations has dedicated sections on their sites speaking to the program, but the leadership has decided the joint program deserves it's own site with dedicated content. The two larger sites perform very well for SEO, and I don't necessarily want to jeopordize thir rankings by delivering content that competes directly with them. So I am doing some keyword research to find some opportunities that will alllow me to use the new site to target keywords not yet being captialized by the larger sites. My grand scheme is to have the three sites targeting the broadest array of keywords possible, thus maximizing exposure and avoiding competition. Here is the rub: the content between the three sites will be different but very similar, and there will be plenty of cross linking, especially from the existing sites to the new site, as we grow the brand of the joint program. I'm curious to here some expert opinions on what the puitfalls of the strategy are and what are some of the things I can do to avoid falling in the black hat category - I recognize that proliferating sites around a single topic and cross linking them is black hat. The organizations simply want to build a brand around a joint program and we are striggling to do that without a dedicated website.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AmyLB0 -
Indirect SEO boost from links
I have 2 ecommerce sites, each with a blog. I am increasing my linkbuilding efforts, but I don't want to build too many links directly to my 2 sites over a short period of time. I have decided that I will add a certain number of links to sites/pages that are already linking to my main sites (for example, a blog post on my blog, guest post on another blog, article submission, etc.). How much of a benefit can I expect in terms of rankings? Has anyone tested this out or experimented with something like this? What are the pros and cons? I appreciate thoughtful comments.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | inhouseseo0 -
Seo for Q&A site
Hi, I am working on a newly launched Q&A site. We have very few questions and users right now and very very low seo traffic. In order to increase the number of users and seo traffic we intend to create a number of pages containing potential questions. Each page would have the following structure: Question. Ex: "What are the top wholesale suppliers of coffee in China?" Some content. Ex: Are you looking for wholesale suppliers of coffee in China? Post your question here? Question form Some additional content So there would be a page for wholesale suppliers of coffee for every country. We would publish the pages gradually and the content would be unique but yet similar (ex: only the Country changes). What do you think about this approach? Is it a good idea or can it be dangerous? We don't want to incur in any kind of penalization, we just want to give the possibility to people who are looking for specific information to find us and be able to post the request on our website.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ypsilon0