Ranking Fluctuations
-
I need your help. My rankings have been on a wild roller coaster ride since I started optimizing the site with standard on page optimization changes. (No keyword stuffing or over-optimization...) I have only made positive changes for the content on the page; I created unique descriptions for every product. I redirected some urls that weren’t readable into a more user- friendly format.
I am only doing completely organic link building, really.
Yet for some weird reason the rankings initially rose and then steeply fell and ever since have went back up to the top and right back to not in the top 50 results.
Just to give you an example this is a graph of one of our main keywords: https://www.diigo.com/item/image/3vpdp/gd2q
This is another keyword that we admittedly never were in the top 5 results but usually we were in the top 20. Check out the wild fluctuations. If it wasn't the main keyword we were going after, I would probably laugh. https://www.diigo.com/item/image/3vpdp/rcy9
I asked an expert he said he think it might be from a major issue with internal competition. The keywords that seem to fluctuate the most, have numerous landing pages that compete for the same keyword.
Since we sell the same object in many many different sizes, thicknesses and colors it only makes sense that we have the same keyword on many pages.
I would love someone that is an expert in this area to have a look at the site and give actionable advice so I can stop the craziness.
Do you have any suggestions?
Do you have anyone that you’d refer for this type of job/consulting?
-
The anchor text is for the whole site. The home page is not the only page I am seeing crazy rankings for. The site name is http://plasticplace.net.
Thanks so much for taking a look!
-
Is that for the whole site, or is it for the home page? Is the home page the only page you are seeing fluctuations for? It's quite difficult to assess what's happening without seeing the site, but some of these details might help.
-
Your 100% correct that I should remove as much poison links as possible.
Google doesn't recommend using the disavow tool if you didn't receive a spam warning. Additionally google wants you to try to remove the actual link from the web itself. This would be a huge job to do if I'm not completely sure what is actually causing the fluctuations.
I should do it as soon as I can but I first need to ascertain that this is indeed causing the volatile rankings.
-
edit: sorry my response was to Rachel here and not David. Didn't want this to be misconstrued:
Yeah I don't think this is necessarily accurate. Yes most sites will see their rankings plummet the day of an update, but the update isn't a one-day event. It carries over to every crawl Google does.
Therefore if your site slips through the algorithm, it isn't guaranteed to continue doing so. Perhaps the next time around the algo catches something it didn't before (for lack of a better visual.)
There is never any harm in removing poison links, that much we know for sure. So at least if you can get rid of those we can eliminate that as a possibility, right?
-
The recent updates have not been like the previous with 1 date of change- it has been rolled out over the summer with lots of fluctuations as you can see here.
You need to remove the bad and work on getting really good links to replace the old.
-
I sent you a PM
-
While I agree with you that there are some links I should get rid of, I don't think the ranking fluctuations have to do with back links because then I would have probably saw changes to my rankings on the days of the updates.
Please correct me if this isn't the case.
-
I think the keywords you are going after have bad toxic links with those anchor texts that are hurting you i would check into that
-
Can you please share the website URL and both the keywords? If possible, can you please check your Google Webmaster Tools and let us know about the internal linking for these two keywords as anchor text along with the number of back-links for each keyword?
The reason for such a HIT & Drop in the rankings may be due to the "Over-optimization" of the keyword as against all other keywords in the website. I've been getting the same results for one of my website for one keyword only which has reached the fourth page of Google almost 7-8 times in last one year; but never came in the top 30 rankings. Whenever I think this time the keyword will surely achieve rankings in top positions, the website goes down in rankings..as far as 15th page of Google. Analyzing this, I'm thinking about stopping the SEO work for this keyword once I get it in top #50 positions this time..and may be this keyword will be stable for few weeks..
-
It's actually not bad, here's a snapshot of the anchor text: http://awesomescreenshot.com/01f1k00j2f
-
You should consider using the disavow tool, when needed, but only after the a very thorough back-link analysis. This tool can be used for good
-
This probably has at least something to do with it. What does your anchor text profile look like?
-
I check the google wmt weekly. I have never seen a link warning yet. Additionally all the rank fluctuations didn't happen when there was google updates, which would have been a sign of a penalty.
In the past the company had an Indian SEO company posting links to our sites on really spammy sites. I tried to contact some of the sites but I couldn't get them removed and I am hesitant about using the disavow tool.
-
Ask your boss if they ever got a link warning in google webmaster tools about links - it could be you have a penalty you need to deal with or it could be you have some bad links that are hurting you now you need to disavow or remove -call me if you need more help
-
I sent you a PM with the domain.
-
What's the domain you are working on and what are the KW's you are targeting. Graph's work, but without actionable information, it's difficult to look over and help make a few suggestions
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
-
New Page Not ranking?
One of this client's top keyword is "oak beams". They already rank well in the UK for other related terms like "reclaimed oak beams" at /reclaimed-oak-beams/ and "air dried oak beams" at /air-dried-oak-beams/ We have created a page at /oak-beams/ but this page ranks nowhere? Instead the reclaimed oak beams or air dried oak beams page ranks for the term "oak beams". Any ideas why Google is swapping between those pages and not choosing the /oak-beams/ page? A few notes are that the /oak-beams/ page is newest page on the site and yes I know there are no links pointing to it but there are no links pointing to the other pages either?
On-Page Optimization | | Marketing_Today0 -
Will changing a URL negatively affect ranking?
Hello Mozzers, We would like to change the URL for a page on our website which ranks well for some our keyphrases/words. We are hoping the change of URL, through the addition of an additional keyword would help boost the rank of that URL further. At the moment out page gets 2 x A and 2 x B 1xF on the MOZ page rank tool using 5 keyphrase/word variations . One phrase ranks 4, one ranks 3 and the other 3 are 'not in the top 50' Our plan was to change the URL, using SHF404, and use 'Fetch' in the Google search console to re-submit the page to Google. Appreciate you can't give any guarantees how Google will behave, just wondered what your thoughts were on the wisdom of changing the URL in the first place? Thanks Ian
On-Page Optimization | | Substance-create0 -
Do deep pages issues affect homepage chances of ranking?
Hello community, I have a general question: let's say you have some issues in deep pages, like duplicate pages without a canonical tag, or missing description or missing titles, etc.. Will these issues affect the chances of the homepage ranking if the homepage is optimized (no duplicates, canonical, good keywords volume, alt text, etc.) and has none of the issues present in deep pages within the site? Gracias.
On-Page Optimization | | EduardoRuiz0 -
Home page keyword effecting internal page ranking
Hello, My client has a second keyword for the home page that is competitive. The home page is not being ranked for this keyword. Instead, an internal category page is ranking. This internal category page is more relevant than the home page - it shows the categories for the actual products that this term refers to. But everyone around us in Google's page results has far more backlinks than the internal page, and we're all heavily optimized for this term. My question is, is it safe to pull the second term off of the home page or is this internal page strong because it is somehow being strengthened by the home page optimization?
On-Page Optimization | | BobGW0 -
Ranking for competitor brand terms
We're looking to rank for competitor brand terms and have created competitor brand pages for some of our main competitors. My question is where would be most effective to place these pages on our site? Also, would this be classed as grey hat?
On-Page Optimization | | Sayers1 -
Homepage ranking before optimized page
We finally managed to obtain a spot in the first 10 positions of the serps for our main keyword. Since a week, our homepage started ranking in the top 15 as well, so we we're pretty excited about that. On our way to dominate the top 10! Since 2 days we started to rank with our homepage before our optimized page, which sucks because the metadescription (made up by Google) isn't helping our CTR. Is there a way that we can show Google that the other page is more relevant than the homepage? Or do we have to wait until we have build up enough PA to switch places with the homepage (seems unlikely to me).
On-Page Optimization | | duoweb0 -
Why would my homepage be ranked lower (Page Rank 2) than my other pages on the site (PR3) ?
Why would my homepage be ranked lower (Page Rank 2) than my other pages on the site (PR3) ?
On-Page Optimization | | dmurtagh0 -
Redirect and page ranking
We used to have a good page rank of Google, but now our page rank dropped to zero. A few months ago we did a redirect from our www.???.com to non-www.???.com, because non-www.???.com is now our main website. We also have a number of other domains which we redirect to our main website non-www.???.com Do you think these redirects are causing the problem, and if so what can we do to fix it? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | poupette0