Roller Coaster Rankings
-
Hi All!
I'm an experienced SEO freelancer trying to help a company achieve great SEO results
I optimized a lot of pages which helped the site start ranking, but now some keywords are flying up and down seemingly at random. For example, one keyword went from #11 to under #50!
Is it a bad sign when there is instability in the keywords? Should I be seeing some "settling down'' on my dear keywords? If there is no settling, any suggestions?
-
Hello,
It is very common for keyword rankings to fluctuate almost constantly, for a few reasons: search engines are constantly updating their ranking algorithms; rankings are based on user behavior-based signals like how often a link is clicked, bounce rate, etc., and those things are never constant; depending on your location and previous search results and actions, search engines will change the results you see personally; and on and on.
It's better to look at trends in your aggregate rankings rather than individual rankings, and also to focus on things like providing great content and building an authoritative linking profile than to focus on individual rankings on a day to day basis.
Overall, I do think you will see more stability when search engines have more data about how users interact with your site, but I know that the fluctuations in rankings will never stop. They will likely become less drastic, though.
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
-
Sudden drop across all rankings
Hi There, I have experienced a strange and sudden drop in rankings for main keywords for a website that has not been penalized (that I am aware of), has a great site speed, does not contain duplicate content and has not had a sudden drop in links. I can't explain this sudden drop in rankings. The site was ranked between #1 - #6 across: Custom Mouthguards Brisbane, Dentures Brisbane, Denture Implants Brisbane, and Brisbane Denture Clinic to name a few. https://denturehaus.com.au/ Not only was this a drop in regular SERPs but also local Google Map listings, where the website was previously #1 - #3, and now never comes up. I can't figure out what has gone wrong with the website to completely lose all rankings. Any troubleshooting or help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks,
Local Website Optimization | | Kim_Lazaro
Kim0 -
Copying a Website For Better Rankings in a Specific Country
I've got a blog with some tools and business directories (https://www.webhostinghero.com). Actually my website is in English and is hosted in the US since its biggest source of traffic is from there. My second biggest traffic source is India. The issue is that while my website is really well optimized (in terms of speed), it is still slow for visitors from India. So my question is: Would it be possible to have a copy of my website on a web server located in India and use a sub-domain (ie.: in.webhostinghero.com) to access it without being penalized by Google? Would that be considered duplicate content? What would be the HREF LANG tag set to for India (EN-US, EN-GB... EN-IN??) I thought that having a sub-domain for a specific country could also help its rankings. Thanks in advance for your inputs. P.S. Sorry my english sucks.
Local Website Optimization | | sbrault740 -
Ranking not up in google
Hello Everyone, I am having problem to get ranking for this 3 domains http://goo.gl/L5e2Y2 http://goo.gl/QsU9gq http://goo.gl/igTT76 can anyone help, please Thanx in advance
Local Website Optimization | | falgunipanchal1 -
Australian local business website on a dot.com - how do I ensure its indexed/ranked by Google.com/au as priority
look forward to your advice My client is a local business in australia but has a dotcom site which is hosted in US. We are just moving it to wordpress and new hosting. I want to ensure that Google.com/au will be able to index and rank the content. How can I tell google its a site for people in australia? I thought best to set up a subfolder like this hissite.com/au and redirect anyone from australia to go to this url? Thanks for your recommendations
Local Website Optimization | | bisibee10 -
Not displaying the address and its effect on local rankings.
I have just started working with a plumber in my local area to provide a website and generate leads from a combination of SEO, social media and advertising. The issue is that he is adamant that his address should not be displayed anywhere on the site or on any of the citations we are looking to build. This is even after I explained the importance of this information to rankings and the fact that his address can be hidden from view in local listings. I have already come to the conclusion that getting in the typical 7 pack will be near impossible without verifying the address or building citations without a address. But I would like to hear your thoughts on whether you believe ranking organically is still a possibility or whether I should just focus on social / advertising.
Local Website Optimization | | yabyy140 -
Local Rank & Branding Confusion - HELP
I am working with a client now that has two sites that serve two segments of a particular market segment. They have two different URLs which cater to these different target markets BUT the company is known in its local market as a their brand name (of course) which is different than their 2 domain names used on these 2 sites. Confusing eh? This has resulted in confusing Google and their rank has suffered a bit. To provide more color + insight- Let's just say this company is called AtlantaEventsInc and they offer event services for corporate events and let's say weddings. So let's say they have had atlantaeventscorporate.com for 20 years and then they add atlantaeventweddings.com about a year ago since their wedding business is expanding. So they promote their corporate events on one site and their wedding events on another. These 2 sites also currently share one blog, share one Facebook page, one Twitter and have two Google+ pages. Should we keep these two sites totally separate? and even have separate blogs and separate social media accounts? OR since our rank has only suffered with the new wedding site (just a year old) should we retire that site? (i suppose we could still keep separate blogs though for each target market. WOULD LOVE INSIGHT ON THIS! Thanks, Chris
Local Website Optimization | | Sundance_Kidd1 -
Local Rank riddle
Here is a very odd scenario which to me makes very little sense. How can a site rank on Page #1 of Google for let's say "Boston party planner" yet on Page#2 for "party planner Boston"?? Would love some insight on this one. thanks, Chris
Local Website Optimization | | Sundance_Kidd0 -
Welcome to the Crawling, Indexing, and Ranking sub-forum
Hi guys,We built 2 sites for a client called Kilsaran. 1. Kilsaran.ie targeting Ireland2. Kilsaraninternational.co.uk targeting the ukThe issue is with the uk version of the site is not appearing where it used to be on the SERPs on google.co.uk when you serach for either "Kilsaran" or "Kilsaran International". The Irish version kilsaran.ie now appears first. We have set the GEO targeting for the respective Countries. The .ie site is the original site with the longer History and much more domain authority, links etc There is no manual penalty appearing So my questions is how do I get the English version to appear no.1on google.co.uk? Is it a case of building some local links? or should I implement geo ip detection?Another related question. What is the geo targeting tools function in GWT used for?ThanksRob
Local Website Optimization | | daracreative0
