Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Changes taken over in the SERP's: How long do I have to wait until i can rely on the (new) position?
-
I changed different things on a particular page (mainly reduced the exaggerated keyword density --> spammy). I made it recrawl by Google (Search Console). The new version has now already been integrated in the SERP's.Question: Are my latest changes (actual crawled page in the SERP's is now 2 days old) already reflected in the actual position in the SERP's or should I wait for some time (how long?) to evaluate the effect of my changes? Can I rely on the actual position or not?
-
Hi Cesare,
I made purely content changes to my page and I resubmitted it to Google. I could see the changed rank immediately - in my case from not having any results to result 50. I observed it on a weekly basis and the rank kept improving every time (without any further activity): 50, 37, 24, 18, 16, 13, 11, 6 - and I believe it's not over.
Can you rely on the actual position? No! My rank grows in a pretty unique way. Normally it fluctuates and the pattern would be more like 50, 24, 37, 11, 24, 16 - basically up and down. This is what I keep experiencing with majority of our keywords. Especially nowadays, Google is not as static as in the past and you can see this fluctuation very frequently, sometimes daily.
I agree, I would recommend at least 8 weeks' observation and between week 8 and 12 you might know where you are and optimise accordingly. I hope this works for you.
Good luck!
Katarina
-
Hi Cesare,
As there is no way to know exactly how long it would take to see the SERP effect on your new change, I actually advice to wait and see for at least one or 2 months. Also, there are many ranking factors, you can't just wait and see after a single improvement (keyword density) to get results. It might be good enough to work; but there might be other factors to consider as well.
My technique is prety simple, after making changes on a particular page, I use a specific amplification for this page (acquisition of backlinks, shares on social networks,...) to force Google Algorithm to not only take in consideration of my previous changes, but also to see this page as a really important one.
One or 2 months might be enough to see what the changes you made means in term of SERP.
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
-
Should I Change My Blog Permalinks to Remove The Date
Hi All Thank you in advance for any help. Last year a website was moved to multisite and the permalinks for the blog posts were changed to include a category, the year, the month and day. As a result most of the page URL's are flagged as too long. A number of the pages are receiving good traffic, so my question is whether just to leave them as they are or to change the permalinks? My gut feeling is to take the short term hit and change the permalinks, but I thought I'd take the advice of the forum before doing so. Many Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | DigitalProgress2 -
My website have h1 tags , but still crawlers can't find them?
crawlers can't crawl my meta description and h1 tags even when they are present.
On-Page Optimization | | Green_Beauty0 -
Content hidden behind a 'read all/more..' etc etc button
Hi Anyone know latest thinking re 'hidden content' such as body copy behind a 'read more' type button/link in light of John Muellers comments toward end of last year (that they discount hidden copy etc) & follow up posts on Search Engine Round Table & Moz etc etc ? Lots of people were testing it and finding such content was still being crawled & indexed so presumed not a big deal after all but if Google said they discount it surely we now want to reveal/unhide such body copy if it contains text important to the pages seo efforts. Do you think it could be the case that G is still crawling & indexing such content BUT any contribution that copy may have had to the pages seo efforts is now lost if hidden. So to get its contribution to SEO back one needs to reveal it, have fully displayed ? OR no need to worry and can keep such copy behind a 'read more' button/link ? All Best Dan
On-Page Optimization | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
When I changes Template, why traffic goes down?
I've noticed that when I change my blog's template the traffic goes down dramatically, about of 40% decrease. I know that new themes can have some problems but I have tried this with 2 different themes. First try was with genesis framework(Paid one) and just in one day traffic went down and when I reverted the old theme, the traffic became normal. Should I wait for 1 week to see what happens? What could be the potential reason of this?
On-Page Optimization | | hammadrafique0 -
Do quotation marks in content effect SERPs?
Some of my art object products have words and phrases engraved on them. The words relate to the images on the product. In the product descriptions, I have been putting quotes around the entire list. Would I get better long tail results if I didn't use the quotation marks? In other words, do the quotes make everything between them an exact match phrase? For example:
On-Page Optimization | | stephenfishman
Current product description:
The worlds around the edge of the lazy susan read, "Explore nature. Dream big. Take time to smell the flowers. Enjoy the changing seasons. Seize the day. Relish the night. Live life to the fullest." Thank you for helping with this, all comments on how to present this kind of content are welcomed- Stephen kSOjt5a0 -
Two URL's for the same page
Hi, on our site we have two separate URL's for a page that has the same content. So, for example - 'www.domain.co.uk/stuff' and 'www.domain.co.uk/things/stuff' both have the same content on the page. We currently rank high in search for 'www.domain.co.uk/things/stuff' for our targeted keyword, but there are numerous links on the site to www.domain.co.uk/stuff and also potentially inbound links to this page. Ideally we want just the www.domain.co.uk/things/stuff URL to be present on the site, what would be the best course of action to take? Would a simple Canonical tag from the '/stuff' URL which points to the '/things/stuff' page be wise? If we were to scrap the '/stuff' URL totally and redirect it to the 'things/stuff' URL and change all our on site links, would this be beneficial and not harm our current ranking for '/things/stuff'? We only want 1 URL for this page for numerous reasons (i.e, easier to track in Analytics), but I'm a bit cautious that changing the page that doesn't rank may have an affect on the page that does rank! Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | Jaybeamer2 -
Using phrases like 'NO 1' or 'Best' int he title tag
Hi All, Quick question - is it illegal, against any rule etc to use phrases such as 'The No 1 rest of the title tag | Brand Name' on a site?
On-Page Optimization | | Webrevolve0 -
Can you change meta description at any time without loosing rankings?
I'm wondering if it is possible to change the meta description of a page on your site at any time without it affecting rankings on google? Is it only changing how my SERP looks? Or could bad things happen to changing your meta description? Appreciate all opinions on this one, thank you guys!
On-Page Optimization | | danielpett0