Keywords in TOP 5 then disappearing, then reappearing (ongoing for months)
-
Hello marketers,
I've built quite a few successful sites in the past, but I've never issued this scenario. Here's the case:
I have 1,5 year-old site that I've tried to build quality content & links over time. However, there are roughly 15-20 pages and keywords that constantly appear and reappear in the search.
For example, KEYWORD X:
- 1 week appearing in rank 3
- Then disappearing out of 100 for a week
- Then reappears in rank 3 and stays there for ~10 days
- Then again disappears from top 100 for a week or two.
- Then again, comes back at rank 3 for a few days, then gone again.
Now I understand if this is a new site and spammy content and bad links combo, but it's not. It's also not 1 keyword, but multiple keywords and multiple pages.
I know it's hard to say what exactly wrong, but could anyone lead me to the right direction. Is this CONTENT issue? Links issue? CTR issue? Site health issue?
I've also attached screenshots from 2 keywords and their rankings in the last 3-4 months.
Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!
-
Do you have multiple similar products that are targeting the same keywords, could the pages be keyword cannibalising each other and the pages keep switching in your rankings. If so you may benefit from canonicalising similar content pages that may not be direct duplicates or trying to further seperate the content.
e.g. Product review 1 ranks P3 then drops whilst another page say Product review 3 takes its place.
Do you track each url placement?
-
Structure shouldn't matter, but there has to be a reason why this is happening to you.
Have you had a look in Search Console to see how often Google is crawling the site and see if there are any anomalies in there?
Feel free to ping me an e-mail with an example page if you would like me to take a quick look for you. info [at] iqseo dot uk
-Andy
-
Hey Andy
Thanks for your reply. It's mostly a very narrow niche site that reviews different products in-depth (I have about 35 review pages). They are similarly structured, but they are unique for sure. 2000+ words each with images etc.
Perhaps I should rewrite the ones that are not sticking in the SERP?
-
Hi,
Had a very similar issue on a site and it turned out to be not content, but duplicate pages brought on by too many that were similar.
Perhaps this was a bit extreme, but I regularly found 4-5 pages trying to target very similar phrases which left Google wondering just what the hell it should index. Similar sort of thing - one minute at pos. 70, the next position 7. However, not all of them were being indexed.
What is your content like - could it fall into this?
-Andy
-
My first response to this type of problem is to check for duplicate content, such as when another person or bot grabs your content and posts it on another website.
My second response would be a check for a canonical problem, such as when your page can be identified by multiple URLs.
Those are the two best things to check for. However, I also know of a site that has this exact problem. The content is high quality, has been on the web for a few years, yet the pages can be in the top ten for good keywords, then disappear out of the top 100 only to return to the top ten. This has been repeating for a couple of months.
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
-
Keywords for product title
Hi, I am trying set the product title for my product that I sell online, I have more than 300 products, I am now doing keywords research, any suggestion of the monthly search volume I should aim for each keyword? I just started and selling engagement rings
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | up8772910 -
Keyword cannibalization
Hi, I have two questions regarding keyword cannibalization. 1. I am doing the SEO for a website that sells do-it-yourself packages for heating, bathrooms, ventilation and so on for new houses or for renovations. The most important pages are the product pages (e.g. example.com/products/bathrooms) but there is also a blog divided into categories per product (e.g. example.com/category/bathrooms). The difference is clear: the product page focuses on the product itself, and the blog category page contains all blog posts relating bathrooms (tips, new materials, new innovations,...). My question is if the product page and blog category page can compete with each other for the term bathrooms (although they have different content). Does it help or is it enough to direct internal links from separate blog posts to the most important page (being the product page) and back to avoid my category blog page to compete with my product page? Another possibility would be to use a canonical tag on the category page pointing to the product page, but this actually isn't good practice because it isn't really duplicate content. Third possibility would be to no index the category page. So what is the best solution of the three? 2. A second example of keyword cannibalization can be category archive pages for webshops. If you have a category page example.com/jeans and a subcategory page example.com/jeans/women, is it useful to optimize on both pages for different terms, being jeans for the first page and jeans for women for the second, or will Google not make this distinction because the keyword are too closely related? In other words, is it useful to write content specifically for jeans for women and make a landing page for this keyword, or will this page compete with the category page that has been optimized for just the keyword jeans? In large clothing webshops, you can see for example that there is an optimized page for Nike (content, headings,...) but not for Nike for women or Nike for men. Is this just laziness or is this done exactly to avoid keyword cannibalization? Looking forward to your comments!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mat_C0 -
Keyword targeting
Hi guys, Are there any restrictions around targeting for keywords? For eg: a competitors name can we target for that keyword? Would appreciate some advice around this Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | edward-may1 -
Google Is Indexing The Wrong Page For My Keyword
For a long time (almost 3 mounth) google indexing the wrong page for my main keyword.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Tiedemann_Anselm
The problem is that each time google indexed another page each time for a period of 4-7 days, Sometimes i see the home page, sometimes a category page and sometimes a product page.
It seems though Google has not yet decided what his favorite / better page for this keyword. This is the pages google index: (In most cases you can find the site on the second or third page) Main Page: http://bit.ly/19fOqDh Category Page: http://bit.ly/1ebpiRn Another Category: http://bit.ly/K3MZl4 Product Page: http://bit.ly/1c73B1s All links I get to the website are natural links, therefore in most cases the anchor we got is the website name. In addition I have many links I get from bloggers that asked to do a review on one of my products, I'm very careful about that and so I'm always checking the blogger and their website only if it is something good, I allowed it. also i never ask for a link back (must of the time i receive without asking), and as I said, most of their links are anchor with my website name. Here some example of links that i received from bloggers: http://bit.ly/1hF0pQb http://bit.ly/1a8ogT1 http://bit.ly/1bqqRr8 http://bit.ly/1c5QeC7 http://bit.ly/1gXgzXJ Please Can I get a recommendation what should you do?
Should I try to change the anchor of the link?
Do I need to not allow bloggers to make a review on my products? I'd love to hear what you recommend,
Thanks for the help0 -
Are these URLs too Keyword-packed?
Hi guys, Here is the URL: http://www.consumerbase.com/mailing-lists/dog-stores-mailing-list.html The target keywords are "Dog stores mailing list" and "Dog stores mailing lists" Does having "mailing-list" and "mailing-lists" in my URL hurt me?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Travis-W0 -
Local ranking (keyword) strategies
Hello SEOmozers, I've been working on improving all components of my SEO skills for the past 6 months. I have definitely had some great victories and some gray defeats. My newest challenge is local ranking for a home improvement company. My target is to rank them locally with Google within the top 7 results. I have managed to do so, but only for one keyword "windows and doors CITY". My campaign, in terms of anchor text has a wide variety of long and shortail keywords, I have not concentrated on the above keyword. My question is, how do I go about to rank this website in the local results for all other keywords "windows CITY", "window replacement CITY", etc... What I don't understand is how Google picks up which keywords to rank the website locally for, and which ones to ignore. Any information will be well received. Cheers, Nikster
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | thenikster0 -
Keyword penalty?
One of our pages seems to have disappeared from Google SERPs, I did some analysis/research into this to try find out what is going on. Nothing jumps out.. - No noticeable traffic drops, especially on/after the Panda & Penguin updates. - Thorough checks on related keywords – no noticeable drops - Anchor text – brand name & natural anchor texts - 2/3 word phrases Keyword density 3-5% in content - No Google Manual Penalty with Notification in WBTools - Robot.txt checked - Checked sitemap.xml (recently updated) I expect if the page has dropped in SERPs then the traffic would drop also.. Anyone had same experiences or ideas how this page is affected?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | notnem0 -
How many words in the same page creates keyword stuffing?
In the on page report indicates that the maximum is 15. What are the best? It includes keywords on title, description and images names?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Naghirniac0