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
-
Rewriting content dilemma? should i include keywords ?
hi, i am rewriting content since it had 300 words , lower than top 10s i did some keywords research, on ahrefs, moz, keywordtool . io, semrush. and there are lot of variations like, main keyword is (ios 12) has variations like (ios 12 download), (ios 12 install), (ios 12 not supported) and so on, people have been searching all these terms with ios 12, it feels like if my page talks about all these variations. i have more chances to rank. does it make any sense?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SIMON-CULL0 -
Keyword rank and redirecting
I'm creating a new amazon affiliate site. I've researched other successful sites. I've noticed that they are ranking for 1000s of keywords, but many of these long tail keywords are redirected back to a main page. I can see how this can reduce the overall total amount of content pages on the site. How are you able to rank for the keyword in the first place if the the page is redirected?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lkomontt760 -
Keyword Rankings: One keyword dropped, dragging other rankings down. Possible or not?
Hey moz fans, So these week I noticed significant drop in rankings... But what caught my attention is that one specific keyword dropped 18 positions, and all the other just 1-3. Print screen: http://prntscr.com/7fb4g4 Do you think it's possible that the drop of that page, that went 18 positions down, brought the whole domain down? Or is it another cause?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kokolo0 -
Keyword Targeting / Cannibalisation
Hi Guys We're about to launch a very large website for a flooring company and would like to find out more about _key word _cannibalisation - to put my mind at rest. I know Rand posted a Whiteboard Friday early last year about this topic and mentioned using part of the same keyword was ok to use. All our keywords are specifically geared for "user intent" meaning each keyword has relevance and the content to back up the keyword. We've ensured the keywords are located within each url, placed at the start of the page title, h1 etc.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GaryVictory1 -
Google Manual Action Disappear
Hi Guys, I have a website that received unnatural link message. We had started link removal process, disavowed not approachable links and file reconsideration four times but all the times Google sent some samples of unnatural links and rejected our reconsideration. Last week we again disavowed non approachable links and planned to file reconsideration after a week but today when i tried to file reconsideration, Manual action message was disappeared. We haven't received any message from Google. The same case was happened with one more of our site earlier. Manual action disappeared means it has been revoked or something else??
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RuchiPardal0 -
Keyword Stuffing if repeating word three times?
If one were to write something like this, "I cannot over-empasisize the importance of branding, branding, branding." on a marketing page that talked about all the types of Internet marketing, would Google consider it keyword stuffing?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WebWise10 -
Keyword weight in Domain Name
Hi All, I'm looking for some advice on URL structure. Our domain name includes 1/2 of many keyword strategies that we're considering. For example our domain is like, dive.com Keyword strategies that we're looking at targeting would include things like, "dive shop", "dive equipment" etc etc Are we competitive to have a structure like this? dive.com/shop/ dive.com/equipment/ Or will this structure yield stronger results? dive.com/dive-shop/ dive.com/dive-equipment/ Your thoughts are appreciated. Thanks! Malcolm
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MAGNUMCreative0 -
How to beat Wikipedia article from the top spot on SERPS?
Hi Guys, One of our clients has a good web site with lots of content that is ranked already on #2 for the top keyword (singular and plural) on Google UK. The keyword itself is a competitive one. The top spot is occupied by a wikipedia article that doesn't have much content in general. Can anyone come up with an advice what strategy we have to apply to outplace that article? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | myclicks-1636030