Rankings changing every couple of MINUTES in Google?
-
We've been experiencing some unusual behaviour in the Google.co.uk SERPs recently...
Basically, the ranking of some of our websites for certain keywords appears to be changing by the minute.
For example, doing a search for "our keyword" might show us at #20. Then a few minutes later, doing the same search shows us at #14, and then the same search a few minutes later shows us at #26, and then sometimes we're not ranked at all, etc etc.
I know the algorithm changes a lot, but does it really change every couple of minutes?
Has anyone else experienced this kind of behaviour in the SERPs?
What could be causing it to happen?
-
Hi D4,
Rankings are affected by a host of factors, not the least of which are personalization and localization. Given that different people search for different things in the normal course of things, it is quite likely that two different people searching on different computers will get different results.
I would be very cautious about conducting repetitive searches every few minutes as you have described, because in the end, it could be you and your helpers that are influencing what you see in the rankings!
It is important to remember that Google and Bing both utilize click through data from the SERPs to inform rankings. Every time your site is returned in the results, but not clicked-through and every time a searcher clicks through, but quickly returns to the search engine, Google and Bing are gathering information that suggests your site is not seen as relevant or helpful by searchers. Constantly running redundant searches like this could eventually have a negative impact for your site.
I would say that you might be better served by conducting an in depth analysis of the pages concerned and putting the focus on improving them. If you get this aspect right, rankings and traffic will improve naturally over time.
Hope that helps,
Sha
-
@Rick Maggio: We've seen this happening from the same browser, as well as from different browsers, all of which came from the same IP address. I've just tested it from home, and I'm unable to reproduce the problem. It seems unlikely that it's IP-related?
@remco t hart: Interesting theory about the data centers. I would've thought that Google would be using some sort of "sticky sessions" whereby all queries made from a particular IP address would be served from the same data center, but I suppose Google could be using a "round robin" approach whereby each request gets sent to a random data center regardless of IP address.
To give a little more background on the issue... the keyword that we were checking is one that we used to rank really well for a few months ago before we launched a massive re-design of the website. Since the re-design, we've dropped off the rankings completely for this keyword - that is, until today when I just checked it on a whim and saw that we were #26. A few minutes later, someone else in the office checked it and we were nowhere to be found. Then I checked again a few minutes later, and we were #20. Then I checked again a few minutes later and we were nowhere.
Bizarre.
It makes me think that Google might be "testing the waters" by slowly re-introducing our website back into the SERPs and seeing how it performs on CTR and other user-experience metrics?
-
Curious if you check your rankings that often? Must drive you crazy!
I really only look at webmaster tool data as search is personalized, localized, etc. Are you looking from the same browser each time (like just refreshing the page)?
-
I might be have more to do that google has different data centers around the world and maybe giving different data some times. Do you have this problem for a long time? I am asking this because i had this but after a few weeks it stopped and my search rankings where steady.
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
-
Ranking gone for the original page and a shortened url ranks instead.
Hi Experts!!! Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year In Advance. I am been facing a issue with a few of my SERP results for "Singapore Visa" and related keyword. Until last to last Saturday i.e 16th December, I ranked for Singapore visa keyword with this url https://in.musafir.com/Visa/singapore-visa.aspx !!! But since 18th December I am ranking for "Singapore Visa" keyword with this url and message below it in place of description. Singapore visa - Musafir.com
Algorithm Updates | | sainath
go.musafir.com/Singapore-visa
No information is available for this page.
Learn why The go.musafir.com/Singapore-visa redirects to https://in.musafir.com/Visa/singapore-visa.aspx with some UTM parameters. The URL go.musafir.com/Singapore-visa is a shortened URL which was used for SMS marketing and all of a sudden Google has picked it in SERP instead of Singapore VIsa Landing Page. The Singapore visa Main page is not blocked by Robots.txt file. Please help me to resolve this.1 -
Duplicate website pages indexed: Ranking dropped. Does Google checks the duplicate domain association?
Hi all, Our duplicate website which is used for testing new optimisations got indexed and we dropped in rankings. But I am not sure whether this is exact reason as it happened earlier too where I don't find much drop in rankings. Also I got replies in the past that it'll not really impact original website but duplicate website. I think this rule applies to the third party websites. But if our own domain has exact duplicate content; will Google knows that we own the website from any other way we are associated like IP addresses and servers, etc..to find the duplicate website is hosted by us? I wonder how Google treats duplicate content from third party domains and own domains. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
High clicks and low rankings - Correlation?
Hi everyone, we noticed while doing last month's reports that even the best performing campaigns have a few keywords that slipped - some up to 10 positions down. We know keywords fluctuate every month, but May was just a weird month for rankings. While looking at possible issues that caused this, we noticed that these campaigns' clicks have gone up. So while keywords have gone down, their visitors seemed to be on the rise. Is there a correlation? Maybe Google saw an increase in visitors and decided something's up and lowered the rankings (this sounds ridiculous - sorry! May just be pure luck, but thought I'd ask anyway). Has anyone seen a drop in their rankings for May also? I checked everywhere, and I don't think there has been a major update going on. Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | nhhernandez2 -
Reduced traffic from google news
I have a question for my site. Can you advice me for situation? Last 1 months my site reduced traffic from google and google news.. And i dont know why? I need your advice. Thanks. Yunus Altindag Diyarbakir/Turkey
Algorithm Updates | | maxbilgisayar0 -
Google October 2015 Algorithm Update?
According to Accuranker (https://www.accuranker.com/blog/google-october-2015-algorithm-update/), "Google has made some big changes to their algorithm". Other than that one article, I haven't noticed or even heard of any considerable fluctuations. Even Mozcast is looking pretty normal today. Has anyone noticed anything or have any other sources on this? If so, any ideas on what this update seems to be targeting?
Algorithm Updates | | Silkstream0 -
How to Interpret Rankings Decline
My website operates in 14 languages, and overall we have not seen a decrease in traffic (hard to measure because we are very vulnerable to external factors) I started using AWR about a month ago and in that time have seen the following changes in my visibility for some of my major markets: Nothing major in either direction, but any advice of how to delve deeper to find an explanation for the markets that are decreasing? UK: 15% ->13% RU: 25 -> 26% AU: 25% -> 21% DE: 18% - 19% ES: 11% -> 10% SE: 42% -> 44%
Algorithm Updates | | theLotter0 -
Google Unable to Access Robots.txt
We haven't made any changes to the robots.txt file and suddenly Google claims they can no longer access the file. The site has been up and active for well over a year now. What are my next steps? I have included a screenshot of the top half of the file. See anything wrong? D3H5tgE.png
Algorithm Updates | | rhoadesjohn0 -
Proper Way To Submit A Reconsideration Request To Google
Hello, In previous posts, I was speaking about how we were penalized by Google for unnatural links. Basically 50,000 our of our 58,000 links were coming from 4-5 sites with the same exact anchor text and img alt tags. This obviously was causing our issues. Needless to say, I wen through the complete link profile to determine that all of the links besides this were of natrural origins. My question here is what is the accepted protocol of submitting a reinclusion request; For example, how long should it be? Should I disclose that I was in fact using paid links, and now that I removed (or at least nofollowed) them? I want to make sure that the request as good as it should so I can get our rankings up in a timely manner. Also, how long until the request is typically aknowledged? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | BestOdds0