Major SERP Fluctuation
-
I'm working on iDeal Chooser, a Comparison Shopping site and we've been having a weird problem with some of our major keywords on Google for the past couple of months. We keep moving between the first page of the results to disappearing completely. For example a Google search for "price drop alerts" returns idealchooser.com as result 3-5 for a while and suddenly doesn't return us at all, then we are back to the top results only to disappear again later.
We can't figure out what causes it, we didn't see any pattern and it seems completely random. We can be the 4th result for 2 weeks and suddenly we are gone for another 2 weeks. SEOmoz PRO had some good SEO suggestions which we implemented, however nothing that could explain this and even after fixing these issues this weird behavior continues.
Any idea will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
-
And now I'm back to the top SERP results for my main keywords. For example "price drop alerts" now returns my site as the 4th results after being gone from the first 5 pages for about 10 days. No major changes to the site or links to it that can explain it. I can literally pinpoint the exact hour it happen, yesterday between 6 and 7pm NY. Suddenly my Google organic traffic multiplied by 50 or even 60.
I'm obviously very happy to get decent traffic again, but knowing the past patterns, this will only last for few days followed by few more days of being gone again over and over.
If anyone has a clue what can cause this, I'd be very happy to know about it.
-
Thanks Kristina. I believe there's something else I'm missing here, not just regular back links, because of the length of time it's been going on for and the huge fluctuations I'm seeing.
On the other hand, since I can't figure out what's going on, I guess it could be anything
-
Well, I can see that competition for "price drop alerts" is just slightly outranking you, so it's possible that as you or one of your competitors gains or loses a link, rankings are reshuffled, pulling you on and off of the page.
If that's the case, increasing your back links will help keep you at the top.
Hopefully someone else on this forum has had this problem and will be able to give you more specific advice, though!
-
Sure, "price drop alerts" without the quotes, about 10 days ago I was the 5th results, now I'm practically not there at all. If the past is any indication I'll be back up at some point.
-
Ouch. Could you give us an example of one of the keywords that you're seeing these weird ranking issues with?
-
Thanks for the reply Kristina.
Yes, very much so, when I'm low I barely see any traffic from Google and when I'm high I see reasonable numbers, at least numbers I'm fine with considering the site is relatively new.
-
Yeah, very much a rollercoaster behavior, just an example: 12 days high, 10 days low, 11 days high, 10 low, 5 high, 8 low, 3 high, 7 low and it just keeps going randomly.
I made few changes to titles and URL structure, but nothing major and I've seen this up and down behavior even between changes. Every change to a page URL was replaced with 301 to the new URL, no 404 from Google crawl.
-
Is your search traffic increasing when you see your site ranking and decreasing when you don't?
-
No problem, I just know it's one of those items that you can sometimes overlook without thinking about it.
Is this something that is just going up and down like a rollercoaster? Have you changed anything from title/h2 tags and even any link structures. Also any links that may of been in google webmaster tools that are now returning 404 errors. (had a huge issue w/ some wordpress stuff and a 404 error rewrite. - Once fixed, my rankings surged almost instantly and have maintained a constant level.)
-
Thanks for the reply Travis, but that's not it. I'm using a proxy server to test my real position, so I'm not getting personalized results. Also SEOmoz PRO who I configured to track this keyword for me was saying I'm the 5th result and later that I'm not at the top 50.
-
Are you possibly looking from an account that is associated with the domain(webmaster tools/analytics/ etc...) while logged into google, vs sometimes not looking at it while logged in?
If it's your site, it seems that it will be more favorable to show you high up in rankings. At least htat is something i experience. Unless this is an automated ranking that is showing you this.
Otherwise, i have a site that i will be in the top 10 for lots of things - then if i use another browser where i'm not logged in, it will be between 10-70 spots higher.
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
-
Destination SERP Feature?
Hey guys, So my boss was surfin the web today on Google and came across the what looks like destination cards with an interest drop down. I've attached a screen shot of what it looks like. I couldn't find anything about this on the internet and was wondering if this was a new feature? Either way I guess I just want to know 1. what this SERP feature is called and 2. if there is any information on how google chooses what places to show here. It looks like, for this query anyway, that it's a combination of popular places in New England and my search history. Thanks! PrBMk
Algorithm Updates | | Myles920 -
URL in SERP: Google's stand
Months back, we can notice "keyword" will be bold and highlighted if its in the SERP URL. Now Google no more highlights any URLs even with exact match of keyword we search. Beside UI, Does this mean Google might devalued or reduced the importance of URL as ranking factor? We can see many search results match partially or completely in URL with search keywords.
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Bad Dates in SERPs, YouTube & Rankings (Nov. 10-18)
We've seen a lot of reports, including Q&A questions, of sites showing bad dates in Google SERPs. I've verified this bug in the wild. There are also reports of bad dates being caused by YouTube embeds, with Google taking the video date instead of the page date. I can also confirm this is happening, although I don't know if it accounts for all of the bad dates. Some people are reporting that these bad dates showing up corresponded with ranking drops. Usually, I would treat that as a coincidence (Google could easily launch an update and have a glitch on the same day), but in some of the reported cases, removing YouTube embeds led to ranking recovery soon after. I can't verify this, but I can't disregard it. There seem to be multiple reports of this recovery. I'm in communication with a Google rep, and they are unaware of any direct connection between a bad date and ranking (such as some kind of QDF effect). I've passed along some data, and they are investigating, but there may have been multiple updates in play that are making for noisy data (even for Google). There did seem to be heavy algorithm flux on November 10th and 18th, with some people speculating the latter spike was a reversal of the former. I have no evidence to support this, but MozCast data and chatter do seem to support both spikes. If you've been affected by this problem and the ranking drops are severe, it's worth temporarily removing YouTube embeds (if feasible). Replace them with direct links (or maybe a linked thumbnail) and have Google re-fetch the page. I can't guarantee it will work, but the risks are low. It's easy to restore the embed. Update (11/22) - Gary Illyes is saying on Twitter that the date problems have been fixed. If you see the proper dates cached, but have not seen rankings recover, then these may be unrelated events.
Algorithm Updates | | Dr-Pete2 -
My competitor pushed me down the SERP out of nowhere. How do I fix this?
Hi, my ecommerce site used to rank #2 (my homepage) for my primary keyword on Google for over a year. #1 has always been my competitor's homepage. Since Monday 10/10, my competitor's Shop page -- which uses this keyword only 6x within the content of that page and has NEVER been ranked -- is #2 bumping me down to #3 😞 I feel this is a result of the last Penguin update. My best guess is their homepage popularity -- due to backlinks and being #1 SERP rank -- has transferred popularity to their Shop page. Is that normal for Google to do that? Any advice or guidance would be much appreciated.
Algorithm Updates | | Taylorw0 -
Missing Keywords in Google SERP
We just got this attached image from one of our partners - has anyone seen Google putting 'missing' keywords in SERPs like this before? They said that it was not a plugin or anything and this is a screenshot of their organic search results. google%20screenshot_zpsgmwaf9e2.png
Algorithm Updates | | ReunionMarketing0 -
Interesting SERP trend I'm observing
I know Google has been favoring brands a big names lately, but I'm seeing something a bit more alarming Our company offers custom embroidered patches, and through keyword and search research I have discovered that almost all searches for "embroidered patches" are by people who need embroidered patches and are looking to purchase them, or learn more about the process of purchasing them. The SERPs for this term used to be all embroidered patch companies such as ours. In the past month: We've been outranked by a page on Amazon that's fairly irrelevant. An equally irrelevant ebay page has emerged The Wikipedia page for "embroidered patch" is now number seven. This has pushed three other embroidered patch companies off the first page (not that I'm complaining because it wasn't our company . . . yet). My question is, has anyone else noticed something similar happening, where large sites are gaining ground, in spite of the fact that they have low relevance to the search term?
Algorithm Updates | | UnderRugSwept0 -
What do you think of Google SERP encryption?
Really interesting post by Search Engine Land about this "issue" for tracking conversion, especially for long tail keyword research. I suppose this change will be also applied on all google search pages (.ca, .fr etc.). I Really don't think Webmaster tools is a serious compensation in Analytics for this.
Algorithm Updates | | Olivier_Lambert0 -
How long does a news article stay on Google's 'News' section on the SERP?
Our site is recognised as a news source for our niche - was just wondering if anyone had any idea how long the news story stays on the front page of the SERP once Google picks it up?
Algorithm Updates | | DanHill0