Rankings UP, rankings DOWN - why?
-
Last week, I had 14 keywords go up and less than 5 go down. I was so thrilled!
Except this week, I had 10 go up and 14 go down!
How can I figure out what is going on? I am up and down 30+ spots with Google. I'd really like to stay up. My site is pretty new, just a few months. I am still fiddling around with settings trying to follow all the advice I read. (robot meta tags, title tag)
I didn't change any content in the last week. Does SEOmoz analyze the ranking data?
-
Hey There
First thing you might want to do is supplement weekly Moz rankings by using Webmaster Tools position data (under search queries) and you can filter by keyword - and you'll get you're average daily position straight from Google's data. You can also supplement Moz rankings data with something like AuthorityLabs. There's a list of rank checkers I put together here.
This is because it can be tricky to see what's going on with weekly data.
If/when you have that - it sounds like this is the "Google Dance" (when rankings jump all around). This can be common for new sites, especially as Google is just figuring it out etc.
Has traffic changed much?
I honestly would focus mostly on continuing to create the best site possible. Make sure each page is only targeting one main keyword.
-Dan
-
It means for my site (APQC.org) for example if a site links to one of our pages the anchor text for the link is American Productivity & Quality Center and not 'site focused on productivity and benchmarking'
Branded keyword anchor text is Coca-Cola regular keyword anchor text is soda.
Get it? Believe me I know all these SEO terms and stuff can make your head spin. Hope this helps.
-
Sorry what do you mean by branded? I am new to this.
The anchor text was my website's name.
-
I have no evidence to prove this theory but here goes: I think Google is beginning to weight brand centered anchor text higher and so it's really helping a site like mine whose links have brand anchor text.
If your anchor text on high value links isn't branded text that could be issue. Once again it's just my theory and feel free to punch holes in it if you like.
-
I rank better with bing and yahoo but I don't get many CLICKS.
I have no idea why I went up so much last week because I hadn't done much. I thought maybe because I got two quality backlinks on related blog with a PR of 5. But then why would they drop this week?
It is just frustrating not knowing!
-
Since your site is new that could be a reason for rankings swing. If you did something with title tags that could be an issue. In my experience Title tags have been a huge problem and a huge area for gain once we got them fixed and well done.
Also are your Bing/Yahoo rankings very different from your google rankings? Our yahoo/Bing rankings are all over the place the last 4 months while google has been stable but I've had the opposite as well.
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
-
Keyword Rank Dip - Estimated Wait Time to Return to Higher Spot?
The organic traffic to our site (fairly new) took a ~50% hit about a month ago due to the drop in our most important keyword. The numbers have come back up and are now exceeding the number before the dip. While this is all fine and dandy, we're still not ranking in the top 50 for our most valuable keyword. We've put out a number of guest post on reputable outside sites and are building a regular cadence of those posts, but my question is, what is the realistic wait time for those organic rankings to increase again?
Reporting & Analytics | | smf434340 -
Strange Behaviour - Varying rankings across browsers and devices
Hello, I noticed something quite strange over the last week with one of my keywords. I'll explain the lead up to this so it makes more sense. I started SEO work for a client about 3 months ago. One of the keywords I'm trying to increase their ranking for is "auto body calgary". I made a specific landing page for this keyword so it could be better targeted. After I made this landing page I saw their root domain (not the landing page) increase about 10 rankings to number 9 in 2 months. It hung at number 9 for about a month, and then the last month it has decreased to rank 15. For interest sake I searched "auto body calgary" on multiple computers and browsers. On one of the computers I used Safari and my landing page showed up in the number 2 position. On my mobile phone and personal laptop I used Safari and it showed to root domain ranked at 15. I used Google to search every time and wasn't logged in to my Google account on either of the searches. The only thing I've done in the last month is updated some of their directory submissions so they are more consistent. Out of this I have two questions: Why would different browsers show considerably different rankings and pages for a keyword? Since my landing page is more targeted to "auto body calgary" is Google trying to show that page instead of the root domain? (my root domain has considerably more authority than this landing page) Thanks to anyone who can offer insight!
Reporting & Analytics | | reidsteven750 -
Can't seem to rank for keyword "home care grand rapids" - need some advice
I am trying to rank for "home care grand rapids" and am having a really difficult time. My site: http://healthcareassociates.net has better backlinks, keywords and other seo markers than my competitors but I still can't seem to rank. The keyword and associated keywords (home care grand rapids michigan, home health care grand rapids, etc.) are only 31-33% difficulty and my site/page rank is better than the leading sites. What gives? Todd
Reporting & Analytics | | t1kuslik0 -
Rank #1 for a 110,000/month query search, but barely any traffic?
Hi guys, As it says in the title, we've recently reached the absolute #1 position for a certain key phrase in the travel industry which the Google Keyword Tool tells me averages 110,000 local (165,000 global) searches a month... however we have received barely any traffic at all over the past TWO months for it and I'm trying my best to determine why. We've checked on multiple different devices with all forms of personalisation off, different browsers, 3G connections as opposed to office Wi-FI etc. and it still returns us as the #1 rank. Meta descriptions and title tags are pretty much pristine if I don't say so myself, however what should be a very lucrative key phrase is currently returning little to no traffic results. Has anyone had experience in a similar situation to this? Any possible causes that I might be missing? Would greatly appreciate any help. Thanks.
Reporting & Analytics | | ExperienceOz0 -
Erratic movements on Rank Tracker-why is this?
I have been looking at 2 key words for my site & three other sites, I am refreshing daily to understand it movements and the movements have been really erratic - droping 8 places in one day, then back 7 places the next. There have not been any changes made to the site in question during this period other than I me starting to track them with SEOmoz - Can anyone explain what would be behind this? thanks, S
Reporting & Analytics | | girlie0 -
Woes in organic ranking... Post Penguin issue?
Hello all, First post here. Site:http://www.symbolphoto.com I'd done a ton of work to get my SEO where it needs to be, however, after looking at my traffic post April 15-22nd, it's gone completely downhill. I don't rank organically, which i'd like for one single term 'b*ston wedding photographer'. What am i missing? I'm assuming Penguin may be a part of this, but i haven't participated in any link schemes... am i being penalized and if so, is it evident why? Help is much appreciated! replace * with o.
Reporting & Analytics | | symbolphoto0 -
Not ranking in Google.com
I put up my last site on the web since a month. So far I have been optimizing mainly to Hungary and I got used to that my content was indexed in a day and if content was good it sometimes appeared in the first two pages in a couple of days. Now with my new site I am targeting google.com. I put it up since a week, sent the sitemap to google, it was intresting for mee te see that even the pages to get into the web index needed two days. Seomoz says my site is all right besides some duplicate content issue i will solve soon. So it is past a week and even if I copy a complete sentence from the beginning of my home page and paste it into google my site does not appear. I also purchased couple of backlins but they have not appeared so far as well. Is that really this slow? Am I to impatient? Or should there be something else problem I should be looking for? Thanks for any feedback
Reporting & Analytics | | sesertin0 -
Differences in keyword rankings in Google and Bing and Yahoo
Hi there, We have some keywords that are ranked so far apart on the search engines its puzzling. For example we have keywords ranked at say 10, 9, 7 etc on Google, not in top 50 on Bing or Yahoo. Stuff like that. Surely the algorithms can’t be that far apart? Is this indeed normal? Does anyone have the same issues? Thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | inhouseninja0