Ranking Fluctuations
-
I need your help. My rankings have been on a wild roller coaster ride since I started optimizing the site with standard on page optimization changes. (No keyword stuffing or over-optimization...) I have only made positive changes for the content on the page; I created unique descriptions for every product. I redirected some urls that weren’t readable into a more user- friendly format.
I am only doing completely organic link building, really.
Yet for some weird reason the rankings initially rose and then steeply fell and ever since have went back up to the top and right back to not in the top 50 results.
Just to give you an example this is a graph of one of our main keywords: https://www.diigo.com/item/image/3vpdp/gd2q
This is another keyword that we admittedly never were in the top 5 results but usually we were in the top 20. Check out the wild fluctuations. If it wasn't the main keyword we were going after, I would probably laugh. https://www.diigo.com/item/image/3vpdp/rcy9
I asked an expert he said he think it might be from a major issue with internal competition. The keywords that seem to fluctuate the most, have numerous landing pages that compete for the same keyword.
Since we sell the same object in many many different sizes, thicknesses and colors it only makes sense that we have the same keyword on many pages.
I would love someone that is an expert in this area to have a look at the site and give actionable advice so I can stop the craziness.
Do you have any suggestions?
Do you have anyone that you’d refer for this type of job/consulting?
-
The anchor text is for the whole site. The home page is not the only page I am seeing crazy rankings for. The site name is http://plasticplace.net.
Thanks so much for taking a look!
-
Is that for the whole site, or is it for the home page? Is the home page the only page you are seeing fluctuations for? It's quite difficult to assess what's happening without seeing the site, but some of these details might help.
-
Your 100% correct that I should remove as much poison links as possible.
Google doesn't recommend using the disavow tool if you didn't receive a spam warning. Additionally google wants you to try to remove the actual link from the web itself. This would be a huge job to do if I'm not completely sure what is actually causing the fluctuations.
I should do it as soon as I can but I first need to ascertain that this is indeed causing the volatile rankings.
-
edit: sorry my response was to Rachel here and not David. Didn't want this to be misconstrued:
Yeah I don't think this is necessarily accurate. Yes most sites will see their rankings plummet the day of an update, but the update isn't a one-day event. It carries over to every crawl Google does.
Therefore if your site slips through the algorithm, it isn't guaranteed to continue doing so. Perhaps the next time around the algo catches something it didn't before (for lack of a better visual.)
There is never any harm in removing poison links, that much we know for sure. So at least if you can get rid of those we can eliminate that as a possibility, right?
-
The recent updates have not been like the previous with 1 date of change- it has been rolled out over the summer with lots of fluctuations as you can see here.
You need to remove the bad and work on getting really good links to replace the old.
-
I sent you a PM
-
While I agree with you that there are some links I should get rid of, I don't think the ranking fluctuations have to do with back links because then I would have probably saw changes to my rankings on the days of the updates.
Please correct me if this isn't the case.
-
I think the keywords you are going after have bad toxic links with those anchor texts that are hurting you i would check into that
-
Can you please share the website URL and both the keywords? If possible, can you please check your Google Webmaster Tools and let us know about the internal linking for these two keywords as anchor text along with the number of back-links for each keyword?
The reason for such a HIT & Drop in the rankings may be due to the "Over-optimization" of the keyword as against all other keywords in the website. I've been getting the same results for one of my website for one keyword only which has reached the fourth page of Google almost 7-8 times in last one year; but never came in the top 30 rankings. Whenever I think this time the keyword will surely achieve rankings in top positions, the website goes down in rankings..as far as 15th page of Google. Analyzing this, I'm thinking about stopping the SEO work for this keyword once I get it in top #50 positions this time..and may be this keyword will be stable for few weeks..
-
It's actually not bad, here's a snapshot of the anchor text: http://awesomescreenshot.com/01f1k00j2f
-
You should consider using the disavow tool, when needed, but only after the a very thorough back-link analysis. This tool can be used for good
-
This probably has at least something to do with it. What does your anchor text profile look like?
-
I check the google wmt weekly. I have never seen a link warning yet. Additionally all the rank fluctuations didn't happen when there was google updates, which would have been a sign of a penalty.
In the past the company had an Indian SEO company posting links to our sites on really spammy sites. I tried to contact some of the sites but I couldn't get them removed and I am hesitant about using the disavow tool.
-
Ask your boss if they ever got a link warning in google webmaster tools about links - it could be you have a penalty you need to deal with or it could be you have some bad links that are hurting you now you need to disavow or remove -call me if you need more help
-
I sent you a PM with the domain.
-
What's the domain you are working on and what are the KW's you are targeting. Graph's work, but without actionable information, it's difficult to look over and help make a few suggestions
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 over someone else who has your branded domain name
Hello! I have a client who has been in business for a long time, but was very late to the game online. As a result, the branded domain for his business (for explanation purposes I'll call it "Houston Tan"*) was already taken when he decided he needed a website, however it was not being used. He approached the company that owned "houstontan.com" and they refused to sell it to him. Not only that, they turned around and opened a company and developed the website using his trademarked company name as one word instead of two, "HoustonTan." It was brought to court and the judge determined that since they created a new name by combining the two words, there was nothing that he could do. Still having to create a website for his company, he chose the domain "HoustonSunTan.com." Not sure who was advising him on that one. So now he has a domain name with only a partial match to his company name. As you would imagine, when you search Houston Tan, HoustonTan.com is number 1, 2 & 3, and HoustonSunTan.com is #4. My question is, do you think it is even possible for his company to overtake the top spot of Google? Or have you ever come across a situation like this and if so what worked for you? FYI: Even though it says Houston, the company is a global company in over 500 cities (with one 800 number unfortunately), so local SEO strategies wouldn't necessarily apply. *Names are made up to protect both parties 🙂
On-Page Optimization | | American.Made0 -
Need help in understanding why my site does not rank well for our best content?
Hi, We are a technology site from India (Digit.in) and we create a lot of original product review content (http://www.digit.in/mobile-phones/nokia-lumia-830-review-24655.html) but don't seem to rank even in the first 4 pages on Google results. Please let me know the reason for this and how to get this fixed. Thanks Arun
On-Page Optimization | | 9dot90 -
Are three Adsense ads on a long page a negative for search ranking?
I've not a site whose home page that is #1 for a popular keyword. The page is 1200 words, plus comments following. It's a clean page with no popups, and has one large rectangle Adsense ad above the fold (lots of text around this ad, and a very high percentage of page ATF is text), and another large rectangle Adsense ad that is midway down the article (after you have to page twice to get there). So, it's a very low ad to text ratio and ATF looks very clean. I have room for one more Adsense ad closer to the bottom of the article, which would be about five page downs through the page. My question is, will placing another ad way down the page affect my ranking in any negative way? I'm so pleased with my #1 ranking I hesitate to add it. But the page converts in Adsense so well, and heat maps show a large number readers do read all the way down the page, so I'd like to pick up some more ad revenue.
On-Page Optimization | | bizzer0 -
New Pages - Stable Rankings
Hello, Not a direct question really, just a poll really of your experience - I work with a few companies and have noticed recently that there seems to be an increase in the time it takes to go from a) showing up in the index (quickly within a day or two) to b) getting a stable ranking. I see spikes over the first few weeks (even up to 3 months) before the rankings eventually settle. Have you noticed the same, is it taking longer to achieve a stable ranking, do you work with any sites that get indexed, rank, and stay in the same slot for moderately competitive terms comparing to a year or tow ago? Interested to hear other people's experience and how long we expect to wait for new content to settle Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | xoffie0 -
Is it difficult to rank for a keyword phrase with an H2 halfway down the page?
If your competitor has a page that is optimized for a keyword (title tag, URL, content) and you target the keyword halfway down a page with an H2 and a short paragraph about the keyword, are you at a strong disadvantage?
On-Page Optimization | | ProjectLabs0 -
Does a page's url have any weight in Google rankings?
I'm sure this question must have been asked before but I can't find it. I'm assuming that the title tag is far more important than the page's url. Is that correct? Does the url have any relevance to Google?
On-Page Optimization | | rdreich490 -
Time lag to see effect on rankings after a good optimization
Once you do an optimise / make some (hopefully positive!) changes to pages re keywords etc - how long does it take for you to move up the rankings - if indeed you do actually move up... I made some changes last week and see some slight movement this monday - can I expect more of a movement over a period of a few weeks? Or does it take longer? Maybe tricky question to answer but hopefully you know what I mean...
On-Page Optimization | | inhouseninja0 -
Subdomains vs. Subfolders Inheriting Authority/Ranking Value
Our website is a continuing education website that is linked to a large university, and our URL is a subdomain of that larger university domain. We offer degrees as well, but because of the modifications we'd like to make to the degree webpages, our content management system won't let them be a part of our website. Now we're trying to figure out if we should create a separate subdomain for all degrees, and put the individual degrees in separate folders (so, all degrees' URLs woudl be degrees.us.university.edu/degree-name/), or if we should give each its own URL, which would be completely separate from ours (degree urls would be degree-name.university.edu). So our question is, how well do subdomains carry the value of the domain? Is it better to have twenty websites that are all separate subdomains of a strong domain, or one subdomain in a subdomain that houses all twenty websites in folders? And, as a side note, will housing the degrees in degrees.us.university.edu pass value to us (us.university.edu)? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | UWPCE0