Why are my keyword rankings dramatically changing week to week?
-
I have a site (actual several) that has been up for many years now. Content is changed monthly - regularly. It would always rank in the top 5 positions for 5 or 6 keywords.
Now all of a sudden (without any dramatic changes to the website) my ranking results from my weekly Moz reports are dramatically different from week to week - every week. One Keyword will be #1, then the next week it will drop 49 positions, the 3rd week it might be #5, then Not in the Top 50, then #1 again, and so and so on. This happens to all my keywords on my site.
I was waiting for Google to finish it's changes to it's algorithms but it's now been long enough and I can't get a handle on what's happening, why it's happening, and what to do about it, and what direction to take with my SEO.
My Traffic has actually improved over last year by approx. 25%, but I have also started a PPC campaign for this client.
Any suggestions would be great.
-
Thanks for your responses. I looked at everything using your suggestions and I just think that my wild fluctuations are real. I used the Rank Tracker tool on Keywords on my competitors for a long while now, and it shows what I felt, that starting back in April through around June 2013, Google started messing with everything. Around 45 Keywords are all over the place since then- one week they rank 50+ the next week #1, etc. Before that pretty much of a straight line. I think Moz reports are sometimes off a little, but in these cases it's pretty accurate. I've tracked in Moz Rank Tracker for a couple of years my 5 main competitors, they now are barely on any page in the top 50, and the Rank Tracker proves it.
I've even done just a manual search and counted the positions - and it's fairly accurate. I just can't figure out what to do now in Google to get a consistent score and a consistent good score. All my pages grade A for the specific keywords I want, and they have always ranked for several years in the top 5. Now it's just all over the place.
Just can't figure it out.
Thank you for your input. I was trying several things to see if I could get a change, before I replied, but no joy.
-
We have wild fluctuations like that for our sites every week, and many of them are not accurate when checked manually - sometimes they're more than 10 positions off. And then sometimes the changes as showing it out of the top 50 is completely wrong.
A Moz team member looked at our campaigns said we just have highly volatile keywords. That seems kind of ridiculous to me, it's not like we're in a super super competitive niche.
-
Have you double-checked your rankings either through another tool or through unpersonalized searches to see if the Moz data is correct? I have a few search terms on two of my campaigns that regularly swing from 1st one week to "Not in top 50" the next according to Moz when in reality they barely shift ever.
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 rankings and main company tagline not matching
I have a question about keywords rankings and on page keywords. I don't rank very well for the keyword "Nutcracker". But, my tag line is "Your one stop Nutcracker and Ballet Gifts source". One of my most important keywords is "Nutcrackers" (see the s 😉 ) and I hot hit really hard in my rankings with the google algorithm update. Almost a 30 position difference from one day to the next. Am I shooting myself in the foot by having Nutcracker being in the forefront, even though my chances of ranking for that are very low as there is high competition with more actual "The Nutcracker" related content. I do have the word "nutcrackers" on my home page...but all of a sudden I feel like i'm wasting space, or I should have made the tagline "Your one stop Nutcrackers and Ballet Gifts source". It just doesn't sound as good. I just recently dove headfirst into SEO and moz, so I consider myself a noob, but I learn quite quickly. Thank you for your help! Esmee/Owner www.nutcrackerballetgifts.com 12-inch-nutcrackers-n1211-a.jpg
Moz Pro | | NutcrackerBalletGifts0 -
Why did my rankings drop so fast?
Hi Mozzers, One of my clients have suffered from a sudden ranking loss that started beginning of August. A little background: My client is a big cleaning company that has many franchises nationwide and had very good rankings for the past few months. Generally the busiest time of the year is summer and the 4th quarter is the slowest. Organic Traffic generally drops by 5 to 10% between Q3 and Q4 of each year. 2 things have caught my attention while investigating these ranking losses The latest recent Update from the moz index evaluated the website's DA of 48 when in the summer we had a DA of 56. Never seen such a drop before!! My first question is how accurate is the moz index? How can I make sure this data is accurate? I am very surprised because we have been working hard on getting good quality links for the past year and a half. If the DA is accurate then that could explain the ranking loss Google updating its search engine to the Hummingbird version. Do you guys think this has anything to do with the drop in rankings? The content on the website is not the best but is fairly decent. I am still not sure how the ranking drop could be related to Hummingbird? I have also checked webmaster tools to see if I got hit somehow by penguin and it seems fine. Thanks mozzers
Moz Pro | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
Ranking keyword ecommerce product
Hi guys, I run an ecommerce store footdistrict.com. We sell sneakers. My question relates to the name of some of my products and how to rank for them. This concerns to the shoes from New Balance The name of this products follows this format: New Balance XXNumberXXX . But actually I have realized I am ranking for New Balance XXNumber XXX . Note the space between the number and the last 3 characters. All my titles, h1, keywords follow this format. Example: New Balance WL574 RUP vs New Balance WL574RUP My questions are: 1. How would you determine which keyword to rank for: New Balance XXNumberXXX or New Balance XXNumber XXX? I have thought of using analytics data to see the pattern of the users search or maybe the difficulty of the keyword? I am receiving a decent amount of traffic for New Balance XXNumber XXX but I wonder if it'd be higher ranking for New Balance XXNumberXXX 2. Does the algorithmn take into account this space? According to the On page Grader, I have an A for New Balance XXNumber XXX and a F for New Balance XXNumber XXX but I assume the engine doesn't work this way 3. What would you do? Thanks very much Kind regards
Moz Pro | | footd0 -
Accurate Google Keyword Ranking for a domain
Hi Folks, SEO N00b here, in a new job so please go easy on me if i ask stupid questions. I'm looking for some clarification on Google Keyword rankings. I am looking for accurate Google Keywords rankings as when I log into Google Webmaster Tools I am given values like (6-10) for a ranking? When I used SEOMoz (Research Tools -> Keyword & Ranking -> Rank Tracker) it gives me an even less accurate range by simply saying >#50?Why is SEOMoz giving a completely useless metric? Why is its actual rank not shown? I know rankings are becoming less useful as a metric with Google moving toward personalized search but I still have reports to deliver to clients so the conversation of what metrics are going in the report is to be had another day. Right now I just want to get accurate rankings, from what I've found online Google Webmaster tools is recommended as the de-facto ranking tool but it doesn't provide accurate results so how can that be (yes I know it averages out the ranking but 6-10 is a range of values not a single value that represents an average) Dave
Moz Pro | | icanseeu0 -
Tracking keyword rankings on sub pages
Hello, What is the best way to track keywords on sub pages of a website through seomoz? Do we need to create a separate campaign for each sub page? Thanks for all the help!
Moz Pro | | DerekDenholm0 -
Does SEOmoz have a Keyword Research tool similar to, say, the Google AdWords tool or the WebCEO Keyword Research Tool? And where might that be? (Sorry, I'm very new to SEOmoz Pro.)
I'm looking for an SEOmoz version of the classic WebCEO Keyword Research that would give you effective suggestions based on a keyword inquiry. I've made the switch from WebCEO, but I'm trying to find something similar to that Keyword Research tool. Am I going to just need to use the Google AdWords tool for this function or does SEOmoz have it's own version?
Moz Pro | | SmokewagonKen0 -
Cities in Keywords Ranking Reports
So I've been in the habit of creating a master list of keywords concatenated with the city name so I can track my local rankings versus competitors. 1. Is this the correct thing to do to help hone in on who competitive my sites are ranking in the local market? 2. If so, by doing this the On Page reports seem to be totally screwed, because the searches I'm tracking (with city) vs the keywords I want to analyse for on-page ranking (without city), are different. What is the solution?
Moz Pro | | justlawonline0 -
Is the keyword difficulty tool the most helpful in all situations?
I understand that the scores it generates are essentially based on the difficulty of appearing on the first SERP for the keyword in question. That said, I am having a lot of difficulty finding keywords in my niche which return a score that would make this easily achievable for a site of my size.... The reason I'm pointing this out is because theoretically, a keyword could have a HIGHLY competitive first SERP, with a significant drop-off on the second SERP, which would make achieving a top ranking on that page substantially easier. So my question really is, is the importance of appearing on the first SERP so unequivocally important that it is a pointless activity to attempt deliberately to rank for keywords on the second SERP, which is ignored by the keyword difficulty tool? I know the breakdown of clicks goes something like 40% for top spot, 12% for second and downwards from there, but if a certain query has over a million searches per month, for example, it would still be possible to get considerable amounts of traffic by trying to rank highly on the second SERP, which the keyword difficulty tool cannot help with. So is this really a useless activity?
Moz Pro | | ZakGottlieb710