One Keyword Rank Inexplicably Blasted Into Oblivion
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Okay, so I'm working on my site, minding my own business and everything is just great.
Many different terms on pages 1 -4, all inching ever upward.
When suddenly, one term that got all the way to #11 gets blasted to oblivion... #75!
Is there some kind of landmine one could step on that would cause that? All the other terms are fine.Nothing on the page changed since it first went up two months ago.
Thanks!
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Yes, time counts. The site is six years old. The page is a few months.
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I'm guessing your domain name was new. It took from November until May for this new website to settle down in 1st. Very common for new websites, in fact it's almost inevitable and can last from 1 week to 6 months:
Check Date Rank URL Found
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Jun 9, 2011
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1
May 20, 2011
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1
May 18, 2011
|
1
May 17, 2011
|
1
May 13, 2011
|
1
May 12, 2011
|
1
May 11, 2011
|
1
May 10, 2011
|
1
May 9, 2011
|
1
May 4, 2011
|
Not in top 100
May 3, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Apr 28, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Apr 20, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Apr 19, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Apr 18, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Apr 15, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Apr 14, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Apr 13, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Apr 12, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Apr 11, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Apr 8, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Apr 7, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Apr 6, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Apr 5, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Apr 4, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Apr 2, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Apr 1, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Mar 31, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Mar 30, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Mar 29, 2011
|
1
Mar 28, 2011
|
1
Mar 27, 2011
|
2
Mar 26, 2011
|
2
Mar 25, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Mar 24, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Mar 23, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Mar 22, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Mar 21, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Mar 18, 2011
|
1
Mar 16, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Mar 15, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Mar 14, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Mar 11, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Mar 9, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Mar 8, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Mar 7, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Mar 4, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Mar 2, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Mar 1, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Feb 28, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Feb 27, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Feb 25, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Feb 24, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Feb 23, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Feb 22, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Feb 21, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Feb 18, 2011
|
95
Feb 17, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Feb 16, 2011
|
89
Feb 15, 2011
|
94
Feb 14, 2011
|
94
Feb 11, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Feb 10, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Feb 9, 2011
|
90
Feb 8, 2011
|
82
Feb 7, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Feb 4, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Feb 3, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Feb 2, 2011
|
99
Jan 31, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Jan 30, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Jan 27, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Jan 26, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Jan 25, 2011
|
98
Jan 24, 2011
|
94
Jan 22, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Jan 21, 2011
|
97
Jan 20, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Jan 19, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Jan 18, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Jan 17, 2011
|
Not in top 100
Jan 14, 2011
|
11
Jan 13, 2011
|
12
Jan 12, 2011
|
11
Jan 11, 2011
|
11
Jan 10, 2011
|
11
Jan 9, 2011
|
12
Jan 7, 2011
|
9
Jan 6, 2011
|
9
Jan 5, 2011
|
9
Jan 4, 2011
|
9
Jan 3, 2011
|
9
Jan 2, 2011
|
10
Dec 31, 2010
|
11
Dec 30, 2010
|
10
Dec 29, 2010
|
1
Dec 28, 2010
|
1
Dec 27, 2010
|
1
Dec 26, 2010
|
Not in top 100
Dec 24, 2010
|
Not in top 100
Dec 23, 2010
|
Not in top 100
Dec 22, 2010
|
Not in top 100
Dec 21, 2010
|
Not in top 100
Dec 20, 2010
|
Not in top 100
Dec 19, 2010
|
Not in top 100
Dec 18, 2010
|
Not in top 100
Dec 17, 2010
|
Not in top 100
Dec 16, 2010
|
Not in top 100
Dec 15, 2010
|
Not in top 100
Dec 14, 2010
|
Not in top 100
Dec 13, 2010
|
Not in top 100
Dec 11, 2010
|
Not in top 100
Dec 10, 2010
|
Not in top 100
Dec 6, 2010
|
1
Nov 29, 2010
|
2
Nov 26, 2010
|
2
Nov 25, 2010
|
Not in top 100
Nov 23, 2010
|
Not in top 100
Nov 16, 2010
|
Not in top 100
|
(Apologies for the length! It didn't look this big in the editor!)
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Hi,
I only check the highest instance of it. Today, it was at #17, which is where it's been for a while.
To answer your question, it's an interior page, not the home page.
Thanks!
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I can give you tonnes of examples, I have some affiliate sites I test things with, and we've taken over client sites who had previously had that kind of SEO... It definitely works that way.
Also, we've made the mistake on our own clients.
Buy the new Link Love Videos from Distilled and you'll see that Wil Reynolds goes over it being an issue in his "Pitfalls and Mistakes" video: http://www.distilled.net/store/linklove2011-pitfalls/
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Did you check if the same page ranks at 11 and 73 or 75? I want to bring forth the classical page vs site discussion and it is not clear if it is an internal page that showing at the lower positions or is it the same page (home page may be).
If the home page was ranking and it has dropped, try and do a site search on Google with that keyword and link from the 2nd most important page to the home page using the same anchor. Of course, if some other page is ranking, this won't be a ranking penalty but some other thing at play which has to do with your webpage.
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Steve,
Give me an example and I will be happily accepting what you say here. That never happens. Even in most of the polluted niches like Web Design or online pills, backlink anchor text semantics seem to be working pretty fine. There are so many factors at play that it is easy to confuse it with semnatics of anchor text, but really doesn't works that way.
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Hi,
Thanks for the message. Good points.
At this juncture on this term (thankfully not all keywords), it doesn't even seem like Google has a system. It can be #5 or #75 or #23... whatever.
Like, if this was a piece of equipment, like radar in a plane, one minute it shows no planes and an available runway and the next minute lotsa planes and no airport. If it were a piece of equipment, you'd chuck it! Helluva way to run an airline!
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'Google Shuffle' Give it a couple of weeks and it should come back. Check the usual culprits (Dupe Content) and go over all the changes implimented before it occured.
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Yes... It's not just what you are doing but what your competitors are doing. It's an on going war out there. Bunker down boys.
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I understand. This thing is more strange than mission critical. Best...Michael
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If I had the time, I'd like to learn more specifics. Unfortunately I struggle to eek out enough time to just participate here in the Q&A system as it is...
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Thanks Alan,
Hey, just got done reading your excellent piece on SEO audits.A super interesting point in that piece about link ratios.
I get what you're saying about competition. Using SEOMoz's handy difficulty tool, this phrase is a 38% difficulty. It doesn't seem like it should be this hard. If you want, drop me an email and I'll share some other details with you. Thanks! Best...Michael
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Okay based on that pattern, I've seen similar volatility with some phrases but not others for a client in a highly competitive market, with the volatility lasting years. From what I have been able to ascertain, in this case it was due to the fierce nature of competitive activity for those phrases - literally where X number of competitors have been fighting it out. In that time-span we've bounced back to the top a number of times, only to have those phrases drop again, then rebound.
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So here's the update I promised. The rank continues to jump around like crazy. I think it's been on every one of the first 10 pages in the last two weeks. This morning it was at page 1, #3. At this moment it's nowhere to be found! Isn't that strange? Best....Michael
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I'm loving the optimism! I'll continue to post rank, in case anybody's interested in the experiment results.
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I've heard some compare this scenario as the pendulum swing. You give it a little push in one direction and it will push back the other a bit. The bigger the swing back the bigger the jump forward. Like a pendulum the point is to find the balanced center.
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That would seem like the thought process... but dropping it from 11 to 13 would still give them a comparison. But hey, we are playing in their sandbox so they make the rules.
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Yay! Let's hope it keeps going!
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Here's an update. These serps are 1 or two days apart: 11 75 63 33 So, it may have swung around past the dark side of the Moon and be on a trajectory to re-enter Earth's orbit.
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Incidentally - the page I am trying to rank for is still appearing for another key word phrase - it’s just for the main keyword phrase that it has disappeared out of Google! But for another related key phrase the page is at number 2!
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It's highly doubtful that just six links trigger the slap. In the situation with my client, it was thousands. So it'll be interesting to learn if this one bounces back or not, or if something else is the cause.
As for why Google would slap for over-saturation of a particular phrase, I believe it was at SMX Advanced last year when I recall Matt Cutts stating that Google was working on surgical implementation rather than broad entire-site impact.
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Good question. I guess my follow-up on that is; "too many" as a percentage of the links to the page. This page has maybe 6 links, 4 of them with the anchor text. Is that too many? There could be a press release that added to that number, but not sure where all that might be posted. Hmm... Open Site Explorer has picked up zero links to the page after almost two months.
It also sort of seems like a potential SEO weapon, like if you were mean-spirited and wanted to hurt a competitor's rank, just blast out a ton of targeted links.
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It raises a big red flag for black hat link building/spamming.... in other words it looks totally unnatural to the search engines. If you had links grow naturally they would have a range of words such as the domain name, the company name, words like "view site here", etc... as well as variations of keywords that are relevant.
If you've got a high percentage of keyworded anchor text links that are all the same, you didn't get them naturally, you built them trying to rank for that word
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I've had the same thing – an important keyword for an important page, that was getting up to around 30-35 place in google and I thought would go higher - all of a sudden, baam - off the charts and can't even find it listed at all! Nowhere to be seen, not even in top 100 when I do a private browser search.
All other pages on the site have been steady, and / or inching up.
I did 301 some broken links from various pages I found in open site explorer to this page around this time, so might that have caused it?? Only about 20 or so, and the links were all related somewhat to the page, so I thought doing that would be the best thing - but now I think I might have messed up...
Should I do a re-consideration request to Google - can you do this for just 1 page? As I say, all other pages seem fine.
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Alan, why woudl too many inbound links targeting the phrase in question be a problem? I thought inbound links with the anchor text you are targetting is what you should be doing? Thanks!
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Good tip. Will definitely keep that in mind. Thanks!
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If it does NOT bounce back, check to see if you've got too many inbound links targeting the phrase in question. I've seen a site get surgically whacked this way. Fortunately the site owner controlled many of the source sites and as soon as they changed those anchors, they bounced back.
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"Roulette..."Funny and thanks
I'll post back here if moves. Thanks...!
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I have also seen this happen. It seems to happen more often when we are pushing a little harder on a keyword phrase. I wouldn't change anything you are doing. Keep a steady pace and it should spring back up. Kinda feels like a roulette ball, bouncing around right before it settles in. COME ON NUMBER #1!!!
Good luck.
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It reminds me of taking the kids to the Pediatrician. "Yeah, that happens alot. If it doesn't clear up in a week, bring em back in and we'll have another look."
Thanks for all the really helpful answers Dunamis, Steve and Aaron!
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Well, golly, that's incredibly hopeful! Thanks for weighing-in. I agree and at the same time it makes me wonder why the roller-coaster drop before improvement? This term is actually one that I felt very upbeat about it's steady progress. Weird.It's almost Google-sadism.
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I could see a method in this madness. Perhaps Google is saying, "OK...we think that this result should be higher in the SERPS. But just to make sure that another one is not more worthy, let's take it away for a few days and see which result most people click on."
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As Dunamis has said, these things sometimes happen for various reasons (reasons that Google no doubt will never disclose). Keep checking on it manually and keep an eye on it. If the problem doesn't sort itself out within the next couple of days, then go through your recent link acquisitions to try to find the cause!
Regards
Aaron
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Same, give it two weeks and it'll probably be back with a vengeance... if not then I have no idea. I do wonder what in the algo could cause that and whether it would something something put in intentionally. If it's a side effect of something, what could be the purpose of that something. Oh dark and mysterious Google, why do you play with our minds this way.
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Occasionally I've had this happen to me and then a few days later my keyword jumps up to even higher than it was before. It's happened enough times that when I see a keyword drop a lot I get excited because often it pops back up as #1-3.
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