Do the search engines kind of test you out at a higher ranking for a short period of time?
-
I ranked very well for my keywords. They are not competitive. Nonetheless, I got convertible traffic to my blog. Suddenly, I run a search for the keywords and there is this other website ranking higher than me. it seems to be a new website. No data on opensiteexplorer. So, the only thing that I can conclude and which I've been thinking that google does is to test new webpages out for a bit higher up on the rankings. If the bounces are lower than average, then I suspect that they will give you better rankings in the future. Is this somewhat how it works?
-
You can be fairly confident any automated method of moving through a website will be quickly discovered by Google. They are a multi-billion dollar company which employs many of the world's best educated and foremost experts on the topic.
Live people have specific patterns and automated methods attempt to mimic those patterns and normally fail in a detectable way. If you want to try your hand at black hat SEO you are welcome to do such, but it is likely a waste of time, money and effort which could be directed towards providing your customers with real value.
-
it would be quite expensive. for that money, shouldn't we just pay for ppc.
-
I'm thinking that is how they can test for quality. Low bounce rate = high quality. I used to be able to compare how my site did with others in my area. Is there still a way to do this through google analytics?
-
So then wouldnt the idea be that when your site gets its boost if lots of people spend along time on your page
it sends google the signal that your page is worth keeping in that position. Could this be yet another opportunity to game the system by having lots of people(paying lots of people to spend time on your site click trough all the links and pages or even worse automate that to give the illusion that your site has great user experience. Could it be that this type of thing will be another trick up an SEO's sleeve sorry for putting bad ideas out there but I have been thinking about this for a while and I want to hear an expert opinion..We "know' that bounce rate effects rankings and google is watching to see how people engage with your site I guess they have methods of detecting unnatural behavior but there are ways of open.mimicking that behavior ie coming from different IPs and randomizing the amount of time spent on a page and the order which a site is browsed in.
Good luck with your page I hope your ranking comes up I am sure it will if you continue to do the right thing!
-
Thanks Ryan. I am learning new things not only from SEOmoz, but also from you too
The best part is that your answers are always explanatory.
-
The closest I could find as a word from Google was a reply from a lvl 14 on the Google forums. Since John Mu is a Google employee and lvl 15, I am guessing lvl 14 is as high as a non-employee can go.
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=7f20e3124fd3fa41&hl=en
"New sites get a short period (honeymoon) were they are "boosted" to see how they do and to get some traffic etc."
Also you can take a look at a blog article from Rand where he touched on this topic.
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/googles-sandbox-still-exists-exemplified-by-gradercom
The topic is touched upon a number of times but I was unable to find any official statement from Google or Matt Cutts.
-
Very insightful answer Ryan.
Is there any official word from Google regarding this. ( That they reward new sites for a short period ).
So, you mean to say that after a short period ( what is short period 1 month, 3 months, few weeks ), the sites are pushed down and the initial advantage is lost.
-
Based on what we've seen you DO get a quick boost initially for your new URL.
As for opensiteexplorer, that will take some time...
It's really all touch and go...
best of luck!
-
Do the search engines kind of test you out at a higher ranking for a short period of time?
Yes. New pages will commonly receive an artificial ranking boost for a short period after they are discovered. Google loves new content and rewards it. It makes sense from a freshness perspective and also it adds a little balance in that new pages don't have any backlinks so they are otherwise at a disadvantage.
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
-
Website Rankings Dramatically Drops in Google Search
Dear Moz Team, My website : https://www.crichighlightsvidz.com Rankings dramatically drops in Google search from 01st August 2022 to, being top 10 rankings for all of my keywords to not even being in top 50 positions after checking in search rankings. This website hosted on: www.porkbun.com. May I know what's the reason to drops rankings. Thanks
Keyword Research | | sagargone
Sagar Gone0 -
Very relevant (perhaps only) original content disappears/doing very bad on google search
Hi I know this is a general question and there multiple like it. I've read a lot over the years, but can't figure it out. 1. The site in question is https://www.glj.io which had the above problem for years. I've recently revamped it and ready to try again. 2. The specific page is this one which is a review for laptop model G3 3579 from Dell. It was posted about two weeks ago, and it's still the only in-depth review in English, it seems. However, beyond the first 1-3 days, it's been lowered in rank and finally disappeared. That happened with other articles as well, over the years. 3. When searching, for example, for "Dell G3 3579 Review", another post of mine shows up in the 1/2 places - just a general short one mentioning the "G3" (this one), instead the full in-depth review. That it make no sense. 4. Currently, the review itself doesn't show up at all, not at page 2/3 (which is bad anyway) Can anyone shed some light on the situation? or offer pro services for it? It's very frustrating, basically making all my efforts go down in the dunk.. Much appreciated!
Keyword Research | | glj0 -
Hi guys! Is there a tool (other than SEMRush) that can show you which keywords are ranking for Google Knowledge Graph? Thanks :)
I've also seen that you can get some data about this in Search Metrics but can't see where? Thanks for your help!
Keyword Research | | lakestar0 -
Page not ranking despite indicators showing should easily be mid-1st page?
I have many years old website selling a service. The main keyword is 47% competitive, and we used to be #1 page 2, occasionally page 1 couple years back. Domain authority is double of any of the competitors on 1st page, followed root domain links is many times that of 1st page competitors, infact against some of them almost 10 times as much, MozRank and MozTrust higher too. Infact, every metric is higher than competition. Only metric which isn't as good is Followed vs NoFollowed links metric, 95% of our links are NoFollowed, but we are still #1 in external followed links. Yet we are stuck on 4th page, and on some localizations we are not even in Top 50. This has happened slowly over time, not a overnight thing. Page we are trying to rank for gets grade A for optimizations, yet we have less significant pages ranking higher for that keyword. Further, newer pages tend to rank better than old ones. The whole site actually ranks quite low and we are not even getting search traffic for long tail keywords.
Keyword Research | | PulsedMedia
No problems reported on GWT, Analytics etc. Is this a google penalization or something of the sort? How can i troubleshoot this and get past this?0 -
Competitive Search Terms?
Does Moz provide a way to see what search terms are generating traffic on competitive sites? Thanks!
Keyword Research | | jmueller08230 -
Google algo mistake in persian search?
I recently wanted to work on a high important persian keyword (شارژ ایرانسل) and analysis it on moz.com Difficulty SERP. But the result was very Surprised me. because the second top site in SERP used more than 15 time the keyword in home page and Google doesn't mark it as spam. why Google doesn't apply the spam algo in some language? akg2NqH.png kcHgx0D.png gUSez3B.png
Keyword Research | | vahidafshari450 -
Ranks moving up & Down for a certain keyword search
Hi, We had lost rankings for certain keywords completely from google's index about 5 months ago. Recently the rank for the keyword reappeared on google. But it keeps moving up and down. One day on 26th position, next day it is on 45th position, then it comes back to 30th position. This has been going on for over a week now. What is the cause of this ? can someone shed some light on it ? Thank you
Keyword Research | | orion680 -
Is there a way to identify the phrases and pages involved in your URLS receiving search visits?
Our client seems to get 20 - 30 visits a month to pages which people arrived on via a search, without visiting home page and navigating there. Is there a way we can identify both the phrases the person used to arrive at the page, and the page itself? The graph is tantalizing, but without deeper insight into what the phrases and pages were, we can't focus on the phrases in question. And we'd like to do this, because the phrase may represent potential long tail phrases we could use. Thanks! Eric.
Keyword Research | | eric_gossamar0