Rankings Up and Down Every Single Week
-
This is so insanely frustrating. One week my client's rankings will be great, working up the second page and on our way to the first. The next week those rankings will drop (according to SEOMoz Rankings) to well below 50. The very next week those rankings will be back up on the second page.
It's like a pinball machine with a different rank every week. I'm doing absolutely nothing from week to week, and am not understanding why it's bouncing back and forth so much. I've never seen anything like it, actually. I've never had a client bounce up and down so frequently and in such huge numbers.
Any ideas? (http://erasedisease.com) Thanks
-
I see this is a Wordpress site.
Running a Web Page Test your real problem is the Time To First Byte - generally a poor figure here points directly at bottle necks with your server .
I see that you are using a number of jQuery scripts locally instead of through CDN. The first thing I would do would be to go into the function.php file and deregister those scripts and then register them so that they access the google depository for jQuery scripts and others.
This will help by decreasing wait time on parallel http request and that you will find some of the vistiors will have those scripts already cached. All this sounds complex, but it is really simple to do.
You can use the add_action('wp_enqueue_scripts', 'your_function_name') to wp_dergister_scripts and wp_register_scripts . You just have to look for the name space that the theme registered the script to de_register it correctly. (lol this sounds hard)
easiest one is the jquery most themes use the 'jquery' for the namespace so it would be like this i:
add_action('wp_enqueue_scripts', 'new_scripts');
function new_scripts() {
wp_deregister_script('jquery');
wp_register_script('jquery', 'http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.7.1/jquery.min.js', false, '17.1');
wp_enqueue_script('jquery');
}
Because of the issue with TTFB, I would look into is a relatively new WordPress Centric hosting. I've just started using them and they are very good .... WP Engine they can help with the TTFB issues as they are running varnish cache and supposedly have something even faster in the works called TachyCache.
-
I feel you on that one, however it's completely out of my hands. The client had this site completely redesigned before I came along. It is what it is. Actually with some farther research I found that the load time on the Home Page was over 200 seconds...something is definitely wrong here.
-
All I can say is WOW!
If not for the rankings, change this for the users!
I can virtually guarantee that your bounce rates will go down and sales will go up if you get that load time down.
Hopefully that load time is with a slow dial up connection. Nobody with a modem waits that long. After 10-15 seconds the assumption is that the website is broken, and they leave....
-
Right, right...I mean that's basic, beginner SEO stuff. These are personalized search results, but search results based on SEOMoz Rankings Reports.
-
Google is not Google these days.
In addition to personalized search there are many variations of the SERPs that you can see when logged out of any Google service.
Your location can change the rankings.
Your browser can change your rankings.
Your previous searches can change your rankings.
I also believe that if you have two sites in the same SERP that one might be demoted significantly.
Soon they will be able to display different rankings to right-handed people and left-handed people.
-
Yes that could be the ONE issue causing the problem.
-
4. Their should be There!
NIce you could just copy and paste next time... lol
Fact is it can be ONE of these things most likely unnatural link building.
-
Their is no ONE problem....
ALL the issues brought up need to be addressed:
1. Get more varied anchor text links, get text links that reflect the other ingredients in your product as well as supplements, pills, and the like...
2. Get that load time down!!!!
3. Clean up the clutter, MAKE your client get it done.
ALL these things will help with bounce rate & customers buying.
-
PS - Load time on the site was at over 140 seconds...perhaps this is the root of the problem.
-
Interesting. It goes from 16 and 18 for "l-arginine supplements' (the exact keyword we want to rank for) to below 50. This happens week by week for the past 5 or six weeks.
The site has been live for quite some time now, but we recently redesigned about 7 months ago. It's never ranked well, but since I've come on board we've been working slowly up the rankings to the second page. Then, ever since we've managed to get on page two this bounce back and forth has been happening.
I consistently check webmaster tools and everything seems to be good as far as that's concerned. I mean it's crazy when you look at the overall traffic from week to week. One week we will have wonderful and consistent traffic, the next week we'll have absolutely nothing, almost as if we've been flagged, then the flag is removed, then flagged again. It's so very strange.
I agree about the look of the site, but that part is out of my hands. Bounce rate is consistently 55% to 66% every week.
-
This can really be one of many reasons.
This may be a case of unnatural link building. You have 617 links of which 594 are anchored "<a class="clickable title link-pivot" title="See top linking pages that use this anchor text">l arginine". Its best practice to use variations of your keywords when linking in.</a>
<a class="clickable title link-pivot" style="background-color: initial;" title="See top linking pages that use this anchor text">Also the home page looks very very busy. Too many colors and graphics, user interaction might be the issue, maybe people get to your site and leave because of the clutter.</a>
How long has this site been live? was it ranking well in the past (statically) and now its starting to lose ranking (de-indexing)?
Have you checked your webmaster tools?
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
-
Recent redirect leading to keyword ranking drop
Hey all! Someone I work with recently redirected one of their site pages via Squarespace. They used Squarespace-provided code to make a 301 redirect. Following this, the primary keywords for the page that was redirect to have dropped pretty significantly. Any Squarespace pros out there who can help me figure out what's going on?
Technical SEO | | kelseyworsham0 -
Resubmit sitemaps on every change?
Hello Mozers, Our sitemaps were submitted to Google and Bing, and are successfully indexed. Every time pages are added to our store (ecommerce), we re-generate the xml sitemap. My question is: should we be resubmitting the sitemaps every time their content change, or since they were submitted once can we assume that the crawlers will re-download the sitemaps by themselves (I don't like to assume). What are best practices here? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | yacpro131 -
So weird sudden drop in rankings
Hi All, ok so at the beginning of July we launched our new website, SEVEN weeks later we have dropped completly off all rankings what-so-ever, (except brand) but weirdly if i pan between browsers we dont use (for saved searches/cookies etc) sometimes the rankings show up where they used to be. Whats strange is we get crawled daily but it took seven weeks for our rankings to drop, ive done all testing i can - no manual actions, no updates when we dropped (15th Aug) no real differences in webmaster tools, no crawl errors, no massive rise in 404s, 500s etc etc, im really a bit stumped! Any help would be mucho appreciated in diagnosing this stumper!
Technical SEO | | Kennelstore0 -
Is there anyway to find historical ranking for a specific keyword?
for example - if i want to know who has ranked for the term "seo company" on google for the last 12 months (or there abouts), can it be done? James
Technical SEO | | isntworkdull1 -
Large Companies Taking Over Rankings
Recently many large companies. (lowes, bed bath and beyond, walmart, target, ace hardware, etc.), have taken over the rankings of keywords we used to rank high in. Is there any way to improve our rankings and compete with these large companies? Is this due to recent Google changes? Sample keywords are: electrolux vacuum bags, oreck vacuum bags, vacuum cleaner bag, vacuum cleaner filter
Technical SEO | | totalvac0 -
Rankings drop after Panda
Hi All, My site dropped completely out of the SERPS on September 27th. I've tried everything I know to do (re-wrote all content, disavow links tool, filed DCMA complaints, de-optimized on-page content, made anchor text less aggressive, etc). Can you all please take a look at www.doctorloanusa.com and let me know what you think the problem is and how much you'd charge to help? Keywords used to be: doctor loans, physician loans. I ranked 2 or 3 for those keywords consistently for over 4 years. I know I need more content, but I feel like it's a waste of time creating it. If a thin site was the issue, wouldn't I at least rank SOMEWHERE in the 1000 results? Thanks for your consideration. At my wits end.
Technical SEO | | Cary_Forest0 -
Will rankings for my micro site rank better if I 301 redirect it to my main site?
This is my first time asking so I will try to be as clear as possible. Ok, I have a micro site that is an (exact match domain) and the domain is a couple 3-4 years old and ranks very well for several search terms. The main two terms it ranks for are like this. houses for rent in XXXXX XXXXX homes for rent (XXXXX equals a city name) The issue is this site has no backlinks, zero advanced SEO, I only did basic optimization to it when i set the site up. Even site structure, url structure all are not good.
Technical SEO | | Robbie8299
The only page I have ever even seen rank is the main root url. But with all that the site does really good in the top 1-2 results for key search terms. Now, I have a main site that is a very big site that has steadily been climbing in search terms every month with great backlinks, optimized for the city and all.
It currently ranks on second page for the listed search terms listed above. What I want to do is 301 redirect this microsite to my city page on my main site that is much better optimized for the key city terms.
The 301 redirect would point this "root domain" (mymicrosite.com) to my city page that looks like this. www.mymaindomain.com/city/XXXXXXX If I do this will Google rank my main URL city page as well as it ranks this microsite with zero links, seo, etc, etc. What happens if it does not? Will I be able to turn off the 301 redirect and keep the microsite rankings? My main reason for wanting this is I want this city page to rank well and I only want to optimize one site instead of both. Any help would be great!0 -
Lost ranking once optimised a page
Hello, we're a new member of SEOMOZ and love it but have a problem. Obviously the reason for joining is to learn more about SEO and hopefully get our website ranked a lot better than it currently is. However, one particular page we've chosen to optimise (based on your tips) has since lost ranking and we can no longer find it in the searches. Is there a reason for this? We've only made the on page changes you suggested and also added more external and internal links so I can't understand why it would no longer be listed in the searches? I look forward to your reply/feedback. Many thanks Peter
Technical SEO | | mybabyradio0