Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Technical SEO
    4. Why is my site jumping around in google search ?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Why is my site jumping around in google search ?

    Technical SEO
    4
    4
    2817
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • sparts
      sparts last edited by

      Hi I've been trying to get my page up in google results and I was wondering why the constant fluctuation. For example, on one day the pages is nr. 26, the next day it's nr. 65 then jumps back on say 30 and then in a few more days it's going back to 50.

      What's the logic behind that ?

      Thanks

      Cezar

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • ORob
        ORob last edited by

        I can get way up in the clouds on this one.

        Fluctuation is a natural part of the SERP. I would say this increases with the less domain authority you have relative to a search query. If your domain is not as strong as those ranking in the top results, Google may have less trust in your site, and thus move it around a lot more to see how it performs. The fact that you are jumping around on pages deeper than the 1st 2 leads me to believe that your domain authority is not competitive enough for the keywords you are monitoring.

        We know that Google and Bing both measure CTR. It could be one indication to how relative a site's content is to a search query. Google may drop a site in a new spot, measure the CTR, and see if that site is more relevant than most sites that fall into that position.

        Ultimately try to pay more attention to ranking averages - focusing on the jumps my drive you mad.

        Good luck.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
        • tdawson09
          tdawson09 last edited by

          Need more information to give an adequate answer. There are so many factors that can influence it on both sides of the fence. (Google's side and your side) If you have not changed anything on your site and have not done any off-page SEO, then you are seeing the changes with the algorithm that is affecting your ranking. Google is making changes almost every day, and it will affect your rankings, and those of your competitors if those changes are targeting certain attributes on your pages and other's web pages. As you add more content and pages to your website, it tends to settle down on movement.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • kanoapps
            kanoapps last edited by

            Don't think you will really get a good answer on this one, it is just the mystery of Google's algorithm. Best thing to focus on is that your content is useful for the keyword you are trying to rank.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • 1 / 1
            • First post
              Last post

            Got a burning SEO question?

            Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


            Start my free trial


            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.

            • See all categories

            Related Questions

            • Chris_Wright

              Removing a site from Google index with no index met tags

              Hi there! I wanted to remove a duplicated site from the google index. I've read that you can do this by removing the URL from Google Search console and, although I can't find it in Google Search console, Google keeps on showing the site on SERPs. So I wanted to add a "no index" meta tag to the code of the site however I've only found out how to do this for individual pages, can you do the same for a entire site? How can I do it? Thank you for your help in advance! L

              Technical SEO | | Chris_Wright
              1
            • AlisonMills

              Desktop & Mobile XML Sitemap Submitted But Only Desktop Sitemap Indexed On Google Search Console

              Hi! The Problem We have submitted to GSC a sitemap index. Within that index there are 4 XML Sitemaps. Including one for the desktop site and one for the mobile site. The desktop sitemap has 3300 URLs, of which Google has indexed (according to GSC) 3,000 (approx). The mobile sitemap has 1,000 URLs of which Google has indexed 74 of them. The pages are crawlable, the site structure is logical. And performing a Landing Page URL search (showing only Google/Organic source/medium) on Google Analytics I can see that hundreds of those mobile URLs are being landed on. A search on mobile for a longtail keyword from a (randomly selected) page shows a result in the SERPs for the mobile page that judging by GSC has not been indexed. Could this be because we have recently added rel=alternate tags on our desktop pages (and of course corresponding canonical ones on mobile). Would Google then 'not index' rel=alternate page versions? Thanks for any input on this one. PmHmG

              Technical SEO | | AlisonMills
              0
            • eglove

              Does my "spam" site affect my other sites on the same IP?

              I have a link directory called Liberty Resource Directory. It's the main site on my dedicated IP, all my other sites are Addon domains on top of it. While exploring the new MOZ spam ranking I saw that LRD (Liberty Resource Directory) has a spam score of 9/17 and that Google penalizes 71% of sites with a similar score. Fair enough, thin content, bunch of follow links (there's over 2,000 links by now), no problem. That site isn't for Google, it's for me. Question, does that site (and linking to my own sites on it) negatively affect my other sites on the same IP? If so, by how much? Does a simple noindex fix that potential issues? Bonus: How does one go about going through hundreds of pages with thousands of links, built with raw, plain text HTML to change things to nofollow? =/

              Technical SEO | | eglove
              0
            • iragless

              How to fix Google index after fixing site infected with malware.

              Hi All Upgraded a Joomla site for a customer a couple of months ago that was infected with malware (it wasn't flagged as infected by google).  Site is fine now but still noticing search queries for "cheap adobe" etc with links to http://domain.com/index.php?vc=201&Cheap_Adobe_Acrobat_xi in web master tools (about 50 in total).  These url's redirect back to home page and seem to be remaining in the index (I think Joomla is doing this automatically) Firstly, what sort of effect would these be having on on their rankings?  Would they be seen by google as duplicate content for the homepage (moz doesn't report them as such as there are no internal links). Secondly what's my best plan of attack to fix them.  Should I setup 404's for them and then submit them to google?  Will resubmitting the site to the index fix things? Would appreciate any advice or suggestions on the ramifications of this and how I should fix it. Regards, Ian

              Technical SEO | | iragless
              0
            • BestRide

              How to create site map for large site (ecommerce type) that has 1000's if not 100,000 of pages.

              I know this is kind of a newbie question but I am having an amazing amount of trouble creating a sitemap for our site Bestride.com.  We just did a complete redesign (look and feel, functionality, the works) and now I am trying to create a site map.  Most of the generators I have used "break" after reaching some number of pages.  I am at a loss as to how to create the sitemap.  Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks

              Technical SEO | | BestRide
              0
            • reynoldsdesign

              Site not ranking in Google but comes up #1 in Yahoo and Bing

              Hi everyone, I've been working on SEO for this site for about 2 years and for some reason the site has just tanked in google. However it shows up #1 in yahoo and bing for the same search. http://www.nfsmn.com Phrase: "commercial foundation repair mn" If anyone can shed some light on the issue I would really appreciate it. They do have a sister-site: american-waterworks.com that may be causing issues as they link a lot of content to amww but not the other way around. Thanks Eric

              Technical SEO | | reynoldsdesign
              0
            • GregDixson

              Google Showing Multiple Listings For Same Site?

              I've been optimizing a small static HTML site and have been working to increase the keyword rankings, yet have always ranked #1 for the company name. But, I've now noticed the company name is taking more than just the first position - the site is now appearing in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd position (each position referencing a different page of the site). Great.. who doesn't want to dominate a page of Google! ..But it looks kind of untidy and not usually how links from the same site are displayed. Is this normal? I'm used to seeing results from the same site grouped under the primary result, but not like this. any info appreciated 🙂

              Technical SEO | | GregDixson
              0
            • idiHost

              How is a dash or "-" handled by Google search?

              I am targeting the keyword AK-47 and it the  variants in search (AK47, AK-47, AK 47) .  How should I handle on page SEO?  Right now I have AK47 and AK-47 incorporated. So my questions is really do I need to account for the space or is Google handling a dash as a space? At a quick glance of the top 10 it seems the dash is handled as a space, but I just wanted to get a conformation from people much smarter then I at seomoz. Thanks, Jason

              Technical SEO | | idiHost
              0

            Get started with Moz Pro!

            Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

            Start my free trial
            Products
            • Moz Pro
            • Moz Local
            • Moz API
            • Moz Data
            • STAT
            • Product Updates
            Moz Solutions
            • SMB Solutions
            • Agency Solutions
            • Enterprise Solutions
            • Digital Marketers
            Free SEO Tools
            • Domain Authority Checker
            • Link Explorer
            • Keyword Explorer
            • Competitive Research
            • Brand Authority Checker
            • Local Citation Checker
            • MozBar Extension
            • MozCast
            Resources
            • Blog
            • SEO Learning Center
            • Help Hub
            • Beginner's Guide to SEO
            • How-to Guides
            • Moz Academy
            • API Docs
            About Moz
            • About
            • Team
            • Careers
            • Contact
            Why Moz
            • Case Studies
            • Testimonials
            Get Involved
            • Become an Affiliate
            • MozCon
            • Webinars
            • Practical Marketer Series
            • MozPod
            Connect with us

            Contact the Help team

            Join our newsletter
            Moz logo
            © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
            • Accessibility
            • Terms of Use
            • Privacy

            Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.