Ranking going down and down and disappears.
-
I asked a question a few weeks ago about a main keyword that we are targeting that is fluctuating up and down. The keyword is "trash bags" and that is what my company sells. All different colors, thicknesses and sizes. This isn't just a random keyword we are trying to optimize for, this is our business.
Before I started optimizing the website for "trash bags" we used the term "garbage bags", now that we started we have been off the charts and on the charts, but we have never regained rankings. The trend finally looked like it was going upwards... but now I see I dropped off of google again. Is this normal? Should I be worried that google is penalizing me for this keyword (There is many links that have trash bags in the anchor text - but we do sell that!)?
Here is a screenshot of our ranking history for trash bags: https://www.diigo.com/item/image/3vpdp/no01
-
Thanks for that screenshot, you definitely put me at ease to know that our anchor phrase is fine.
-
Well it's definitely not based on your anchor text profile for that keyword. Here's a screenshot showing why I say this. You will see that your number one anchor phrase is for your website by a large margin:
http://gyazo.com/ee24420ec14c9c8141169804d3d5ac23.png
I'm honestly not sure what to say. Is the page being updated or rebuilt, or is anything happening to coincide with these dips and peaks?
I can't think of what would cause it otherwise. If it were me, I'd keep building links and content and monitoring any edits I make to see what changes they have in my SERPs. Sorry I can't be more help right now..
-
Thanks for the response.
Here is the site I am trying to optimize: http://www.plasticplace.net. I'm not sure you noticed on the screenshot, but the blank spot after the past week's ranking shows that the keyword is more than 50 positions away in Google. We are targeting a lot of different keywords and long tail keywords as well. The other keywords are more or less stable. This keyword seems to be the ticket for more visits as the monthly searches are the highest.
My question is really why is it so unstable if the only changes I have made were positive. (It used to be at position 20)
-
Well gee it looks like you're rankings have improved more recently and are sticking around up there.. Did they fall again since this screenshot? A true penalty wouldn't allow you to regain ranking like that without it being lifted. I'm assuming you haven't received any notices in Google's Webmaster Tools, correct?
As always, it would probably behoove you to provide the domain for folks here to take a peak at. Although I can't guarantee anyone will be able to provide an answer other than "keep on building SEO for your site!"
Are you targeting other keywords as well that aren't fluctuating? For example "55 gallon trash bags" or "buy trash bags online" or something? (if you aren't targeting those, get on it!) Just trying to get a full picture of the problem.
You do want to vary your anchor text. We understand that is your business and what you sell, but that doesn't mean you can't make your link read "Check out our awesome deal on trash bags by clicking here!" Or "We got trash bags over at http://www.trashbagstore.com" or something along those lines.
That's about all the advice I know to offer at this time. Keep adding more info and I'm sure this community can help you get to the answer. Good luck!
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
-
How effective are 301 redirects in passing page rank?
I have a blog which is ranking well for certain terms, and would like to repurpose it to better explain these terms it is ranking for, including updating the url to the new term the blog will be about. The plan being to 301 redirect the old url to new. In the past, I've done this with other pages, and have actually lost much of the rankings that I had earned on the original URL. What is your take on this? Maybe repurpose blog, but maintain original URL just to be on the safe side? Thanks
Technical SEO | | CitimarineMoz0 -
Page Rank Flow
I wonder if someone can help me understand clearly page rank flow. If we have a website with a Home page, Services, About and Contact as a very basic website and the page rank will flow to each of those pages from the Home page (i'm not including internal linking between pages or anchor text from the home page content - this is a question purely about home page flow via the main navigation). If the Services page had 3 drop down pages. Would the home page rank also flow to each of these or is it going to the Services page which then distributes it to the three drop down. So instead of Home page rank flowing to 3 pages 33% each - it is flowing to 6 pages 16.6% each. Or is it flowing to 3 pages - 33.3% then the Services pages get a third of 33.3% ->10.1% I know this is simplifying it all a great deal- but it is the basic concept I am trying to grasp on this simple example. Thanks
Technical SEO | | AL123al0 -
I have lose my ranking Via 301 Redirection - How To Recover?
Hey, Folks! I Have Used 301 Redirection Method to Increase My Rankings but When i applied this Method My Website Ranked Down To 55 Numbers. Can anyone Suggest me How to Recover it?
Technical SEO | | SumitJiGupta0 -
Terrible branded ranking
I am at lost. My website has been live for about 3 months. Typing my name or my direct page title into google puts me on page 15. My site is indexed by google, a site:mywebsitename search - produces 202 results. My on page SEO isn't amazing buy it isn't terrible either. The website has 35+, 500 words+ reviews and a few incoming links from some occasional link building. 0 duplicate content. The website is animexcess.com
Technical SEO | | WebsiteEditor
My thoughts on what might be causing the problem, i am hoping that someone with a bit more SEO knowledge than myself can point me in the right direction. During development, i had duplicate content up on the site as placeholder while i wrote my own - All duplicate content has been removed for about 3 months now, but can this still be affecting me ranking? and to this extent? The entire website is in a sub-directory with 301 redirects - can this be affecting my ranking to this extent? The domain had a prior owner. Waybackmachine tells me that the domain had a page up in 2007. I bought it in 2010. If the prior owner built up a bad rep on this domain can is still be the cause for poor ranking 6 years later? I cannot file a reconsideration request since there are no manual actions taken against my site in WMT, any way around this? Its only been three months. I know 3 months isn't a very long time in the google ranking world but my my 2 week old, built in 1 week, secondary website is ranking on page 1 for some pretty solid terms, so i don't think 3 months is to short a time to expect a bit of results. My website is being crawled daily.
Any advice on how to move forward with fixing my website ranking will be much obliged. Thank you.0 -
Third Party Ranking Software
I have used a number of different tools for getting ranking information and have been using Cuterank but it now seems to be report the wrong results. Any suggestions for the best third party ranking software. It would allow me to check google, yahoo and bing ranks, compare month on month and produce branded PDFs. Any ideas? Thanks in advance.
Technical SEO | | highwayfive0 -
Photography site still not ranking well after over year
I have a photography business In the Orlando Fl market. I have noticed my site: joeyvalyphotography.com Does not rank even In the top 50, for my strongest keyword: Orlando Wedding Photographer However, the keyword Orlando engagement Photography/photographer Ranks Very well, and has been rising I'm rank very rapidly over the last two weeks. I'm not sure why my main keyword is not going anywhere, and what my next move should be. I'm considering spending few fhousand dollars on a n seo company, however I though I could learn how to improve my keyword ranking on my own to no avail. Any and all tips, suggestions, advice, will be greatly appreciated.
Technical SEO | | gaji0 -
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 -
How do 301 redirects affect rankings?
Scenario: example.com/red-shoes gets 301 redirected to example.com/brown-boots because we have stopped selling red shoes and now only sell brown boots (which is a fairly new page with no authority). the red-shoes page ranked well for "red shoes" and "footwear". Will Google still index and show the red-shoes url in the SERPs? Will the "red shoes" and "footwear" keywords still rank well? Or does the redirected/new boots page need to properly support these keywords? The boots page has inherited the juice from the shoes page, but how does it help the boots page rank well? Only for keywords that both pages targeted, like a general "footwear" type keyword? Thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | akim260