So many questions!

[Joshlaska]

Yesterday was a jubilant day!

Our website http://www.farnorthkennel.com hit the #2 spot on google for one of our keyword searches "german shepherd puppies in Alaska." We are new at this and it took a lot of work and about 2 months to do this (I realize this is fast).

What happened overnight? We have new pages on page 1 towards the bottom, but our homepage fell to around page 4? What would make this happen? I didn't make any updates to the homepage recently.

Am I linking to it too much interally? Am I running too many categories? The "too many on pages links" warning comes up all of the time, but I feel like my site is structured user friendly.

I am blogging like mad and successfully getting guest blog posts on reputable sites like mad. I have 30,000 Facebook fans....

but will never understand google.

Any takers? What happened overnight?

[jesse-landry]

Yes I think from the small snapshot I viewed your link profile looks very strong. Small, but strong. Just keep going at it and you'll be fine. Keep it relevant, keep your content strong, and you can't fail.

[Joshlaska]

Thanks for telling me this, Takeshi!

I didn't know most of this information. Very helpful information.

[Joshlaska]

It happened literally overnight today. The competitors seem a little shuffled. The people at the number one slot, who have a small DA seem to always be in that slot.

I'll get there!

[Joshlaska]

Hi Jesse,

Thanks so much.

Did you look at my link-building to see that it's good? That'd be a major relief - I have been working hard. The backlinks are small - I've been doing this for about a month.

Am I linking within the site too much?

Thanks again!

[jesse-landry]

Any number of things could have happened, just like these guys said. Takeshi's list is spot-on.

I would add that you really don't have a very large backlink profile at all. Your DA is weak. This is NOT a bad thing whatsoever. It just means you have some good ole SEO work to do!

The good news is you are not penalized and you will not be penalized if you continue building links the way you said you are. Keep it up and you'll have that page one listing back soon enough!

Good luck

[TakeshiYoung]

First of all, Google rankings fluctuate all the time, so don't get too attached to your rankings. You don't control the search results, Google does, and Google makes changes to their algorithm all the time.

Beyond Google just being Google, there are plenty of other possibilities for rankings fluctuations:

• Competitors doing SEO on your sites
• New competitors entering the niche
• Losing links that you used to have
• A drop in PageRank for sites linking to you
• Google changing the value of sites linking to you
• Over-optimized anchor text
• Personalization/geo-specific rankings
• Etc.

You can try investigating some of these and seeing if you can determine the cause of the drop, but unless you're doing something completely wrong or blackhat, focus on making the best site that you possibly can for the query and continue building backlinks. Show Google that you deserve to be listed #1.

[FedeEinhorn]

When did that happen? Google may have the results shuffled for a day or two while the index is updating. It's not a surprise to have a site ranked 2nd one day and the next day 17th and the next day back in 2nd place.

Did you check what your competitors are doing?