Google Slower to Trust New Pages than One Year Ago?
-
It seems to me that Google is slower to trust (and rank) new pages today than in the past.
I used to be able to put up a new page and it would go right to the top of a competitive SERP.
For about the past year when I launch a new page it starts deep in the SERPs, sits there for a few weeks, then starts slowly moving up. These pages still eventually rank on the first page of Google - often at #1 or #2 after wikipedia or another strong site - but it can take a few months to get there, several months in a competitive SERP.
These are not "hot news" topics where freshness is an important factor. Instead they are product pages or general information articles.
Anybody else seeing this?
[ Just stabbing in the dark here... I am wondering if Google is relying more on visitor behavior these days and the delay is while they collect data?... Just stabbing in the dark.]
-
Thanks for the report, Jesse.
-
Thanks for the analysis. Your description makes a lot of sense. Maybe that is what Google is doing. Assessing to see if all of the boxes are checked.
-
The keywords that the articles target have a Moz KW Difficulty of about 50%. All of this is being done without any linkbuilding or other promotion. Just the ranking power of unique, substantive content on an authority domain.
A year ago these pages would have gone to the first page of Google within 24 hours. Now they still go to the first page but it might take 24 weeks.
-
Is it weird that I like this way better? It's making me work harder, but I think it's much more "fair."
-
Nice work on getting those quick rankings.
These types of results are becoming hard to get.
-
...in the past you'd see them have a big jump quickly and then start to fade back down...
Right... in the past a good page on a strong site would bust right to the top and Google would play "whack a mole". Now the good pages on a strong site will start deep in the SERPs and without promotion, they will climb slowly to the spot that you would have initially expected them to rank.
Instead of "whack a mole" google is saying... "prove the you deserve it". At least, that's what it looks like to me.
-
So I just 404'd an old page and changed it's URL and re-launched it last Tuesday. Today it has been indexed and is on page 3 for a fairly competitive keyword. That was much quicker than I expected.
Granted, I built a few links for this one last week and didn't let it just go without but I still find this relevant.
Also, I still feel like a few months back this would have happened by Thursday/Friday of last week.
Anyway that's my latest findings.
-
I'd agree. I think the reason is because there are so many boxes to tick nowadays if you want to have good rankings in the SERPs. Google is looking deeper into every website now (after Penguin 2.0) and this is clearly having an affect on how quickly websites are ranking for keywords on deeper pages.
On the flip side, whereas rankings would jump around quite a lot in the past, as Google as delved deeper into a website, hopefully once a new website has its rankings, there shouldn't be too much fluctuation which is great as you can put some budgets, strategies and plans in place.
-
It must depend on the keyword because in the past few weeks, I've had a couple of brand new domains hit the first page of Google very quickly. It's not for ultra competitive keywords, but it isn't for bad keywords that people aren't searching for either.
I've got well over 1,000 website that I do testing with, I'll add another 50+ this week to do some testing on.
Any particular keywords you guys want me to test? Give me something that is middle or the road, nothing too hard or easy, that way we should get some pretty quick results.
-
Good chance either some or all of these things happened:
a.) your competitors had built links through black-hat seo firms
b.) you are a victim/beneficiary of the Google Honeymoon (keep building links/content and don't be sad if you disappear in a few days back down the SERPs. You can gain it back quickly!)
c.) your content was stronger and your keyword/on-site SEO work was done proper
-
Social media plays a big part in getting noticed, crawled and indexed faster by Google, Bing and Yahoo. When launching a new website, try registering the main social networking channels (Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, LinkedIn) and complete user profiles, including the URL of your new website. If you regularly update each social media channel, connect with other users, and post relevant content, you may find that your new site gets indexed faster.
-
I launched a dental website a couple of months ago and within a month, we had incredible keyword rankings ahead of many of the competitors in the same town. We had a brand new url, brand new content and everything. So in this case, we seemed to rank well in a short amount of time. Our content was nothing special, but unique of course. I am still scratching my head to figure this one out!
-
ABSOLUTELY!
I'm so glad I'm not the only one. Lately I've re-launched a few penguined pages with new URLs so the 404 would rid the black-hat action. The keywords have slowly regenerated whereas in the past you'd see them have a big jump quickly and then start to fade back down (if your SEM campaign didn't keep up of course.)
Anyway I definitely have been seeing this lately. Good topic. Makes me feel better.
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 do I split page content?
So I offer two services for which each has an FAQ page (let's call them S1 and S2). The problem is that I also have a longer FAQ page that covers both services (S1-2). I would like to eliminate the longer one and attach the relevant content to each of the shorter pages but i'm concerned that deleting pages with a lot of content might be a bad idea. I could redirect I suppose but I wouldn't know which page S1 or S2 to point redirect to. Any advice on this?
Content Development | | NationalPardon0 -
Blog Content if Google has stated it doesn't like your blog?
Hi guys, In the new 'mobile usability' tab in Webmaster Tools, Google has stated that our blog isn't offering a good experience for users. Something we already knew and I want to change, but I can't get the budget approved to complete the work. I was just wondering if you think Google isn't going to hold my content very high as a result. I want to produce more content on our blog around our valuable keywords in hope to improve our rankings, but if Google isn't holding our site in high regard I'm thinking there may not be much point in it. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks Brian
Content Development | | brianmadden0 -
Is it Possible for an Internal Page to Rank for Various Terms Based ONLY on Blogging Anchor Text?
Hi everyone, Our company provides about 6 different services, each with a specific page on our website: 1. Accept ACH Payments (/accept_ach_payments.html) 2. Client Management & Billing Software (/customer_management.html) 3. Small Business Merchant Accounts (/small_business_merchant_account.html) etc etc Now, here's the question. One of our blogging strategies is to write content about how our online platform can help various types of businesses manage and grow their business. "5 Ways Fitness Business Can...." "How Law Firms Can Benefit...." etc In these blog posts, we don't specify our product, but we do link back into one of those main service pages, so I might link fitness management software to the Client Management & Billing Software (/customer_management.html) page as well as legal billing software to the same client management page Since there are so many different companies that could use our software, we don't want to include them on the Cl_i_ent Management & Billing Software page. That page is just about the benefits of the system and how it works as a great CRM. So....to make a long question short, are we able to rank the Client Management page for "fitness management software" and "legal billing software" if we don't use those terms on the "client management" page itself, and only use it as the anchor text when linking? Instead of making a separate page about how we can be used as a fitness management platform, we'd like our "client management" page to rank for various terms like "fitness management software" "legal billing software" "online church donation software" etc BUT, we don't want to bloat the client management page will all those other topics and content. Hope that makes sense, Patrick
Content Development | | SmallBizSmarts0 -
How Many Words on Page for Content When Optimizing a K.W.
I want to hired a writer to create content. When optimizing a keyword on a page, how many words (minimum) should I have on that content. Some writer use ''Word Count'' when fixing a price for text, before asking a writer, I need to specified ''How many word'' to included in the content. Thank you,
Content Development | | BigBlaze2050 -
Is putting introduction to new stories on the front page a good idea
Hi, i am trying to find out if i should be putting all the introduction to new stories on the front page of my magazine www.in2town.co.uk. I am not sure if to just put certain stories on the home page or if it would be better for seo reasons to put everything on the front page for the search engines to pick it up quickly. so for example, all health stories, all news stories and all lifestyle stories that have their own section, should i make sure that they all appear on the home page as an introduction. Or should i have them kept in their own section please do let me know
Content Development | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Content being copied from our product page hurting our site overall?
On our product pages, he have short descriptions and some bulleted lists. Resellers of our products, and many other sites who are not resellers are copying this content, often verbatim. While I'm not as concerned for the product pages themselves as we're hoping the category pages will rank, does this duplication of our content hurt our site overall? FWIW, our brand name is in our domain and often also shown on these sites that copy the content.
Content Development | | minutiae0 -
SEO All in One Not Showing Up
I am working at a company that has had SEO All in One installed on our Wordpress blog for awhile, but the Meta data is not being published. When looking at a draft of the post the fields are automatically filled with the blog post (I would like the possibility of manually changing the meta sometimes). However, regardless of that the Meta titles, etc.. on the live site are blank and don't use what is written in the SEO All in One pack at all. Any suggestions for me? Thanks!
Content Development | | theLotter0 -
Google Site Search
Hi, I was just wondering if anyone had used Google Site Search before and what they thought of it? http://www.google.com/sitesearch/ It seems quite expensive for just returning your own pages but would be interested to find out more. Thanks
Content Development | | ASOS0