Ranking Fluctuations
-
I need your help. My rankings have been on a wild roller coaster ride since I started optimizing the site with standard on page optimization changes. (No keyword stuffing or over-optimization...) I have only made positive changes for the content on the page; I created unique descriptions for every product. I redirected some urls that weren’t readable into a more user- friendly format.
I am only doing completely organic link building, really.
Yet for some weird reason the rankings initially rose and then steeply fell and ever since have went back up to the top and right back to not in the top 50 results.
Just to give you an example this is a graph of one of our main keywords: https://www.diigo.com/item/image/3vpdp/gd2q
This is another keyword that we admittedly never were in the top 5 results but usually we were in the top 20. Check out the wild fluctuations. If it wasn't the main keyword we were going after, I would probably laugh. https://www.diigo.com/item/image/3vpdp/rcy9
I asked an expert he said he think it might be from a major issue with internal competition. The keywords that seem to fluctuate the most, have numerous landing pages that compete for the same keyword.
Since we sell the same object in many many different sizes, thicknesses and colors it only makes sense that we have the same keyword on many pages.
I would love someone that is an expert in this area to have a look at the site and give actionable advice so I can stop the craziness.
Do you have any suggestions?
Do you have anyone that you’d refer for this type of job/consulting?
-
The anchor text is for the whole site. The home page is not the only page I am seeing crazy rankings for. The site name is http://plasticplace.net.
Thanks so much for taking a look!
-
Is that for the whole site, or is it for the home page? Is the home page the only page you are seeing fluctuations for? It's quite difficult to assess what's happening without seeing the site, but some of these details might help.
-
Your 100% correct that I should remove as much poison links as possible.
Google doesn't recommend using the disavow tool if you didn't receive a spam warning. Additionally google wants you to try to remove the actual link from the web itself. This would be a huge job to do if I'm not completely sure what is actually causing the fluctuations.
I should do it as soon as I can but I first need to ascertain that this is indeed causing the volatile rankings.
-
edit: sorry my response was to Rachel here and not David. Didn't want this to be misconstrued:
Yeah I don't think this is necessarily accurate. Yes most sites will see their rankings plummet the day of an update, but the update isn't a one-day event. It carries over to every crawl Google does.
Therefore if your site slips through the algorithm, it isn't guaranteed to continue doing so. Perhaps the next time around the algo catches something it didn't before (for lack of a better visual.)
There is never any harm in removing poison links, that much we know for sure. So at least if you can get rid of those we can eliminate that as a possibility, right?
-
The recent updates have not been like the previous with 1 date of change- it has been rolled out over the summer with lots of fluctuations as you can see here.
You need to remove the bad and work on getting really good links to replace the old.
-
I sent you a PM
-
While I agree with you that there are some links I should get rid of, I don't think the ranking fluctuations have to do with back links because then I would have probably saw changes to my rankings on the days of the updates.
Please correct me if this isn't the case.
-
I think the keywords you are going after have bad toxic links with those anchor texts that are hurting you i would check into that
-
Can you please share the website URL and both the keywords? If possible, can you please check your Google Webmaster Tools and let us know about the internal linking for these two keywords as anchor text along with the number of back-links for each keyword?
The reason for such a HIT & Drop in the rankings may be due to the "Over-optimization" of the keyword as against all other keywords in the website. I've been getting the same results for one of my website for one keyword only which has reached the fourth page of Google almost 7-8 times in last one year; but never came in the top 30 rankings. Whenever I think this time the keyword will surely achieve rankings in top positions, the website goes down in rankings..as far as 15th page of Google. Analyzing this, I'm thinking about stopping the SEO work for this keyword once I get it in top #50 positions this time..and may be this keyword will be stable for few weeks..
-
It's actually not bad, here's a snapshot of the anchor text: http://awesomescreenshot.com/01f1k00j2f
-
You should consider using the disavow tool, when needed, but only after the a very thorough back-link analysis. This tool can be used for good
-
This probably has at least something to do with it. What does your anchor text profile look like?
-
I check the google wmt weekly. I have never seen a link warning yet. Additionally all the rank fluctuations didn't happen when there was google updates, which would have been a sign of a penalty.
In the past the company had an Indian SEO company posting links to our sites on really spammy sites. I tried to contact some of the sites but I couldn't get them removed and I am hesitant about using the disavow tool.
-
Ask your boss if they ever got a link warning in google webmaster tools about links - it could be you have a penalty you need to deal with or it could be you have some bad links that are hurting you now you need to disavow or remove -call me if you need more help
-
I sent you a PM with the domain.
-
What's the domain you are working on and what are the KW's you are targeting. Graph's work, but without actionable information, it's difficult to look over and help make a few suggestions
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
-
Ranking more than one page.
Our travel website has a number of different places listed. The layout of each place is the same as the next. On place ranks on page 1 for its keywords where as others do not. Is there a tool of some description that may identify why this is.
On-Page Optimization | | twiguins0 -
Sale page ranking for "[blank] for sale" keywords
My company's Ecommerce site has a sale category that is currently out performing some of our normal categories in the SERPs for "[blank] for sale" keywords. For example the sale category landing page is ranking for the keyword "vegetable seeds for sale" rather than the vegetable seed category. Has anyone ever dealt with a similar situation to this? or does anyone have general advice for optimizing (or weakening) sale pages?
On-Page Optimization | | Scoleman1 -
Multiple page rank - harm or good?
Can someone explain this to me, as I just ranked a page on our website and intended to do the same for 3 other pages. our home page is currently ranked well, but after reading this (below from Moz) I'm concerned if i'm doing more harm then good. I just ranked the page 3 days ago, I haven't seen any drops yet. When multiple pages with the potential to rank well are combined into a single page, they not only stop competing with each other, but also create a stronger relevancy and popularity signal overall. This will positively impact your ability to rank well in the search engines. Thanks in advance, Lauren.
On-Page Optimization | | MissThumann0 -
One Main Brand Domain - One EMD which Ranks Better
Hello SEO MOZers! We have one one main ecommerce site and I have just discovered we have an EMD sitting on a .co.uk, for one of our premium product ranges, and it actually outranks our main website. It appears on page one. My question is how do I handle the EMD? I don't want to start building authority to this site, as we are currently developing the main brand site, however I can't ignore that it is ranking. There is relatively little content. There are links on the page (it's only one page) that go through to the product section on the main site. But should I 301 redirect it? What would be your advise? I want to capitalise on any traffic we could benefit from, and ultimately I want the main site to rank better for this product's keywords. Any help would much appreciated.
On-Page Optimization | | CarlaAction1 -
Ranking for "synonym" terms on separate pages?
(My title says "synonym" but it's not exactly the most accurate word, but works best for the title_) I have a site that ranks #1 for a term, and let’s pretend it’s “cheap phone”. It’s also ranks #1 for “cheap phone service” and #3 for “cheap phone plans”. These are all the home page with those rankings I have a sub page whose natural title would be “Cheap Phone Plans” or “Cheap Phone Service”. I have it named something these and it is not optimized for either of these terms because I think it would be best to not mess with the good rankings I have already for those two terms So here’s my question: what would likely be the outcome if I optimized that subpage for “Cheap Phone Plans” or “Cheap Phone Service”? If Google began to direct searchers of this term to my subpage rather than my home page, would my home page lose some of it’s ranking with it’s main and most popular keyword, “cheap phone? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | bizzer0 -
How to improve On-Page Grades for Top Ranking Pages
please help me - i dont know or understand how to improve on-Page Grades for Top Ranking Pages
On-Page Optimization | | pwwukpw0 -
Will deleting excess self serving links from old posts damage established ranking
My SEOmoz report showed many posts with "too many links." I can easily go back into wordpress and delete self serving links. But is there a downside to this if these posts are already ranked well on google search for the desired key words? Or will deleting the excess self serving links improve ranking
On-Page Optimization | | wianno1680 -
Inner page rank higher than domain
Hey there, Today my site received it's first Google pagerank and noticed something strange. My domain got a PR of 2 whilst most of the other inner pages got PR1, so far so good. But then one particular inner page which is just 2 weeks old and has zero backlinks has PR 3. I'm not one to fixate on PR but this just struck me as weird. What do you guys think?
On-Page Optimization | | barabis770