Weird Page switch for a keyword in Google Rankings
-
Over this past weekend Google switched the page which usually showed in search results for keyword benchmarking. It went from from http://www.apqc.org/benchmarking to http://www.apqc.org/benchmarking-portal/osb. Also on Google the Rankings for the keyword 'benchmarking' sank from 15 to 47 for http://www.apqc.org/benchmarking
Just looking for some theories or ideas or anyone that has had this happen to them.
-
This does happen. Did any of your competitors also shuffle at that time?
As long as you aren't doing anything wrong then it should be ok. You might want to look at your internal linking and links pointing to both pages that makes Google think that that page is more relevant. You could focus a little bit more on the page you want. It should return soon.
Ive experienced this before about 8 times this year already. The good page always comes back.
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
-
If a page ranks in the wrong country and is redirected, does that problem pass to the new page?
Hi guys, I'm having a weird problem: A new multilingual site was launched about 2 months ago. It has correct hreflang tags and Geo targetting in GSC for every language version. We redirected some relevant pages (with good PA) from another website of our client's. It turned out that the pages were not ranking in the correct country markets (for example, the en-gb page ranking in the USA). The pages from our site seem to have the same problem. Do you think they inherited it due to the redirects? Is it possible that Google will sort things out over some time, given the fact that the new pages have correct hreflangs? Is there stuff we could do to help ranking in the correct country markets?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ParisChildress1 -
Pages built on same model some rank some don’t ?
I have multiple webpages built on the same exact model and none of them have external links ? Some rank within a few days some don’t why is that ? Has anyone experienced this ? and any idea what it could be due to ? I have 2 possibilities lsi density or lsi used or topics used ? Does anyone ha e any other idea ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics1 -
Reclaiming Ranking positions in Google
We have a website we are working on that was ranking well in Google but since having a hosting upgrade has completely dropped in rankings. When a hosting upgrade was made, the developer added an incorrect robots.txt file that restricted the site from being found, hence resulting in lost rankings. We have since sorted out that issue so the robots.txt is OK. However, ranking results have yet to be reclaimed. We are unsure why these rankings haven't rebounded back, as it has been a while now. The site is https://www.brightonpanelworks.com.au. We have since also attempted to add a sitemap however to help the site be better crawled and to regain rankings, however, it appears that sitemap generators are having problems creating a sitemap for this site and we are not sure why. And we are not sure whether this may relate to why Google has not picked up on pages and ranking results have not be restored. If you have any ideas as to how we can reclaim rankings to the strong positions they were in previously, that would be much appreciated. We believe we may be missing something here that is not allowing webpages to be picked up and ranked by Google.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Gavo0 -
I want my website to rank on the first page for a very competitive keyword
I am a WordPress designer and can service national clients. I want to rank on the first page for the keyword WordPress designer. This is a highly competitive keyword MOZ gives it a 68% difficulty. I rank locally in nj for WordPress designer nj and a multitude of local WordPress based key words. I rank on page 10 of serps doing a private browsing session. Some of my national competitors rank on the first page with not many links in. How could i be so low on the serps for the base keyword WordPress Designer but for local WordPress designer nj be number 1 everytime? What should be my best plan of attack if i want to Rank much higher for this one specific keyword hopefully page 1. I think this one keyword could increase business greatly so it is a top priority for me. I appreciate all advice 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | donsilvernail0 -
SEO Moz Keyword Ranking Tool
The SEO Moz keyword ranking tool is useful and fairly accurate but it would be more useful to know why the ranking changed. Can the tool provide any insight in this regard?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | casper4340 -
Google places keyword variations
Hi all, I have a site that is ranking #1 in Google Places for its main <city><keyword>search... but it does not rank for any of its basic keyword variations, which I find very confusing.</keyword></city> ie (just an example) Chicago Caterer (ranked #1 in google places)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | x2264983x
Chicago Caterers (not ranked in google places)
Chicago Catering (not ranked in google places)
Chicago Catering Company (not ranked in google places)
Chicago Catering Companies (etc..) How can I secure a google places ranking for these simple keyword variations? Do I build links to the google plus page using that anchor text? Do I get citations that contain that keyword somewhere on the page? Do I optimize for these keyword variations on the actual website itself? (not the places listing). Obviously I don't stuff these keywords into the google places listing. Any help would be much appreciated!0 -
Home page mysteriously not ranking at all
Hey everyone, I'm baffled by a situation. I started working on www.hushabyephotography.com almost 3 months ago. The first thing I did was changed the address (was previously blog.hushabyephotography.com) and updated all of the links pointing from the old name to the new "www" and used 301 redirects for canonicalization. Have also built some additional links, added content to the site, and performed on-page optimization to rank for the primary key phrase "san diego newborn photography". But ranking is no where to be found, I searched for the key phrase, and at rank 190 is a random subpage, not even the home page. The listing had also disappeared from Google Places a few weeks ago after the client updated their listing (which I believe was the result of the known Places bug (http://www.seomoz.org/blog/why-you-may-need-to-hide-your-google-places-address-asap). I'm at a loss here for ideas, as I've never failed to at least have a site on the radar. There aren't any spam links so I don't think any penalties are the result. One last thing, it ranks on page 2 in both Bing and Yahoo... Please help me out Mozzers!!! 😕
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Joes_Ideas0 -
Google+ Pages on Google SERP
Do you think that a Google+ Page (not profile) could appear on the Google SERP as a Rich Snippet Author? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | overalia0