Fresh page versus old page climbing up the rankings.
-
Hello,
I have noticed that if publishe a webpage that google has never seen it ranks right away and usually in a descend position to start with (not great but descend). Usually top 30 to 50 and then over the months it slowly climbs up the rankings.
However, if my page has been existing for let's say 3 years and I make changes to it, it takes much longer to climb up the rankings
Has someone noticed that too ? and why is that ?
-
"Query deserves freshness!"
Also, changing an entire paragraph content instead of only a few sentences to the current old content on a page can make a lot of difference.
Make sure you keep in mind the keyword to which the page is optimized for and don't go overboard and over-optimize the page. This will affect you really bad in the long run and you'll observe that the ranking goes down.
-
"Query deserves freshness!"
Also, changing an entire paragraph content instead of only a few sentences to the current old content on a page can make a lot of difference.
Make sure you keep in mind the keyword to which the page is optimized for and don't go overboard and over-optimize the page. This will affect you really bad in the long run and you'll observe that the ranking goes down.
-
Ok that is good to know, I will wait and see if this is what happens.
Thank you,
-
I have seen on multiple occasion right after a new page is indexed in Google, immediately skyrockets to the first page ( or close) depending on keyword. Then, a week later, it is ranked in the 40s, and for weeks after that starts the stock market-esq climb. Up, down, up, down, and hopefully towards a positive trend line.
-
Thank you for the information.
-
There could be many reasons for this. It all depends on the changes you are making to the pages!
If you make changes that improve the pages content there would be no real reason for you to drop.
If you had a page ranking for "SEO" and then you changed the content so the keyword "SEO" was no longer included but "website optimisation" was.. are you saying it would take longer for you to rank for "website optimisation" then if you just set up a new page? If this is the case, then it makes sense! If the keywords you want to be found for change, I would create a new page and if you are worried about duplicate content - then 301 the old page to the new one.
However, if you still want to be found for "SEO" and you are simply making changes to the content, as long as you add good informative content that still includes your keyword you shouldn't see any major drop.
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
-
A client rebranded a few years ago and doesn't want to be associated with it's old brand name. He wishes not to appear when the old brand is searched in Google, is there something we can do?
The problem is there was redirection between the old branded site and the new one, and now when you type in the name of the old brand, the new one comes up. I have desperately tried to convince this client there is nothing we can do about it, dozens of news articles crop up with the two brands together as this was a hot topic a few years ago, but just in case I missed something I thought I'd ask the community of experts here on Moz. An example for this would be Tyco Healthcare that became covidien in 2007. When you type tyco healthcare, covidien crops up here and there. Any ideas? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Netsociety0 -
Can someone help me understand why this page is ranking so well?
Hi everyone, EDIT: I'm going to link to the actual page, please remove if there are any issues with confidentiality. Here is the page: https://www.legalzoom.com/knowledge/llc/topic/advantages-and-disadvantages-overview It's ranking #2 on Google for "LLC" This page is a couple months old and is substantially heavy in content, but not much more so than all the dozens of other pages online that are competing with it. This is a highly competitive industry and this particular domain is an extremely huge player in this industry. This new page is suddenly ranking #2 for an extremely competitive head term, arguably the most important/high volume keyword being targeted by the entire site. The page is outranking the home page, as well as the service page that exactly targets the query - the one that you would think would be the ranking page for this head term. However, this new page is somewhat of a spin-off with some additional related content about the subject, some videos, resources, a lot of internal links, etc. The first word of the title tag exactly matches the head term. I did observe that almost no other pages on the site have the exact keyword as the first word of the title tag, but that couldn't be sufficient to bring it up so high in the ranks, could it? Another bizarre thing that is happening is that Google is ignoring the Title Tag in the actual HTML (which is a specific question that is accurate to the content on the page), and re-assigning a title tag that basically looks like this: "Head Term | Brand." Why would it do this on this page? Doesn't it usually prefer more descriptive title tags? There are no external links coming up on Moz or Majestic pointing to this page. It has just a couple social shares. It's not being linked to from the home page or top nav bar on the main site. Can anyone explain how this particular page would outrank the main service page targeting this keyword, as well as other highly authoritative, older pages online targeting the same keyword? Thanks for your help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | FPD_NYC1 -
2 pages ranking for the same term
Hi everyone, I have had two pages ranking on page two of Google for a while now for the same term. I have tried dedicating a page to it but as the other has a url with the search term in Google is ranking both it seems. How can I without deindexing one of the pages help better tell Google which one to rank? I imagine if it only ranked one page I would get a higher result rather than 2 weaker ones? On-site has been done and so has links to the homepage, but the innerpage still ranks also as it has the search term in its url. Would a canonical tag be worth it here? the page is however getting some traffic itself for other terms so I am reluctant to do that. Any help much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tdigital0 -
Do I eventually 301 a page on our site that "expires," to a page that's related, but never expires, just to utilize the inbound link juice?
Our company gets inbound links from news websites that write stories about upcoming sporting events. The links we get are pointing to our event / ticket inventory pages on our commerce site. Once the event has passed, that event page is basically a dead page that shows no ticket inventory, and has no content. Also, each “event” page on our site has a unique url, since it’s an event that will eventually expire, as the game gets played, or the event has passed. Example of a url that a news site would link to: mysite.com/tickets/soldier-field/t7493325/nfc-divisional-home-game-chicago bears-vs-tbd-tickets.aspx Would there be any negative ramifications if I set up a 301 from the dead event page to another page on our site, one that is still somewhat related to the product in question, a landing page with content related to the team that just played, or venue they play in all season. Example, I would 301 to: mysite.com/venue/soldier-field tickets.aspx (This would be a live page that never expires.) I don’t know if that’s manipulating things a bit too much.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ticket_King1 -
Date of page first indexed or age of a page?
Hi does anyone know any ways, tools to find when a page was first indexed/cached by Google? I remember a while back, around 2009 i had a firefox plugin which could check this, and gave you a exact date. Maybe this has changed since. I don't remember the plugin. Or any recommendations on finding the age of a page (not domain) for a website? This is for competitor research not my own website. Cheers, Paul
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MBASydney0 -
Page A Best for Users, but B Ranks
This is real estate MLS listings related. I have a page "B" with lots of unique content (MLS thumbnails mixed with guide overview writing, pictures etc) which outranks "A" which is a page simply showing MLS thumbnails with map feature included. I am linking from "B" to "A" with anchor "KEYWORD for sale" to indicate to search engines that "A" is the page I want to rank, even though "B" has more unique content. It hasn't worked so far.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | khi5
Questions: Should I avoid linking from "B" to "A" as that could impact how well "B" ranks? Should I leave this setup and over time hope search engines will give "A" a chance to rank? Include some unique content on "A" mostly not viewable without clicking "Read more" link? I don't foresee many users will click "Read more" as they are really just looking for the properties for sale and do rarely care about written material when searching for "KEYWORD for sale". Should I "no index, follow" A as there are limited to none unique content and this could enhance chance of ranking better for B? When I write blog posts and it includes "KEYWORD for sale" should I link to "A" (best for users) or link to "B" since that page has more potential to rank really well and still is fairly good for users? Ranking for "B" is not creating a large bounce rate, just that "A" is even better. Thank you,
Kristian0 -
Should I build & try to rank several pages for similar keywords?
I have a client who's domain already ranks #1 on Google for 'automotive advertising agency'. However we want several listing on the first page. Should I create a few more pages like www.domain.com/automotive-advertising-agency www.domain.com/advertising-agency www.domain.com/automotive-advertising I'm assuming I can get these pages to rank well, but I'm wondering if Google will penalize us for this. Is this a good or bad idea?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Branden_S0 -
Ranking with other pages not index
The site ranks on page 4-5 with other page like privacy, about us, term pages. I encounter this problem allot in the last weeks; this usually occurs after the page sits 1-2 months on page 1 for the terms. I'm thinking of to much use the same anchor as a primary issue. The sites in questions are 1-5 pages microniche sites. Any suggestions is appreciated. Thank You
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | m3fan0