Keywords in TOP 5 then disappearing, then reappearing (ongoing for months)

[eeonl1neonly]

Hello marketers,

I've built quite a few successful sites in the past, but I've never issued this scenario. Here's the case:

I have 1,5 year-old site that I've tried to build quality content & links over time. However, there are roughly 15-20 pages and keywords that constantly appear and reappear in the search.

For example, KEYWORD X:

• 1 week appearing in rank 3
• Then disappearing out of 100 for a week
• Then reappears in rank 3 and stays there for ~10 days
• Then again disappears from top 100 for a week or two.
• Then again, comes back at rank 3 for a few days, then gone again.

Now I understand if this is a new site and spammy content and bad links combo, but it's not. It's also not 1 keyword, but multiple keywords and multiple pages.

I know it's hard to say what exactly wrong, but could anyone lead me to the right direction. Is this CONTENT issue? Links issue? CTR issue? Site health issue?

I've also attached screenshots from 2 keywords and their rankings in the last 3-4 months.

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!

iXpYN HUzJi

[TimHolmes]

Do you have multiple similar products that are targeting the same keywords, could the pages be keyword cannibalising each other and the pages keep switching in your rankings. If so you may benefit from canonicalising similar content pages that may not be direct duplicates or trying to further seperate the content.

e.g. Product review 1 ranks P3 then drops whilst another page say Product review 3 takes its place.

Do you track each url placement?

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Structure shouldn't matter, but there has to be a reason why this is happening to you.

Have you had a look in Search Console to see how often Google is crawling the site and see if there are any anomalies in there?

Feel free to ping me an e-mail with an example page if you would like me to take a quick look for you. info [at] iqseo dot uk

-Andy

[eeonl1neonly]

Hey Andy

Thanks for your reply. It's mostly a very narrow niche site that reviews different products in-depth (I have about 35 review pages). They are similarly structured, but they are unique for sure. 2000+ words each with images etc.

Perhaps I should rewrite the ones that are not sticking in the SERP?

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Hi,

Had a very similar issue on a site and it turned out to be not content, but duplicate pages brought on by too many that were similar.

Perhaps this was a bit extreme, but I regularly found 4-5 pages trying to target very similar phrases which left Google wondering just what the hell it should index. Similar sort of thing - one minute at pos. 70, the next position 7. However, not all of them were being indexed.

What is your content like - could it fall into this?

-Andy

[EGOL]

My first response to this type of problem is to check for duplicate content, such as when another person or bot grabs your content and posts it on another website.

My second response would be a check for a canonical problem, such as when your page can be identified by multiple URLs.

Those are the two best things to check for.  However, I also know of a site that has this exact problem.  The content is  high quality, has been on the web for a few years, yet the pages can be in the top ten for good keywords, then disappear out of the top 100 only to return to the top ten.  This has been repeating for a couple of months.