Huge fluctuation reported by GSC for US Desktop for one keyword
-
Hi,
I'm seeing a huge rank fluctuation reported by GSC (all rank trackers reported stable rank) for one of our pages, one particular keyword, in one particular country (US), and only Desktop (not Mobile). Is anyone else encountering a similar case?
More details:
-
huge rank fluctuation reported by GSC in the US, stable in other countries (since Oct 7th)
-
all rank tracking service reported stable top rank in US cities (as well as our own friend's testing across the country)
-
only happen to 1 keyword and its close variation (other keywords that the page also ranks for are quite stable)
-
only observed fluctuation for Desktop, while Mobile is stable
-
in those low-ranked days, the average CTR is only slightly lower than normal days
Does anyone have any idea what could this be? Should I trust GSC's fluctuation or the rank tracking service's stable top rank?
0ee0a6cdd6cfc194e670ba5628d04e3d7c8253a35fdbf33291018aa4f528fd1e.png
-
-
Hey Alex,
I couldn't find any method there, you just put some random link to any website. Please don't spread some fake information.
Thanks
-
Hello,
Yes this fluctuations seems due to the recent changes in Google algorithm, May be this is also happening because of this change.
-
Basically, if you identify a data anomaly you shouldn't trust any of the stats (as a group). Generally GSC (Google Search Console) can be trusted, but if you have identified an issue you should question the whole dataset
-
Right I hope it's a bug from GSC, since all the rank tracker and our own testing couldn't agree with what the GSC reports. A related question - assuming that the average position reported by GSC is not correct in this case, how much should I trust the #impressions and #clicks data?
-
Actually I think that GSC still reports on granular keywords. The reason I think this is that, some keywords which Google's keyword planner merges (as they are similar) still show as distinct in Search Console. What you are saying is possible, but I don't think there's enough evidence to conclusively state such an opinion at this juncture. If your rank tracker starts to mirror what GSC is seeing, I would be more concerned. GSC is known to regularly experience bugs for its performance-related metrics, e.g: https://searchengineland.com/bug-in-google-search-console-performance-reports-impact-google-discover-reporting-326487
You can also check here: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6211453?hl=en#search_analytics
-
Thank you. Did you see it fluctuates on rank trackers as well or was it just GSC?
-
-
Thank you for the info! The GSC does look quite reasonable for many other keywords I am examing and is consistent with rank trackers. But for this particular keyword, it has been reporting fluctuation since 2 months ago, and we couldn't figure out why. The graph image shall at most affect the rank number by 1 or 2 at most - which doesn't explain the huge fluctuation.
I have a guess - would it be possible that, because of the BERT update, GSC converts some long-tail keywords into this short-term keyword, and if our page's rank is low for that long tail, the reported average rank is affected?
-
I would personally be more willing to trust in your rank tracker as it's independent data and you know how it works. With GSC in particular, you can have things like a knowledge graph image being hot-linked (by Google) counting as a ranking when actually no one can visit your site through it. For ranking data GSC can be very 'iffy' indeed
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
-
Update the keywords entered for a campaign
I've created a campaign, and realized I left keywords off the list that I want to add. I can't figure out how to get back to the list of keywords I entered to update it.
Getting Started | | troy.brophy0 -
Adding keywords to landing pages
Hey Forum, I have a quick question. So I have added in my keywords to track etc and want to then add the keywords to a specific landing page how do i do that? Is it manage and track and add the keywords and URL there then they appear on the landing pages? Thank you,
Getting Started | | TAT1001 -
Correct Moz Settings for Tracked Keywords Summary
Hi,For some reason, on my tracked keywords summary page, the URL shown to the right of each keyword appears to default to my homepage and not the page I want that keyword to rank on. How do I resolve this? I've tried looking around but can't see how to change it so that the correct URL is shown against the correct keyword. Many thanks! Bob
Getting Started | | SushiUK0 -
SEO Automatic Reports for Ourselves and Clients
Hello, I am wondering if SEO Moz is able to provide automatic reports for us and our clients? Thank you!
Getting Started | | medaestheticsgp0 -
A difficult keyword displays a difficulty of 3, why?
I´m new to Moz and I was using the keyword analysis tool. When I put a generic term for my country (cheap phones, buy samsung galaxy, etc.) which is obviously one of the most wanted and competitive keywords, MOZ displays a difficulty level of 3 and an opportunity of 100, indicating it´s easy to rank for it, when the main competitors are big transnational companies. Why is this? What do you suggest? Thank you!
Getting Started | | awgsm0 -
Keyword ranking in google but not in MOZ
Good day, When I type my keyword in google, the website related to this keyword appears on page 1 (7th link from the top). However in Moz report, the keyword position is #13. I don't understand why. Can someone explain the reason? Thank you,
Getting Started | | Wolfpacksweet0 -
Subdomain not showing up in ranking reports?
Hi Folks, Apologies for the newbie question here, but hope any of the experts here can help. Our blog resides on a subdomain, and our blog increasingly plays an important role in driving traffic to our site. However the subdomain does not seem to show up in our keyword rankings report on Moz pro. Does this report only include URLs on the main site? Is there a way to monitor how our blog ranks on our keywords somewhere else? Thanks in advance all! Regards Patrick
Getting Started | | patrickqureshi0 -
How do I interpret Duplicate Content in a Crawl Report, when it only gives me a URL? How do I know what is duplicated on that page somewhere else?
I need help interpreting the Crawl Report for Duplicate Content. It gives me the URLs of pages that have duplicate content, but how do I know what content exactly is duplicated elsewhere? And how do I figure out where it is duplicated? Also, are there Moz Analytics articles or videos teaching you how to use each component of the analytics programs? Thanks!
Getting Started | | NancyBryan0