Is there a way to pull historical rankings for a keyword?
-
I have someone who's come to me and said that they have lost all of their organic keyword rankings. They did launch a site redesign a few months back so that could be a reason as to why. But after looking at the site, link profile, etc. It doesn't look like they could have been ranking for the terms they say they were. They have never implemented any SEO on their sites btw. I did not build this site and have not done any SEO, they are coming to me to solve the problem. I did notice in SEM rush that a couple months ago they were ranking organically for more terms (20 in July vs. 5 now), so they did lose some. Is there any way to see what terms they WERE ranking for?
-
SpyFu (paid version) can do this rather nicely. Not every keyword, but it can give you the Google rankings of a site against an assortment of keywords going back for at least a year. You can enter custom keywords and it will give you the data if it has it. It seems to not work on obscure, low volume keywords, which is to be expected. If it comes back empty, it means that either it doesn't have the data for that keyword, or the ranking was 51+. Don't use it for branded keywords, for example, if your company is ABC Enterprises and you check that keyword, it will likely come back empty. Don't assume ABC Enterprises did not rank for it's own name, but rather, that the search frequency is too low for SpyFu to include it in its automatic data collection process.
Google Webmaster Tools gives historical keyword data but it only goes back 90 days.
-
I use semrush for this. It can only go back a few months but does give you some incite.
-
Did you check their Google Webmaster tools in the Search Queries report? That should show you what terms were driving traffic
Otherwise check Analytics for organic keyword traffic and have a look at landing urls, you may be able to piece something together
-
Short answer, nope.
-
I don't know of a way to get that info. That's why sometime back I started a spreadsheet that tracks my ranking on certain keywords I think are important. I have a spreadsheet for brand based keywords and one for product category keywords. This way I check my ranking over time. I would recommend starting a spreadsheet and pulling the campaign keyword ranking reports each week from an SEOmoz campaign. They will keep some historical data as the campaign ages. I still pull them each week and add them to a spreadsheet just in case.
I know this doesn't help your current situation but will help prove that you are making progress. You could also see if they have historical keyword data in Google Analytics to see if they were getting visitors and/or sales on terms they claim they used to rank highly one.
-
I don't know of a good way to find this out after the fact.
What I would do in your situation is look at their Google Analytics (or whatever analytics package they have) and look at the organic traffic and see for yourself what type of change has happened in terms of traffic and associated organic keywords.
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
-
Less relevant/not optimized competitor sites ranking higher in SERPs?
Has anyone else noticed their rank positions falling to competitor sites that aren't optimized and are less relevant? I've noticed that we've lost some rankings or have dropped over the past few weeks and the competitor pages that have replaced us haven't been optimized, aren't as relevant, and it doesn't look like there has been any updates (looking through archived versions). For example, their main "shoes" gallery is ranking for more specific shoe types, like "sandals", and "sandals" isn't even mentioned in their metadata and they have no on-page copy. Their DA is slightly higher, but our sites have a denser link profile (although, yes, I do need to go through and see what kind of links, exactly, we've gained). Has anyone else seen this happen recently, or have any ideas of why or what we could do to get our rank positions back? My main initiatives have been to create and implement fresh on-page copy, metadata, and manage 404s/301 redirects, but I'm thinking this issue is beyond a quick copywriting tweak.
Algorithm Updates | | WWWSEO0 -
The Google Algo update that happened 1-8 is KILLING my rankings
Does anyone know what happened?? I have a great website, we ranked very highly for a slew of industry keywords, #1 in most of our top-money kws....and our keywords have been in freefall since the update. Help?!
Algorithm Updates | | Sean_Gutermuth0 -
A continuation drop in rankings
Hi All, We used to rank highly for the keyword 'Magazine Subscriptions' and after the past few months and have started to slowly go down the ranking. Recently we have spiked from #46 to #60 over the last few weeks. Anyone have any ideas on what could of caused this? Our website is: http://goo.gl/KnBkT9 We have kept updated the same as we have done with PRs, backlinks etc etc
Algorithm Updates | | DavidPatrick0 -
Meta Keyword Tags
What is the word on Meta Keyword Tags? Are they good to have, or bad? Our biggest competitor seems to have them.
Algorithm Updates | | Essential-Pest0 -
Significant Drop in Rankings without Explanation
My company has experienced a significant drop in rankings in the last month or so. How significant? Across our top 11 keywords, we've dropped an average of 6 positions. Some have dropped less (1 or 2) and some have dropped way more (38). We work really hard to provide great content on our site and have been building out our link profile with guest blogging on relevant sites (dailyshotofcoffee.com, for example). No major changes have been made to the URL structure or content on the pages that are ranking for our key terms, so I am not sure where the drop is coming from. For example: One of our key terms is "espresso machine" and we went from #9 to #22 in the last few weeks. We have not made any changes to the main content on the page that is ranking since September. Our on-site page report for this page has us nailing all of the critical factors, most of the high importance factors (not exact keyword in page titles - we use "espresso machines" as that is one of our other terms - or "avoid keyword stuffing" - unfortunately, our products are also named with "espresso machine" and i can't very well not follow those links or remove the term from their names), all of the moderate importance factors, and most of the low importance factors. It has been reporting this way since September. Most of our key terms are this way (haven't had content changed in the last several weeks to months and have great on-page grades). We don't engage in spammy link building (though I did some work this fall on cleaning up bad links a previous SEO company had built out). I'm just really taken aback by the sudden drop in rankings across the board. Any insight or advice anyone can give me would be greatly appreciated!
Algorithm Updates | | Marketing.SCG1 -
How much posting product links to Social Media affect your ranking? Any use ?
Google has Google Plus. Facebook has partnership with Bing. How much social media affect your ranking ?
Algorithm Updates | | rahijain0 -
If you rank first organically for a keyword, will you rank first for variations?
Hi everyone, Hoping that someone will be able to answer this question for us. If we rank first organically for a keyword, are we safe to assume that we'll rank first (or close to it) for variations of that keyword as well? E.g. If we rank first easily for "Hamilton Island", can we safely assume that we will rank well organically for close variations of that keyword such as "Hamilton Islands", "Hamiltonisland", "Hamilton Island Hotel" due to the fact that "Hamilton Island" is in those keywords? We're deciding which keywords to monitor in SEOmoz and we don't want to waste keywords on very similar terms if we don't have to. Really appreciate any responses! Cheers.
Algorithm Updates | | HamiltonIsland0 -
Why does my Rank Checker result differ to SERPs
Hello SEOmoz members I've got yet another naive question for you. RankChecker is telling me that my client has risen to pg 1 position 7. Whilst SERPs is telling me they are still on position 14. I know that SERPs is variable depending on many factors, but this holds true for separate searches on other computers in various far flung locations. Please give me some insight into what is happening. I'm waiting to open the bubbly! Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | catherine-2793880