Higher rank created a quick boost but it didn't last..
-
I made a few changes to my website which bumped it up to 3rd place for the main keyword and brought it up to the first page for some of the other keywords. I saw a spike in traffic and conversions for 2 days, but now it went down significantly again. How can I research the cause of this?
-
Great question....
SEOs must become comfortable with "dealing with uncertainty".
Search engines don't reveal how they rank websites so the best thing that you can do is to study what they do reveal, study the opinions of trusted SEOs (such as the guides and articles on SEOmoz), and ask questions in a forum like this one.
Most important, you must study continuously to stay up-to-date.
Keep in mind that much of the advice that you will receive will be wrong and don't trust advice that is very old.
Most of the decisions that I make on running my site are made with a level of uncertainty. However, before I make major moves I communicate with a few people that I trust to hear their opinions.
Remember, it is not how many people agree it is who you are listening to - and even they are wrong some of the time.
-
Take stats, dont panic and move too fast, let your results steady before you move again.
-
How do I know if what I'm doing is right or wrong then?
-
SEO work takes variable amounts of time to produce results.
PR7 links are followed daily... PR1 links are followed infrequently. Your site might not be crawled often.
So, SEO work could produce results within 48 hours or it could take a month or more.
Pay attention to your work and less to your rankings.
-
Thank you - so generally how long should I wait to see accurate results from the SEO work that I did? Also, are there test environments for keyword ranking? I'm always a little nervous making a change, fearing that its going to produce the opposite effect.
-
Sit tight.
Google has thousands of servers responding to queries and new data (rankings) can take time to propagate.
Also, Google usually has several percent of their servers returning experimental data.
By this time next week you should have a better idea of what is happening.
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
-
Is anyone else's ranking jumping?
Rankings have been jumping across 3 of our websites since about 24 October. Is anyone seeing similar? For example ... jumps from position 5 to 20 on one day, then back to 5 for 3 days and then back to 20 for a day I'm trying to figure out if it's algorithm based or if my rank checker has gone mad. I can't replicate the same results if I search incognito or in a new browser, everything always looks stable in the SERPs if I do the search myself
Algorithm Updates | | Marketing_Today0 -
Are there any alternative ranking strategies for not a blog site other than on site SEO, speed improvement, building backlinks and social media engagement to improve rankings?
We own a horoscope website and looking for some SEO advice.However most of the websites are blog sites therefore most of the SEO content is about how to rank a blog site better. IE getting new quality content, use anchor text link out etc. However if your site is different by nature it is hard to find good advice on how to rank better in these scenarios. I would like to know if there are alternative ways of increasing rankings apart from the usual strategies of improving social media fan pages, building backlinks and optimising the site speed wise and making it accessible and understandable to crawlers and people too.
Algorithm Updates | | websitebuilder0 -
Ranking Well in Google But Not Bing - Why?
Hello Moz Community, I'm ranking well in Google (#2-#6 for various keywords) but on the second page of Bing. Are there certain differences that I should be aware of? Thanks, Cole
Algorithm Updates | | ColeLusby0 -
SERP's & Search Engine Differences
Hey, I recently modified my pages to conform more closely to the "A" page rankings for MOZ's on-page report card but saw declines in my keyword rankings. They keywords in question appear in my title tag, description, one image alt tag, either an h1 or h2 tag, and 4 times throughout the text of the document. I don't think MOZ would recommend these changes if it was seen as stuffing - is there any other reason why my rankings might have dropped by 1-4 positions? Also, does anyone know of a good article/book for Yahoo/Bing SEO? My Yahoo & Bing rankings are far below Google's in most cases. Any help would be appreciated! -Michael
Algorithm Updates | | Stew2220 -
Would 37,000 footer links from one site be the cause for our ranking drops?
Hey guys, After this week's Penguin update, I've noticed that one of our clients has seen a dip in rankings. Because of this, I've had a good link at the client's back link profile in comparison to competitors and noticed that over 37,000 footer links have been generated from one website - providing us with an unhealthy balance of anchor terms. Do you guys believe this may be the cause for our ranking drops? Would it be wise to try and contact the webmaster in question to remove the footer links? Thanks, Matt
Algorithm Updates | | Webrevolve0 -
Did anyone else notice all their keyword rankings go down after the last Panda refresh on January 17th 2013?
Even before January 17th I noticed my keyword ranking slowly going from the top 3 to around 8, 9 and 10. Then between January 15 and January 30th, (SEO MOZ) is not showing the exact date) they all went down to the second page and worse. The rankings dropped for an e-commerce website petsspark.com. They sell a tear stain removal product which is a pretty competitive market. After January i started to notice that Google was starting to rank blogs, forums, overal product review websites and of course amazon, better than me and my competitors. Was anyone else effected by the panda refresh or have any idea what may have gone wrong? Please help ScreenShot2013-04-10at50852PM.png?t=1365628252
Algorithm Updates | | DTOSI1 -
Ranking well for main key terms but site traffic has dropped sharply?
Hello All, Just a quick question. Since the penguin update our site www.caravanguard.co.uk has seen some pretty fluctuating movement in Google, many of our key terms dropped over night, but over the last few weeks they have slowly started to move back up the rankings. The bizarre thing is despite the recover in rankings our unique traffic has taken a fairly large whack in numbers. Seasonality? Weather? ( it's been nice in the UK for a change) I can only assume the longer tail terms are taking more time to recover. I have tried to look into our back link profile and have noticed a little too much in terms concise keyword targeting, How do you go about changing these terms and removing the really bad links (struggling to identify the worst cases) on totally irrelevant sites or poor directories. Put in place before I started here 🐵 Any help truly appreciated. Regards Tim
Algorithm Updates | | TimHolmes0 -
Rankings moving in every 2 days.
Hi, I am seeing strange behavior of Google for my rankings. I have a very competitive keyword (I can't disclose because of NDA) but for example keyword like "Cameras" on google.co.uk , it stayed on #4 spot for years, we have been practising all good SEO techniques for this. From last couple of weeks, it goes to 9 then stays there for 2 days, then come back to 4 for 2 days, then go back to 9 & then after 2 days come back to 4 & it is keep moving like that... at the time of this post, this one is on 9. Our site have been on top for very competitive kws even like word "Camera" we are 2 which is stable... None of our other kws ranks are changed but only word "Cameras" is affected. I am not sure how & why this is happening, I have been following SEOMoz from long time & hope can find solution here. Note : Keywords used here are not actual, but carry equal importance Please let me know.
Algorithm Updates | | spopli0