Google and fluctuating serps

Why page 1 one day and 731 the next?

[tgone]

My site has gone through pretty much all the 'design tricks' in an effort to get top listings in they certainly did work well.

Since 'Florida' I have reverted to the Google guidlines and also with all the good advice and common sense tips I learnt at a recent search engine strategy conference I attended.

My site is now squeky clean.

My question is this:

On most of my key phrases I am listed in the top 3 to 10 results and this has been constant the whole year so far. On the most important keyword however, which is a one one word phrase, which gets the most searches by a factor of 8, I fluctuate between a top 30 position to position number 705.

This seems to happen on a fairly predictable basis, i.e. every third day I spend time at number 705 and teh other two days in the top 30 somehere.

This begs the question,is Google got doing this purposely, do they have something in their algo that is penalizing some commercial sites or even sharing the top rankings of certain highly competitive terms amongst a number of commercial sites?

The only way at this stage that I can guarantee to get results from that particular keyword at this stage is to pay for it.

Is this what Google wants and if so, why does it only appear to affect certain terms?

[blaze]

Could be some kind of genetic algorithm wreaking havoc and they are adding 'mutations' to keep the evolution going..

Whether or not this will actually lead anywhere is anybody's guess.

[bufferzone]

Have you tried to check www2.google.com and www3.google.com when the fluctuations are going on to se if the batabases are consistet.

[tgone]

Bufferzone

Today I am a fortunate boy for Google has my site listed in to top listings, that is on www.google, www2.google and www3.google

I'll check it out every day for the next week or so and keep this thread updated.

[sim64]

From the way it looks to me Google is using different algorithms at different databases, and rotating them as to which appears on the main Google page.
With 15 or more databases running slightly differently this would explain the fluctuations.
Opinons on this theory are appreciated.

[bufferzone]

Do a site search on the terms “google dance” her on Webmasterworld. You will se that Google do indeed rotate between the different databases, normally around the time of an update. Some updates are minor, with just additions to the database, new pages and sites crawled, but every once in a while we have major updates with changes in the algorithm. Sometimes the changes gives funny and unexpected results.

[tgone]

Yesterday (Saturday) I was back to a position the 700's, and today I'm back to a top 20 spot. Google results still fluctuating wildly for a single keyword phrase.

On multi word phrases I am still doing well and the Google results are stable and consistant.

Wouldn't it be nice if they would just get their act together?

[SlowMove]

I wouldn't be surprised if this was done to see what users like. If a high enough percentage of Googlers have the toolbar installed, G could probably gather information on what sites are visited for long periods of time, and direct more traffic to those sites. Needless to say, my sites are suffering.