Swapping Positions Between 3 and 4

Google doing continous swapping on ranks.

[TheGuyAboveYou]

This is strange. For about 1/2 the day I am ranked #3 on G for my keyword and the other half the day TheGuyBelowMe is ranked #3.

Does G update rankings that often? I thought updates were less frequent.

[TheGuyAboveYou]

Anyone see this? Am I on a way to a slow and painful death?
I was number three and changed my title then we swapped back and forth and I am now number 4.

I think I better not make anymore title changes.
Would that make things worse?

[TomWaits]

Am I on a way to a slow and painful death?

You are if you check your rankings throughout the day.

[jamsy]

I think I better not make anymore title changes

Why not? If you track what you changed and when then you will know what does or doesnt work. Then its simple to revert back to what worked.

This is a fundamental thing we often work on.

[MHes]

>If you track what you changed and when then you will know what does or doesnt work.

and if google is changing things all the time, how do you know if what you did was them or you?

Choose a sensible title and stick with it. Google is trying to offer the most relevent site so give them a relevent title to work with and let them tweek their algo to 'make you top'. It is tempting to keep experimenting but ultimately it can be a total waste of time. Making the title an accurate representation of the page with the correct targeted phrase is the one and only step you need make. If google is moving your ranking a few places then so be it, they may have good reasons, such as purely providing user choice and variation.

[Lorel]

I thoroughly researched the ranking of competitors for a keyword phrase that I target by checking their PR, backlinks, keyword density for that keyword phrase and a lot more.

Then I ajusted my site and watched the ranking amost daily for over 2 months. They changed daily. One day I was #6 and the next #12 and etc. After a few weeks I then checked the Keyword Density of the other sites again and it was still the same so they had not tweaked their keywords (adding more text or removing text would change the density).

My conclusion: If the individual sites aren't changing then the fluctuation in SERPs are totally related to something Google is doing. Don't be concerned about your rank going up and down a few notches.

[straticus]

Your site goes from positon 3-4 depending on what google datacenter your browser goes through, the positions can change with different computers or different times of the day.

If you do a search for Mcdar datacenter watch tool, this tool allows you to see this movement by checking the datacentres in groups.

There is also a google command, radio button on this tool, its very good for seeing all the commands in one window.

Hope this helps.

[powerstar]

our site shows on a diffrent page of the results every day. one day on page 2 the next on page 3 and then back to page 1 and two days later page 5. I think it's part of the Google's ranking system

[steveb]

Google has different datacenters with different results. It is perfectly normal to be three on one and four on another.

"Am I on a way to a slow and painful death?"

If moving one slot makes you think of "death", I hope you don't read some of those update threads....