Disappearing and reappearing SERP listing

[BuckyBall]

I have a site that keeps disappearing and reappearing for a high traffic keyword. It alternates and can take up to 2-3 weeks before it reappears. The site does appear at a higher serp position when it reappears. It has moved from page 6 to page 2 in about 8 months.

The site has decent unpaid links pointing to it that are mostly the site url and some being the brand name. There are no kw specific anchors on the linkbacks. The site has unique content that we spent a lot of time writing.

I see G webmaster tools and analytics showing the traffic improve week after week. WMT also shows that it is showing up for more queries than before. Ranking for other terms is steady or improving.

But it doesn't vanish for any other term but this high volume term which is itself contained as part of the website/company name.

[goodroi]

Are you making sure this isn't a personalized search result issue?
Does WMT show any impressions during the 2-3 weeks that you are out for that keyword?
Are you looking to see if there any competitors stealing your content causing a duplicate content issue?

[BuckyBall]

Thank you Goodroi for the reply. Yes this is not a personalized or cached result issue. Impressions for the site are climbing in WMT, but I see a small loss that is concurrent with the SERP ranking loss.

The kws that the site is losing ranking for all point to the home page (decided by google and not manipulative links). The homepage has a small amount of text and then images and a youtube embeded video thumbnaiil.

I used copyscape and found a spam site copying the small text portion of our home page. About 12%.

Any thoughts?

[aakk9999]

There is also a possibility of hitting different data centres.

[BuckyBall]

I already tested different data centers. Interesting thing is when checking from international TLD for google like google.mx the site is showing up for the intended kw on page 3.

[goodroi]

Certain penalties and filters are not always implemented on international serps. It could also be Google testing an algo change.

[aristotle]

I've seen cases where Google's SERPs temporarily show the wrong page from a site when another page is much more relevant for the keyword. This can continue for several days or even several weeks. The ranking is different for the wrong page, so you might not see it unless you specifically look for it.

[BuckyBall]

@aristotle the serps are not showing any page related to the high traffic kw for the site in question. Its been 11 days since it disappeared. I've seen it disappear for 3wks at most and then come come back for 2-3 wks and vanish again.

Before I started building very organic (non kw) links to the site, it sat on pgs 5-6 steadily for 6 months. I did hire a popular seo to build non-paid editorial links, and they built about 30 links (3 sets spaced 2 months apart) to inside pages on my site. The links camera from all sorts of sites having link pages. Like department links or resource links.

I've checked duplicate contents issues, which don't exist. Few crappy sites have copied content for a few products, but I see that happening for my other sites as well and that doesn't affect the other sites.

I can only think of the following:
1) sandbox for new site (1.5yrs old re-registered side from 2007), and play the google dance?
2) not enough nofollow links? has 2 domains out of 60 pointing nofollow links
3) some users have said in other threads to build some social links to point social signals. Is G really giving it that much weight?

[Kratos]

If I read correctly, your ranking has ranged between page 2 and page 6, correct? Because if so, the difference between ranking between page 2 and page 6 is minimal. It's only when you break into page 1 and the top 5 or 6 slots that you can consider your SEO strategy a success and can start thinking of more ingenious ways to crack into the top 3.

Page 2 is not a successful SEO campaign, and I say this simply because I am tired of seeing SEO sellers promising the moon to newbies only to leave them on page 2 and the sellers brainwashing the customer of how well the SEO campaign has gone. If you are on page 2, you might as well be on page 6 or 10.

1) sandbox for new site (1.5yrs old re-registered side from 2007), and play the google dance?
2) not enough nofollow links? has 2 domains out of 60 pointing nofollow links
3) some users have said in other threads to build some social links to point social signals. Is G really giving it that much weight?

1) There is no such thing as a sandbox. This is mere SEO fairy tales invented by people who claim that nofollow has a direct effect on ranking or who think that Wikipedia links give you an SEO advantage.

2) No you do not need more nofollow links. If anything more nofollow links will make you look like a spammer in Google eyes.

3) LOL social media does jack absolute ZERO in improving rankings or anything to do with SEO. Zero, zilch, nada. Do you think that Google is going to care about a nofollow link on some fake facebook profile of a fake user who has also liked Mike's Gardening supply store in Newcastle (UK), Vishal's dj hiring agency in Delhi and Joe's private drug rehab clinic in Orange County (USA)?

What you need are real links from high authority sites on pages with high PR scores. Otherwise you will never move up, unless the guys on the first page are demoted from either an algorithm update or a manual review.

[BuckyBall]

@Kratos I agree with you about the social media. For everything else you stated I completely disagree. Your suggestions are highly risky and will lead to an easy penalty. Been there done that a couple of times. Are you working for Google?

If someone has any helpful input in to this matter, it will be highly appreciated.

[samwest]

@BB - for whatever it's worth, I too see my position change but on a daily basis, especially for a handful of higher traffic keywords. During the "apparent" data set switch, I regularly bag one sale in the early morning, then I'm shut down for the day. Results will vary among the countless markets out there.

[BuckyBall]

@samwest situation is completely different. I am aware that serps change daily/hourly. Another site of mine is on the first page, and has serps change daily.

This post is about disappearing and reappearing from the SERPS completely at 2-3 week intervals, constantly.