Jumped up in rankings - and traffic dropped?

[internetheaven]

For my most clickthrough'ed (is that a word?) terms and for the most competitive keyphrases in my industry I've just jumped up from round about the 5-12 positions to the top 3 on all of them for the past two days now.

Traffic just dropped by 20% for the past two days. I'm completely lost as to possible reasons. I checked the rankings throughout the day to see if they were holding and things were steady every time I looked. I'm still ranking there now.

[tedster]

Sounds like only some users are seeing your higher rankings - geo-located results?

[decaff]

geo-results would be my take on this...
Google is dishing out different results sets based on users physical locations..

also...in your sector....folks may spend time naving through the first couple of SERPs pages ... comparing ..researching...

Having the first 3 spots does not always equate to top traffic volume... (at least this has been my experience over the years..)

[internetheaven]

geo-located results?

Please explain just how geo-located you are suggesting? Town?

It would be difficult to geo-locate the UK. For example, I live in the top North East of Scotland but my IP address is in Coventry, England. Most of the UK is like that.

My site targets only UK users and UK keyphrases so if my rankings go up on .co.uk I would expect more UK traffic.

[tedster]

Ok - let's make a list of why you might see improved rankings but lower traffic.

1. Other Google users see something different:

--a. geo-location of user
--b. different browsers get different results
--c. you are logged into a Google account, therefore you are seeing personal search results

2. Your title or snippet changed to something less attractive

3. Your server is doing something weird with just some of the Google traffic

4. Something is wrong/changed with your analytics package, or at least with the way it's set up

5. DNS cache poisoning [webmasterworld.com] kicked in when you got to the top three and is now stealing a percentage of your traffic

Any other ideas?

[reseller]

internetheaven

I've just jumped up from round about the 5-12 positions to the top 3 on all of them for the past two days now.

Do you get the same above mentioned results on these two DCs?

[72.14.207.104...]

[64.233.171.104...]

[outland88]

IH, would you like me to send you a list of things to do to lower your rankings? I guarantee my work. Experience galore. :)

[Lorel]

I've been daily monitoring 3 keyword phrases for my site. The main 2 word phrase which I am not aiming for goes up and down by 150 points and "should" affect the rank of the other two as they all share one word, but there seems to be no relationship, as when one goes down the others go up. They jump around like jack rabbits. And, I have done nothing to my site in about 6 weeks, so I just assume Google is up to something.

I forgot to mention I've been keeping track of the DCs also, and that doesn't seem to be the reason for the fluctu
ations.

[edited by: Lorel at 2:42 am (utc) on May 10, 2008]

[HuskyPup]

internetheaven

All I will say is the Google UK SERPs totally suck right now.

I have 10+ yr old customers' sites that have totally disappeared from Google.co.uk for no reason whatsoever.

I mean gone...sites that have always been in the top 1~20 simply gone...

Whomsoever is twiddling the dials hasn't a clue!

[internetheaven]

Do you get the same above mentioned results on these two DCs?

[72.14.207.104...]

[64.233.171.104<...]

That's a tough one. I am quoting for Google.co.uk, on Google.com we have jumped to top 3 for UK specific terms but not for international terms. But to answer your question, we are No.150 on 72.14.207.104 and No.149 on 64.233.171.104

[reseller]

internetheaven

I hate to be the one who brings the bad news to you.

However, IMO the real position of your site on google.com for the said specific terms is #149-#150. And that explain very well the drop in your traffic.

The remaining question is; why do you keep seeing your site on top 3?

[Bewenched]

I've noticed a definite change here in the US. Last two days traffic is WAY down.

[internetheaven]

However, IMO the real position of your site on google.com for the said specific terms is #149-#150. And that explain very well the drop in your traffic.

But I'm not targetting international traffic though? If I type Google.com into my browser I get redirected to Google.co.uk like most of the UK. So a ranking increase on Google.co.uk is the one I should see more traffic from, not Google.com .... right?

My site is a .co.uk with "UK Keyword Service" in the title. If my UK rankings go up across the board then surely I should see traffic increase too? There are always 3 sponsored links at the top of the SERPS for my terms due to their value, so I suppose I'm really No.5 on the page.

With Google's new lightened sponsored results area merging more into the natural results does this mean that unless I am No.1 for natural search I'm not going to see an increase in ranking?

[reseller]

internetheaven

But I'm not targetting international traffic though?

But that doesn't mean your site wouldn't receive referrals from google.com . Maybe 20%+ of your previous google traffic was originated from google.com. And its that portion which you might have lost because of drop of your site position to #149 - #150 on the serps of google.com .

I would suggest you take a look at your web traffic analyzer to see the size of referrals you use to get from different Googles (google.co.uk, google.com etc...).

[Whitey]

But that doesn't mean your site wouldn't receive referrals from google.com .

Exactly !

I would suggest you take a look at your web traffic analyzer to see the size of referrals you use to get from different Googles (google.co.uk, google.com etc...).

But not all : " Search: the web " results are performing equally on regional search Google TLD's .

There seems to be some increasing flux in positions with more aggressive regional algorithm filters. We are seeing positions holding on some global searches on regional Google's and not others, which is creating great traffic fluctuations.

And I suspect that user IP address' are varying results, but some multi national approach to results data is needed here to check this - if a bunch of folks did a test on a popular multinational location based keyword , like " Los Angeles Widgets" i bet this would differ on the global search depending where in the World you searched from. Any takers for a test ?

increased change in "search the web" positions by searcher location [webmasterworld.com]

I believe these issues are being under reported or going unnoticed by members.

Folks - i think there's something happening in the Google development department on the geo targetting front . There was a hint of a buzz in my mind over here as to where Google's attention has been going recently :

Where in the World is Your Site [googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com]

[edited by: Whitey at 1:52 pm (utc) on May 11, 2008]

[Optimus]

I agree with Whitey and am ready to do testing on the theory of different results from various datacenters based on user IP, which must surely be part of the grand geotargeting algo. In fact, I made the same point on this thread May 2008 Google SERP Changes [webmasterworld.com].

[edited by: tedster at 11:37 pm (utc) on May 11, 2008]
[edit reason] fixed link [/edit]

[internetheaven]

But that doesn't mean your site wouldn't receive referrals from google.com . Maybe 20%+ of your previous google traffic was originated from google.com. And its that portion which you might have lost because of drop of your site position to #149 - #150 on the serps of google.com .

I didn't drop in Google.com, I don't remember ever saying I did. I said I went up in Google.co.uk and traffic dropped. Position #150 is a slight increase anyway of about five places on the dotcom.

[Whitey]

I didn't drop in Google.com

But ... how do you know you didn't drop on Regional Global Search and Google.com from another IP location?

This is where the flux is I believe.

[ Sorry if i have misunderstood you ]

[tedster]

I'm thinking that some of the geo-location search strategies from this thread might be worth looking into: Search for US results from outside [webmasterworld.com]. You can also search many countries' results from "outside, not just the US.

Especially useful might be the use of the "gl=" parameter, proxy servers or VPNs, and the Adwords Preview Tool at [adwords.google.com...]

[jeffb]

What about results for sites inside the US? Would geo-targeting affect them, too? Over the last three months, our rankings have increased dramatically for a wide range of keywords. But instead of traffic increasing, it has dropped by 30%.

Although the site has a postal address on it, the business itself has no brick and mortar store that people come to. We're seeking to attract customers from across the US.

Could geo-targeting be killing our traffic?