Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
I want to echo Outland88's comments on the previous page:
...Google is rotating results, changing the positioning daily, and showing sites on a day/night schedule with many keywords. You can’t tell what you’re going to get whenever you do a search. It can explain traffic drops. Google probably has the rankings tied to weather conditions and the price of oil to name a zillion things.
Just finished putting together a spreadsheet that draws from a sampling of ranking positions for eight keyword phrases (3 words) that normally drive substantial traffic for a specific site. The "normal position" for each phrase is between 1 and 15, and I've seen occasional jumps of as much as 10 positions in a single day.
Taking about 15 samples each month for the past year, averaging those results and putting it into a fancy graph, it seems that each phrase has generally kept a particular trend (up/down/equal) for a period of 3 months, followed by a "bump" and then either maintaining the previous trend or establishing a new one. The phrases consist of 2 sets of closely related, nearly interchangeable keywords.
I don't think anything can predicted from a single SERP drop unless the site itself has undergone considerable changes or the webmaster is engaging in aggressive and possibly greyhat marketing/SEO tactics.
If you worry too much about a sudden drop, maybe it's time to take a step back from it all...
[edited by: tedster at 5:47 pm (utc) on June 1, 2009]
Kelly
In our Hot Topics area [webmasterworld.com], that discussion is still active and is found under the heading --OPEN QUESTIONS--.
So we know Google developed the back-end technology to shift rankings around like this. We're just not sure why it gets used on some sites. It may be related to another mystery, Google Throttling Traffic [webmasterworld.com].
Cheers
Sid
Flash intro pages are not just a bad idea with google - lots of actual people don't like them either - they would rather get to the "meat" in my experience. But not only that, why waste possibly the most important / powerful page that you have SEO wise in something that doesn't do a great deal?
...or maybe on the 20th of this month...
This site is huge and a very authority site. Its like the victorias secret of lingerie in this industry.
This is insane. I'm happy that google removed them because I move up a spot...but it has me worried if this site gets completely removed and is a quality site with millions of backlinks..what might G do to my second class site?
There is also allot of piggypack blackhatters on .edu's and forums that spam there way in and are getting away with it. Grrrrrrrr
What we get out of this is a few good results top 5 could be better then garbage
below.
Right now all 3 msn, yahoo and google have mixed bad results with google and yahoo the worst. ASK.com looks preety good so does google.ca
I am seeing some of my old neglected sites move up and sites with to many backlinks moving down. No regard for content. So they are moving sites down for aggressive BL, keeping the first 5 or so site on top of first page no matter what they do. Also giving penalty for breaking rules with a 40+
This is exactly what I am seeing. I have a few older sites that are doing great in the SERPS and I have not touched them in over 15 months. I was doing link building for a clients main site (1- 3 links a day on forums, blogs, etc) and totally white hat and boom 6 weeks ago I got slapped with -50? Content is hand written as well and very helpful?
So it makes you wonder should you just stop building links for a while to see if you get a penalty lifted or see less fluctuations? I am waiting 8 weeks before submitting reconsideration request.
[edited by: K_Harris at 10:08 pm (utc) on June 12, 2009]
Why don't you just give yourself some more time and don't jump to conclusions(I know hard to do), a lot of these things work themselves out with time. Or better yet, if you are doing shady things, stop now, stop everything your doing black hat and do your FINAL re-submit to Google before you have to start completely over with domain age, backlinks, trust, etc.
[edited by: MLHmptn at 12:35 am (utc) on June 13, 2009]
[edited by: MLHmptn at 1:01 am (utc) on June 13, 2009]
I fell to page 2 from position 4 on page 1 for my main keyword. My site is informative, has lots of IBL and is pretty much what I would consider an authority. However poof Im pushed back to what I consider the dead zone. The sites that out rank me are junk, no content at all, in fact one is a one page site, just that its been around for ages.
Im beginning to wonder if Matt Cutts was just shooting himself in the foot when he said Bing results weren't all that when Google is topsy turvy like this during their updates.
From a "USEFUL SERPS" perspective can we take a vote on the latest move.
Good vs. Bad vs. Little Or No Effect
[edited by: engine at 10:12 am (utc) on June 13, 2009]
[edit reason] See TOS [/edit]
Someone's being frugal with the truth (your competitor, or their "someone"). Or wool is being pulled over someone's eyes.
Forget submitting to Google, it's not required. Googlebot will re-visit a site that is established.
When the SERPs are dancing around, don't change anything. Wait until it stabalises.
Then, only change one thing at a time.
Have patience.
and he pays someone to submit every month,
Your friend is being ripped off by the sounds of it! It's unethical for someone to charge for this as it's a total waste of time and as you say, probably doesn't submit anyway. What do both parties think is being achieved by this?
[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 6:32 pm (utc) on June 13, 2009]
Is it possible that a competitor could have done this?
Possible, yes. Probable, no.
Do you see a lot (and I mean a LOT) of garbage backlinks? If so, you can always submit a reconsideration request and let Google know that you had nothing to do with them and don't want "credit" for them. I know of two cases where such a reconsderation request was followed by restored rankings. I know of others where no change happened. It certainly can't hurt.
Back links, do you mean link with other sites? Excuse my ignorance.... I had someone build this site for me who seems to have disappeared. I'm getting someone to take it over, but don't want to touch it yet.
Yes I mean get other sites to link to you that are on-topic and relevant to your site and what you want to rank for. Use your target anchor text (preferably in-body) on the links coming into your site from related on-topic content and it will help your rankings. Use this forum to learn from(most specifically whats been pinned at the top), browse the link development forum and learn.
Also, don't fret right now that your rankings are dropping...Everyone is dropping or moving at the moment. I have onen site in particular that was in top 10 that is now on page 8/9 for my main targeted term. Why? I'm presuming it has to do with google devaluing blog comments as this particular site was heavily optimized on IBL's utilizing blog's and hardly anything else. My other sites that don't utilize blogs are still holding steady. In any event, learn, learn, learn and don't panic, the sky is not falling. Give it time to work itself out.
Visit these WebmasterWorld links:
Link Development
[webmasterworld.com ]
Google News Hot Topics
[webmasterworld.com ]
Visit Yahoo's site explorer and browse the inbound links you have and spot the ones that may be hurting you with the following command: linkdomain:www.example.com (with example.com being your site of course)
Other than that...Keep learning from people here and at other forums (even though I believe WebmasterWorld is the best).
[edited by: MLHmptn at 10:49 pm (utc) on June 13, 2009]
I see very different SERPs for "Gadget" and "Gadgét"... Some weeks ago the SERPs where almost identically for both searches
That's an interesting observation. Are we looking at a change in the way Google handles languages and character sets? I'll do some digging on that idea.
