Internal changes and ranking variations

[member22]

I recently did some internal changes on my website and noticed the following :
I went from nowhere ( page 20 th to page 1 for an hour or so ) and then when I did reset the cache was gone from page 1 ranking.

Then over the last few days I kept moving back in forth between page 5 and page 10 ... then back to page 20 and don't really know what to think about that.

Is google doing calculations and am I going to get back to page 1 anytime soon ?

I noticed that nothing happens without internal changes so I am thinking this ranking variation is definitely due to some internal changes but what I don't understand is why my ranking doesn't stick with one ranking and why it keeps moving ?

[rubinetto]

I've noticed similar ranking variations after internal changes.

Is it possible that ranking keep moving because Google calculations are continuously affected by many sites doing internal changes?

Bing seems to have more stability.

[member22]

Could it be due to the Google Rank-Modifying Spammers Patent ?

[mihomes]

Did you make sure to turn off all the personalization for yourself? That would certainly change the ranking, but only for your account or whatever device you are using.

Try doing the search with this G link - [google.com...]

[member22]

< moved from another location >

I was reading the google rank modifying patent and I was wondering if before downgrading your website it is possible that google ranks it where it is suppose to be ( for an hour or so ) and that I was lucky enough to heck my ranking at that time.

I was on page 10 went to page 20 but and at one point for an hour was on page 1 ( which I think is the page I should be ranked ) but according to this patent google is going to wait between 20 and 70 days to rank me there again ( on page 1 ) and in the meantime is going to have me vary between 10 and 20... just to make sure I didn't do something " bad ".

Is that the way the patent works ?
.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 8:39 am (utc) on Dec 27, 2012]

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

My 2 cents, barring a manual penalty it really feels like you have the ability to drop in rank quickly with even some mundane changes but not the ability to regain lost rank until a major Panda/Penguin type update is complete.

A template change, the addition of a forum and comment system choice all seem to be able to tank rankings quickly if the site has been otherwise stable. I'm not sure that's working as intended since the quality of your content did not get worse, it in fact improved.

What changes is Google's level of trust in your site.

[glitterball]

I've noticed something similar:
I recently completed a change from table-based layouts to div layouts on 5 sites. The sites still look exactly the same as before - it was purely a markup change invisible to the user.
All of the sites have lost places in the SERPS - not too many though (-2 places).

On another site, I removed a site-wide link to the Spanish version of the site. The immediate effect was that the site disappeared completely from the results, followed by a recovery to roughly 20 positions below its previous position.

[neildt]

I have seen very similar changes. For a few phrases i monitor our site was page 3, later that day page 6, but to page 5 a few days later and yesterday disappeared beyond page 20.

Google's SERPs are very unstable.

[mihomes]

For those of you who are experiencing this... did you make any changes to your site prior to dropping? Even if it were a week or more before hand.

If so, were these changes site-wide such as a main menu navigation change?

[gouri]

For those of you who are experiencing this... did you make any changes to your site prior to dropping? Even if it were a week or more before hand.

If so, were these changes site-wide such as a main menu navigation change?

I noticed a drop for some keyword phrases that the respective pages of a site are trying to rank for about a week after making main menu navigation changes.

I am wondering if these changes is the reason that I am seeing the ranking changes.