Looks like Google is alternating algorithms

[skuba]

I have been observing this for a month now. For a certain keyword we have been constantly ranking #5, #6 or #45. But it changes, like after every couple days. One day I look, we are #45, than a few days later, we are #6, than we are #5, but a few days later, back to #45 and so on....

I know that results will fluctuate, google is always adding more sites and changing algorithms. But now it seems we always fluctuate between the same results. Kind of like if google had been working with a set of different algorithms and keeps alternating them.

Any similar experience, any thoughts?/

Thanks a lot

[ciml]

I'd agree that these types of changes are now common.

Have you noticed how some sites seem to move up and down a lot, while others are more stable? I recommend looking at the stable sites.

[wellzy]

My keyword rankings change every now and then, but not very drastically. I go from #1 to #4 or #5 and back. This is probably attributed to the different datacenters. You can check them out to see where the results are coming from. I'm not sure why they are doing this, but it has been going on for some time.

wellzy

[larryhatch]

I see something very similar, if somewhat milder.

For my 3-letter keyword, my main page lands around #18 in the SERPS, in a field of around 2 million.
A day later I'm #28. Back and forth, with a round-turn period of 1 or 2 days.

When my page is down, I see surprise pages of highly varying quality and relevance above.
When I'm up, those pages vanish back into the hinterlands.

Does anyone else see a period of very roughly 18 to 30 hours? -Larry

[acee]

I'm seeing something of a split personality in results for one of my sites.

Until the end of September my site ranked 1 to 3 for dozens of 2 and 3 keyword combo's.

Since then only a handful rank 1 to 3, the rest are 100+. No single competing site appears to be acheiving consistent results, and much of what is there lacks relevancy. Is this inconsistency there to make webmasters and searchers consider adwords?

I've recently seen a fourfold increase in the number of pages indexed and an 85% reduction in referals from Google!

[dazz]

Its very strage today if...my entire homepage has dissapeared from the index.

All my internal pages are still about but even a search for mydomain.com comes back with -

Sorry, no information is available for the URL mydomain.com

I hope were not getting to the missing homepage fiasco again!

[phantombookman]

One of my sites returns #5 for the main 2 word search which returns at least 6.5 million matches.

The results on the first page have not changed in a year!

[webnewton]

Reason for such dynamic fluctuations can be
Results from different datacentres.
Sensitivty of google's algorithm.
Intense competition and constantly increasing link popularity of competitor sites.

Still fluctuation from 5 to 45 is little too high. This could happen as a result of results from different datacentres.

[bloke in a box]

I noticed that a couple of months ago where I was going from 2nd to 3rd or 4th for my main 2 keywords, approximately 24 hours later for 24 hours I would be around the 120th mark.

This went on and off for approximately 5 days and ever since I've been stuck rigidly at #2.

As far as I could be aware at the time there was no major change in backlinks / PR etc.

Very strange. :)

[foxtunes]

"....I'm seeing something of a split personality in results for one of my sites.
Until the end of September my site ranked 1 to 3 for dozens of 2 and 3 keyword combo's.

Since then only a handful rank 1 to 3, the rest are 100+. No single competing site appears to be acheiving consistent results, and much of what is there lacks relevancy...."

Acee I witnessed the exact same thing around the 23rd of september.

[zeus]

I think the results are realy getting bad, those flux everytime and its not just from 1 - 5, like my site it is from 8 - 35 and also see other big sites do the same, like for a 2 word keyword even sony is fluxing.

I realy hope they will go back just a month or 2, there was no such big flux and all those php dump pages, messagebords,... and that.

When you make a site:mydomain.com you will see a lot of url without text, that often means bad spidering or new sites and for my site it changes from 1700 pages - to 2500 and then 3800 which I not even got, even the linkbacks cahnges but only from 460 -461, but I never seen that before.

I hope all this has something to do with that I and other lost about 70-80% of there Google visits.

[skuba]

I don't think the difference is to due to different datacenters. I always check in all datacenters with a tool, and they all return the same result. So this posibility is not the case.

[hiacea]

The same thing happened to me, last Saturday my site shot up from 58th position to 7th for my main keyword, this morning it was back at 58th position. What’s going on?

[SlyOldDog]

skuba - have you got a list of all datacentres? I thought that was history now.

[skuba]

All, maybe not all. But you can use one of the tools that check several of them.

Here is a list of some of the tools:
[google.com ]