Is Google Rotating Good Matches?
-
I have a theory that Google may be trying to be fair to white-hat-seo sites that are doing the right things with blogging, linking, social media, etc. [ie that deserve equal good positioning] are being cycled to and from the first page, perhaps in a weekly or monthly basis. My theory would be that they are purposefully doing it to give those sites more equal exposure.
My case:
I've had top rankings for http://thedogbitelawyer.com for almost all of the important terms for dog bite lawyers for a couple of years now.
When Penguin came out we lost some ground across the board, and identified that perhaps there was too much duplicate content left over from when I inherited the site. I reworked the site wording and link structure a bit and gained back positioning.
Since that time we are up and down like a yo-yo on the top terms!
Anybody else have this suspicion? If it's true, I don't need to stress, if we are bouncing around for other reason's I'd better keep stressing!
-
If Google is changing the rules, it doesn't really matter if you make changes or not, in some cases. For example, we've seen issues recently where Google tweaked domain diversity and gave more spots to the same domains. In some cases, that pushed other people down, even though those other people didn't do anything wrong. In many cases, Google seems to test changes and then adjust, so you can see ups and downs.
In other cases, I've seen situations where Google pumped up "freshness" (QDF), either overall or for certain queries. So, sites with new or updated content suddenly got a boost, and sites with older content got pushed down, even if those sites didn't do anything.
Of course, it's also always possible that your competition has made changes. Even if you change nothing, other people are constantly changing their sites.
Now, if only you are bouncing around, and the rankings are otherwise pretty consistent, then it is possibly a sign of a problem. You could be facing a potential penalty, for example, or some of your links or content are being devalued. This can range from something simple and no fault of your own (a site that used to link to use no longer does) to a full-scale penalty brewing. It can be really tough to diagnose "bounce", but it's much more common than I suspect most people think it is.
-
I have no doubt about what you are saying, but that doesn't explain the bouncing up and down effect when I am employing the same methodology that I always have, with the same intensity, etc.
Obviously it's combination of everything in the universe happening simultaneously, but the change is the curiosity.
If others are "out SEOing" me, and hitting on the latest tweaks by Google to rise above, I would see a trending downward, right?
I guess another way to look at what we are seeing would be that perhaps Google has set the results to show the newest updated sites first. For example, if it has 10 sites it considers worthy of a first page rank for a term, it might be pushing the one with the latest post update ahead of "equal" sites that haven't made a post that week.
Just theorizing... Jon
-
If you're coming to MozCon, you'll get the full version of this answer during my presentation Let me just say that, while we only track a few major events (like Penguin), Google has made 500+ changes/year since at least 2010 (and probably similar numbers prior to that). The algorithm changes almost 1-1/2 times/day, in other words.
For the last two weeks, rankings flux has been incredibly high - the Panda 3.7 rollout lasted 5 days, or something happened along with it. We think of rankings as static, but they aren't - some keywords Top 10 rankings can completely and permanently change within a week or so (in other words, every site in the Top 10 is replaced).
This isn't rotation, per se - it's constant tweaking and re-tweaking of the algorithm. Add to that things like freshness and personalization/localization, and rankings are changing faster and faster every day. Whether we like it or not, this is the future of Google.
-
This is the type of movement I'm seeing as well. Went to #2 for a top term one week, then the next week dropped 19 places. The following week was back to #3.
I think it would be fine if Google is rotating the results, as long as they are relevant results... keeps the companies with less to spend on SEO on more equal ground with the deeper pocket companies.
-
I mean in a perfect world the numbers equal the same but in reality all traffic and search terms have different CTRs and actions. I hope they stabalize it a bit because I've been jumping from 3-7, kind of annoying when its my domain i'm searching for (keyword not actual).
-
Might this be the future of SEO? Giving equal chances to top competitors?
-
Definately seeing the same thing here. I have moved from #1 to page 3 and back again (and everywhere in between) multiple times in the last few weeks on a number of my pages. I have actually stopped trying to "fix" anything since there for now there does not seem to be any pattern to the recoveries or drops. Sometimes pages I work on change, while other times pages I have not touched change.
The worst is when my page is beat by broken or blank pages. They usually do not last for too many days, but it has happened a few times. Very stressfull.
-
Same issue, my rankings are jumping from between 3-7. I am not sure why but I can confirm that rankings are jumping fairly often.
It could be due to higher domain authority jumping around. I've seen momentarily eBay's category of the site we are ranking for in position 1.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Is Moz Domain Authority still relvant when it comes to Google ranking?
My understanding of Moz DA is that it is predominantly based on external links. Since Penguin I am noticing more and more websites ranking high in Google with a "low" number of links and certainly a low DA but quality and relevancy of content and also of offering. I understand that there was always more to ranking than DA but is it anymore even relevant to how a site will rank in Google?
Algorithm Updates | | halloranc0 -
Will increased pagerank increase traffic from google?
I got notified that my domain went from a google pagerank of 3 to 4. When this happens, does google raise me in the searches which can then hopefully get me more traffic, or is it a worthless number. Maybe only google knows 🙂
Algorithm Updates | | BrickPicker0 -
With regards to SEO is it good or bad to remove all the old events from our website?
Our website sells tickets for various events across the UK, we do have a LOT of old event pages on our website which simply say SOLD OUT. What is the best practice? Should these event pages be removed and a 301 redirect added to redirect to the home page? Or should these pages remain in tact with simply SOLD OUT on the page?
Algorithm Updates | | Alexogilvie0 -
Can a google data refresh knock your pages out of the rankings?
I see that around mid November 2013 a handful of my sites pages dropped off of Google completely. It was around the data refreshes in November, and while everyone says it doesn't effect that much I was wondering if anyone knew if it could knock some of my pages out of the rankings for a specific keyword. Note - we had previously held muliple listings for different pages on our site for this particular keyword. Google kept the highest ranking and knocked the lower ones off. See attached image of our keyword ranking history to see what I mean. DcJJM0M
Algorithm Updates | | franchisesolutions0 -
Changing Googles Sitelinks
Hi all, I know Google will only show sitelinks if the site is deemed authoritive and if it will help the user searching a keyword, but is there anyway to order or control which links appear in the sitelinks? I know you can demote a sitelink in Webmasters, but is this not shooting yourself in the foot? If I demote a link will Google replace it with the next link it thinks is worthwhile and be doing this eventually show the links you want to appear in your sitelinks? Thanx Gary
Algorithm Updates | | gazza7770 -
When did Google include display results per page into their ranking algorithm?
It looks like the change took place approx. 1-2 weeks ago. Example: A search for "business credit cards" with search settings at "never show instant results" and "50 results per page", the SERP has a total of 5 different domains in the top 10 (4 domains have multiple results). With the slider set at "10 results per page", there are 9 different domains with only 1 having multiple results. I haven't seen any mention of this change, did I just miss it? Are they becoming that blatant about forcing as many page views as possible for the sake of serving more ads?
Algorithm Updates | | BrianCC0 -
Classifieds and Google Panda
It seems Google's Panda update is targetting low quality sites with little unique content (I know there's more to it than that). It makes sense that they may want to do this but what about classified sites. They may use some scraped content as well as unique ads, and the ads may lack content as they rely on the users writing the ads. However, they are helpful to the people that use classifieds. Because of these factors, these sites are suffering with the release of the latest Panda update. Any advice for classified sites and how they can combat the rankings drops???
Algorithm Updates | | Sayers0 -
Anyone have stats on numbers of Google users searching while logged in?
In light of Google's recent "social search update", I am curious to know how many Google users perform searches while logged into their Google account thereby showing "social results".
Algorithm Updates | | Gyi0