Rankings and visibility fluctuating wildly from week to week
-
I have 1 campaign (out of 9) that has it's ranking fluctuating wildly from week to week - and in the past 3 weeks, it's tanked, and the next week come back, and this week, tanked again (what I mean by that is Keyphrases ranking #1 dropping to +51 - I had over 20 keyphrases (both local and universal) that were ranked in the top 10 (many in the top 3) that are now at 18 or higher.
I have not changed anything on the website in the last 3 weeks, but I've been working with Yoast SEO Pro to add in metadata, titles etc. The content, managed by the marketing manager, is basically unchanged. Help!!! This is the second time this has happened and our top competitor went from where we are now to #1 - We've been flipflopping week after week. Not good.
I have also been getting an increased # of 803 and 804 crawl errors. Jon with Moz added me to the next beta cohort, but I can't imagine that this has anything to do with Google ranking. I have 2 campaigns experiencing a high number of 803-804 crawl errors but only this one with the dramatic ranking and visibility swings.
mccdental.com is the domain for the campaign.
I appreciate any insight. Newish client - NOT good.
-
That would be great, however I AM the SEO consultant.
What tool would you recommend to identify potential bad backlinks?
-
Hi Cindy,
I'm afraid it's a little bit difficult to isolate - as I mentioned, the Google search algorithms generally will usually have very acute impacts on particular search sectors so this could explain why you're seeing it only with one campaign and no others at this point (you may see this happen with others in the future). To investigate any potential algorithm changes, you'll need to check out our tools:
http://mozcast.com/
https://mza.seotoolninja.com/google-algorithm-change
https://mza.seotoolninja.com/blog/rankings-history-new-features-moz-proThat client's competition may also be working on their SEO strategies so that's something you'd also want to take into consideration. To investigate any other potential causes, you may need to work with your own SEO consultant to dive in a little deeper.
-
Well no. Why is only one of 9 campaigns effected (don't get me wrong, I'm relieved it's ONLY one.)
-
Hi there Cindy,
Sam from Moz's Help Team here!
I'll address the 803 error first (it looks as though you're already working through the cause of the 804 error in terms of being added to the Beta).
When you see an 803 error, that means your site closed its TCP connection to our crawler before our crawler could read a complete HTTP response. You don't see this error when you go to the page in your browser because content-length is an outdated component for modern browsers and they will disregard this error, but the intention of our crawler is to report any errors that might be occurring. So the crawler is configured to detect and report such errors.
I'm not a web dev (since I'm just here to support our tools) so I can't exactly tell you how to fix this issue (much as I wish I could!). However, one of our very trusted community members, Sha Menz, has a great answer regard 803 errors here: https://mza.seotoolninja.com/community/q/how-do-fix-an-803-error
With respect to a large dip in rankings, it's important to keep in mind that Google tweaks their algorithm frequently in minor ways. This will usually have very acute impacts on particular search sectors, which almost always normalize quickly which is likely what's been happening in these cases.
Keeping in mind that each weekly rankings update is just a snapshot from a particular moment in time, I would recommend using Mozcast as a resource to help determine how turbulent Google SERPs are on any given day. It's also worth mentioning that we would always advocate for examining your rankings over a large period of time, in order to exclude extreme outliers.
I hope this helps to clarify but do let our team know if you have any further questions!
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
-
Inaccurate results in MOZ Rank Tracker
Hello, We recently ran a test on Rank Tracker and got a result indicating that the page in question was in position #17. We did a manual check on a Google USA SERP for the query, and found that we weren't in results where the tool had indicated. Does anyone have any ideas on what might be causing this discrepancy? Thanks!
Moz Bar | | Critical_Mass0 -
Rank Tracker Tool Accurate?
Hi Everyone, Just wondering if you all have been noticing inaccurate information in the rank tracker tool. Many terms are showing not in top 50, yet when i search from random devices that have never accessed my website before i find the url to be in the top 50. Anyone experiencing similar issues and anyone have any ideas why the inconsistency? Thanks
Moz Bar | | Prime850 -
Duplicating a Report to monthly from weekly
Is there a way to duplicate a weekly report and also run it monthly without redesigning it from scratch? I have a great report a client loves but they also want to see it monthly. Thanks! Melinda
Moz Bar | | timesharecmo0 -
Is Moz going to provide mobile ranking tools?
With the mobilegeddon update quickly approaching us on April 21, I wanted to know if Moz is going to provide any insight into mobile rankings vs. desktop rankings? Are there any other tools we can use to benchmark and gain insight into this kind of data?
Moz Bar | | jgrammer2 -
Rank tracker csv export different data
Is it on purpose that you export data to the csv export that is different from what is displayed? This is the case when using 'entire subdomain in the request'. After grading the page, it displays the 'ranking url', but when I csv export it, I get the url for this entry that I entered in the URL field.
Moz Bar | | e-connect1 -
Rank Checker and Keyword Difficulty
This is the only time I have seen this but the rank checker shows a keyword ranking #2 but the keyword difficulty tool does show the url ranking anywhere on the first page. I have some ideas as to why this may be happening but I am wondering if anyone actually knows?? Keyword: motion capture url: www.organicmotion.com/motion-capture
Moz Bar | | JBeaton0 -
Have any insight into why our Moz Rank dropped?
I'm working on a site with a very low domain authority to start and in viewing our historical MozRank comparison to competitors I see that we had a MozRank between 2 and 3 two months ago, but now have a MozRank of 0. What could have triggered this dropoff? It's clear we need to boost domain authority, but we have never had any so we're no worse in that department now than we were two months ago. Any insight here would be useful. Thanks! W2A1u2D.png
Moz Bar | | bshanahan0 -
Moz just did my weekly "crawl" and claims my meta titles and descriptions are "missing," but they aren't. What's up with this?
I can check for my titles and descriptions in the source. They are there, always have been. what in the hell?
Moz Bar | | LifeisRosie0