Keyword keeps fluctuating between a high rank and no rank?
-
I've searched around and I can't seem to find anyone else describing the issue I'm seeing. Basically for a very long time our website (snappages.com) has always ranked in the tens and twenties for "create a website". It's a high volume keyword and we get a lot of traffic from it. Around May 16th it suddenly disappeared completely from search results on Google and now it will sporadically show back up with a SERP in the twenties every 5-10 days for a few hours and then completely disappear again. This pattern has continued to this day.
I've checked and there are no manual penalties and nothing has really changed dramatically from a content perspective or anything like that. I would understand if we got penalized and our ranking dropped, or even if it just completely disappeared? This is the only keyword that this is happening for, all the others remain unaffected. Anyone know how I can find out why this is happening or have suggestions on how to fix it?
-
That's a good point. I've tried incognito etc. I even use a few SERP tracking tools and they reflect the same thing. SERPWoo for instance will send me an alert saying they keyword "started ranking" instead of the normal alert that says it went up or down.
I guess it's comforting to hear someone else is seeing something similar though b/c I haven't seen anyone report this and I've done a lot of searching for it.
-
I have experienced something similar this year - it's not something I've seen before.
Everyday it can change. One day my client is number 5 for "keyword" - the next day it has gone.
This has been happening for about 3 months now.
I am putting faith in Google eventually settling down and keeping them on the first page. It is a very difficult one to explain though and I don't have the answers.
This is not about having a better SEO strategy - this is about something I'm calling GHOST RANKINGS
Anyone else seen this .. and what happened?
P.S I'm am incognito when I check. I also track it in MOZ rankings. I have also got people to check from different locations - this is not the reason!
-
Maybe.
But, if some of these have grabbed all or most of your text, then filing DMCA is what I would do. Before you file DMCA be sure that you know the risks and especially know the rules related to fair use. See an attorney before doing it if you have any doubts about your understanding.
-
No problem, here is another question somewhat similar to yours that has been answered https://mza.seotoolninja.com/community/q/why-keyword-ranking-fluctuate
-
Thanks for the feedback. I do understand it's very competitive so I would understand going up and down in ranking but it literally shows up at 23, then gone for 4 days, then 27, then gone for 6 days, then 21, then gone for 5 days, etc.
This fluctuation has been happening for months and prior to this I was very steadily always ranked high.
-
That's a good question. I'm looking into it but it doesn't seem to be a way to check this reliably. Would switching up the content that is being used by those other sites make a difference?
-
I hope I can provide some useful insights in regards to this somewhat of an anomaly.
After reading your explanation carefully and doing some research on the keyword, it is apparent that this is quite an important keyword to rank for even if just in the first 20 SERPs. Due to the difficulty of this keyword, I am not very surprised with the fluctuation in your rankings since there is a lot of content generated around the topic on a daily basis.
Here are my suggestions if you're willing to invest a good amount of effort on regaining or securing a good position for this keyword:
- Create a new website page with the URL https://snappages.com/create-a-website
- Add the page in the navbar with an attractive CTA
- Differentiate it the new page from the home page
- Get your technical on-page SEO right for the new page.
- Then Publish a series of blog posts that are related to the keyword. In ex: Basic rules of web design, how to build a website for converting visitors, how to make your own website, etc. Try to find some low difficulty keywords, and link all of the posts back to https://snappages.com/create-a-website through a call-to-action at the bottom of each post. This will not only increase the new page's relevancy to search engines but if you do a good job at finding keywords will also yield some traffic.
- Make sure the blog posts are not product centric instead, make them as helpful as possible.
- Work on getting some backlinks to the new page, and repeat.
This strategy will require a good bit of time to create new and unique content, on-page SEO, off-page SEO, designing the page, etc. Though it might be worth it since it is very relevant to the company.
-
Are you going into the supplemental index or are you totally gone?
If you are going into the supplemental index then these guys using your content might be having an impact.
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
-
Why am i ranking better in canada?
hi, some of my keywords with high volume are ranking on first page in canada, but in the states i am on 3rd pages first result. what factors are contributing this disparity. what can be done here in this case. is it because of my links and tld distribution or some server location thing. what should i do to rank better in the US? i have shared hosting server in singapore.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Sam09schulz0 -
How does this company rank this page?
If you Google the keyword "used iPhone 5," the URL ranking #1 in the SERP is the following: http://buy.gazelle.com/buy-used-iphone-5/ This page has zero content on it and a button on it that takes you to a category page with the iPhone 5 pre selected. My question is **how does this page outrank the sites products pages? **I ran a backlink analysis and don't see any links pointing to that URL. Also, **how does this site deal with its duplicate content issues? **If you look at the following URLs, you'll see a bunch of duplicate content in the "Key Features" section below the fold. http://buy.gazelle.com/buy/used/iphone-5-16gb-at-t http://buy.gazelle.com/buy/used/iphone-5-16gb-sprint If you think about it, this site will have different product pages for each variations of cellphone carrier and cellphone storage capacity. So for an iPhone 5, they will have 15 pages! Any insight into this would be much appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Cody_West0 -
Tags and Categories Ranking
Hello A few times I have come across tags and categories ranking for some relevant search terms. This seems strange as all category and tag pages would have 0 external links back to them - whereas pretty much every other page on the site would have external links. In most cases thy seem to rank along with the page, for example: for the search term "voiceover recording xxxxx" The voice over recording page will rank, followed by a similar tag page... If I make the tag links 'nofollow' would that help stop this? Cheers
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wearehappymedia0 -
Website not ranking
Firstly, apologies for the long winded question. I'm 'newish' to SEO We have a website built on Magento , www.excelclothing.com We have been online for 5 years and had reasonable success. Having used a few SEO companies in the past we found ourselves under a 'partial manual penalty' early last year. By July we were out of penalty. We have been gradually working our way through getting rid of 'spammy' links. Currently the website ranks for a handful of non competitive keywords looking at the domain on SEM RUSH. This has dropped drastically over the last 2 years. Our organic traffic over the last 2-3 years has seen no 'falling off a cliff' and has maintained a similar pattern. I've been told so many lies by SEO companies trying to get into my wallet I'm not sure who to believe. We have started to add content onto all our Category pages to make more unique although most of our Meta Descriptions are a 'boiler plate' template. I'm wondering.... Am I still suffering from Penquin ? Am I trapped by Panda and if so how can I know that? Do I need more links removed? How can I start to rank for more keywords I have a competitor online with the same DA, PA and virtually same number of links but they rank for 3500 keywords in the top 20. Would welcome any feedback. Many Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wgilliland1 -
Why isnt this site ranking?
I just took over for a site and noticed they have no presence for any keywords...not even low ranks. Their backlink profile is not the best, but webmaster tools says they have no manual actions. vonderhaar.com Thoughts on the matter?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Atomicx0 -
My PR 4 website won't rank for keywords that have very weak competition
I bought a real 1Yr old PR4 domain and used it to make a blog that would rank easily for new trending keywords (Ex: product launch keywords). I used Yoast SEO and made sure I did all the on-page recommendations it gave me and had linklicious ping the post and a couple high PR backlinks that I gave the page, but it won't even rank page 10 let alone index. My domain is indexed and the home page links to my post. I know a average amount of SEO but I hate doing it because stuff like this frustrates me. Can someone help me? Do I need to get certain backlinks? Is there a way to get my site and post to index faster? BTW the keywords i'm trying to rank for have websites that are brand spanking new some of them are blogspot websites. Most of them don't have a single backlink to them.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jamal41930 -
Our keyword rank fell drastically since our last moz crawl. What gives?
Our site was just crawled last night an we had a number of keywords fall 25% or so, from say # 30 to 38. What would cause such a drastic fall? We haven't taken down pages or changed changed page titles, url or content. One thing we are having trouble with is our meta description and meta keywords for each page. Drupal 7 seems to be giving us trouble and the meta information isn't showing up anymore. Would that cause the fall? Any other suggestions?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | drudalton1 -
How can I change my website's content on specific pages without affecting ranking for specific keywords?
My client's website (www.nursevillage.com) content has not been touched for 4 years and we are currently ranking #1 for "per diem nursing". They do not want to make any changes to the site in fear that it might decrease our rankings. We want to try to use utilize that keyword ranking on specific pages (www.nursevillage.com/nv/content/careeroptions/perdiem.jsp ) ranking for "per diem nursing" and try redirecting traffic or placing some banners and links on that page to specific pages or other sites related to "per diem nursing" jobs so we can get nurses to apply to our new nursing jobs. Any advice on why "per diem nursing" is ranking so high for us and what we can change on the site without messing up our ranking would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ryanperea1000