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.
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
-
Google Images search traffic and image thumbnail issues
Hi MOZ community! Need a little help with a strange issue we are seeing of late on our project CareerAddict.com. We have seen a sudden and significant drop in image visibility in Search Console from the 27th August onwards. I understand that Google has been updating their filters and other bits in image search, so maybe this could have impacted us? I also noticed that the images which are mapped to our articles are not the full featured article 700px wide images which we provide to Google in the Structured Data. They are instead taking the OG share 450px wide images now on many occasions. You can see this by searching for "careeraddict.com" in images. Any insight or suggestions welcome on both of these. Interested to understand if any other webmasters are experiencing other or similar problems with image visibility in Google also. Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | dqmedia0 -
Google Trends Graph and KW Planner Monthly Searches?
I'm trying to show people the trends of certain keywords/topics over a period of years Keyword Planner gives some actual numbers but only for 12 months. Trends will show "Numbers represent search interest relative to the highest point on the chart. If at most 10% of searches for the given region and time frame were for "pizza," we'd consider this 100. This doesn't convey absolute search volume." Which I don't really understand, other than if the graph goes up it means more interest but has to do with the amount of people searching, location, etc which can get tricky? I'd like to put together a short report explaining certain topics and how interest in them has increased over the last 5+ years. I'm hoping someone else here has had some experience with this and has some advice or links with more information?
Algorithm Updates | | JoshBowers20120 -
Weekly traffic from Google: How do you explain this?
Hello here, I have question for you. Please, have a look at the attached image from my website analytics which shows the unique visits trend of the last 2 months. What it is interesting is that every Monday Google brings me more traffic than any other day of the week, whereas on Saturdays it gives me the lowest traffic. And looks like that's a pretty regular weekly pattern. Why is Google doing that? What does that mean? Why such a clear and steady pattern? I am eager to know your thoughts about this! CGuULrN.jpg
Algorithm Updates | | fablau0 -
Are Google algos different between .co.uk and .com?
I have a site that is starting to rank well (top 10 to top 50) for dozens of keywords in Google.co.uk but very little traction in .com. Google.com is the primary market. Webmaster tools is set to US, less than 1% of links to the site are the UK TLD or hosted in the UK. Keywords I'm ranking for in UK are medium to high competition with up to 16k exact search volume per month in the US. I just started to get ranked for these keywords in .co.uk in the past week, and I do rank for some long tail keywords in google.com. I have a handful of keywords ranking in google.ca and google.fr as well, but next to nothing for google.com. I have been building links for one month. I can think of a few possible explanations: - There is a delay in updating the rankings for Google.com and the rankings similar to my .co.uk rankings will come soon - Google.com vs .co.uk use a different algorithm - My site is penalized in .com only Of course, there is no way to be sure what the reason is, but what do you think is the most likely? Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | kentaro-2569290 -
Next big Google update. Andy ideas when?
I'm interested to find out if anyone has and idea of when it will be or good guesses I would be interested to hear your thoughts. I have put a big effort into an SEO upgrade on my site and I'm interested in what impact I can expect when the next big update comes. Assuming I have fixed the issues that had been causing my traffic drop.
Algorithm Updates | | mark_baird0 -
Is it still possible for small businesses to rank well in google
Hi I've been playing around with ecommerce sites for a few years now and although I am no expert I'm not a complete novice. We used to do quite well in google but recent changes have halved our number of hits. I have noticed that over the last year google has given priority to large brand names as opposed to relevancy. For example, if you search for the term 'bridal jewellery' (google UK) you will see that apart from one or two the majority of placements are taken by big compnies who offer very little bridal jewellery. One or two pages at most. My question is, is it still possible to rank well against these brand names or has google made it impossible for small companies. PS we only practice ethical seo as suggested by seomoz. Any help or advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks www.kerryblu.co.uk
Algorithm Updates | | Dill0 -
Meta Title Not Showing up in Google
Hello Friends, I have a website, www.bollywoodshaadis.com. On 1st may we changed our servers and revamped our website as per SEO updated guidelines. For some strange reason Google is not showing site Meta Title when you search the website on Google. All it shows is the domain name in the meta title. However, when you search info:www.bollywoodshaadis.com it shows the right Meta tags. Any reason for this happening? I have never seen this before. Thank you in advance.
Algorithm Updates | | SEOcandy0 -
Google site links on sub pages
Hi all Had a look for info on this one but couldn't find much. I know these days that if you have a decent domain good will often automatically put site links on for your home if someone searches for your company name, however has anyone seen these links appear for sub pages? For example, lets say I had a .com domain with /en /fr /de sub folders, each seoed for their location. If I were to then have domain.com/en/ as no1 in Google for my company in the UK would I be able to get site links under this or does it only work on the 'proper' homepage domain.com/ A client of mine wants to reorganise their website so they have different location sections ranking in different markets but they also want to keep having sitewide links as they like the look of it Thanks Carl
Algorithm Updates | | Grumpy_Carl0