Bizarre Ranking Fluctuations...

thetruth23 · 02-03-2011, 12:04 PM

This is really strange and was wondering if any has experienced this themselves and could maybe offer an explanation...

I was monitoring rankings for a site of mine that's about 9 months old, and for about 20 keywords I was trying to rank for, I had rankings between page 2 and page 5 for various keywords.

When I check rankings for today, bizarrely my ranking for 60% of the keywords I was targetting have completely vanished! (no where in the top 1000) BUT, for the keywords that do still rank, they're better than ever!

In fact, for the keywords that DO still rank, 80% of those are now on Page 1!

That's nice and all, to have page 1 rankings, but what on earth has happened to all those other keywords?

GlobalTrader · 02-03-2011, 04:58 PM

Have you done a search for the missing pages (not sure of the format) to see if they are still in the index? I generally put the page url within quotation marks like this "yourdomain.com/page1.html" and see if it shows up in the index.

I have had this type of thing happen quite a bit in the past 5 years and the only explanation that I have ever found was that google was tweaking things again and I should just sit tight and see what happens in a week or two.

Have you checked Yahoo or Bing to see if those pages have dropped there as well? If they are still ranking on those SE's you can be fairly sure the big G is tweaking and I would not get too concerned about it. I would bet they will be back in the same or similar positions within a week or two.

One thing I noticed within recent months here in the USA was how our rankings are so much different in google when you change your location on the left side of their serps pages. When I search using their default city/state, my rankings are very high, when I change the location to another city my rankings drop by 15 to 30.

I am referring to general google rankings and it seems to me that "maybe" because I check my rankings through the default city/state most often that my pages rank better than in other cities around the country where they are not being clicked on as many times. Something for all the guru's out there to think about?

thetruth23 · 02-04-2011, 01:56 AM

Yep! Should 'av just waited!

That was strange though...for me anyway! First time I had seen that happen.

Anyway, all good now! (I need to stop checking rankings so often!)

bigcat1967 · 02-04-2011, 03:50 AM

Quote:

Anyway, all good now! (I need to stop checking rankings so often!)

I hear you brother. I used to check my rankings a couple times a day. I now check them like every four or five days. I read where one SEO expert checks it once a week (which I totally disagree with).

denzeltan998 · 02-04-2011, 09:29 AM

i check them once every hour. Anyway, one of my site will occasionally vanish from the serps for about two weeks and then come back. Strange but now it is at it again....

02-03-2011, 12:04 PM	#1
thetruth23 HyperActive Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: UK Posts: 319 Thanks: 65 Thanked 27 Times in 21 Posts	Bizarre Ranking Fluctuations... This is really strange and was wondering if any has experienced this themselves and could maybe offer an explanation... I was monitoring rankings for a site of mine that's about 9 months old, and for about 20 keywords I was trying to rank for, I had rankings between page 2 and page 5 for various keywords. When I check rankings for today, bizarrely my ranking for 60% of the keywords I was targetting have completely vanished! (no where in the top 1000) BUT, for the keywords that do still rank, they're better than ever! In fact, for the keywords that DO still rank, 80% of those are now on Page 1! That's nice and all, to have page 1 rankings, but what on earth has happened to all those other keywords?

02-03-2011, 04:58 PM	#2
GlobalTrader HyperActive Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: , , USA. Posts: 168 Thanks: 49 Thanked 27 Times in 24 Posts	Re: Bizarre Ranking Fluctuations... Have you done a search for the missing pages (not sure of the format) to see if they are still in the index? I generally put the page url within quotation marks like this "yourdomain.com/page1.html" and see if it shows up in the index. I have had this type of thing happen quite a bit in the past 5 years and the only explanation that I have ever found was that google was tweaking things again and I should just sit tight and see what happens in a week or two. Have you checked Yahoo or Bing to see if those pages have dropped there as well? If they are still ranking on those SE's you can be fairly sure the big G is tweaking and I would not get too concerned about it. I would bet they will be back in the same or similar positions within a week or two. One thing I noticed within recent months here in the USA was how our rankings are so much different in google when you change your location on the left side of their serps pages. When I search using their default city/state, my rankings are very high, when I change the location to another city my rankings drop by 15 to 30. I am referring to general google rankings and it seems to me that "maybe" because I check my rankings through the default city/state most often that my pages rank better than in other cities around the country where they are not being clicked on as many times. Something for all the guru's out there to think about?
	GlobalTrader

02-04-2011, 01:56 AM	#3
thetruth23 HyperActive Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: UK Posts: 319 Thanks: 65 Thanked 27 Times in 21 Posts	Re: Bizarre Ranking Fluctuations... Yep! Should 'av just waited! That was strange though...for me anyway! First time I had seen that happen. Anyway, all good now! (I need to stop checking rankings so often!)

02-04-2011, 09:29 AM	#5
denzeltan998 Warrior Member Join Date: Jan 2011 Posts: 11 Thanks: 1 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Re: Bizarre Ranking Fluctuations... i check them once every hour. Anyway, one of my site will occasionally vanish from the serps for about two weeks and then come back. Strange but now it is at it again....