The longest google dance ever?

[evertd]

The google dance theory sounds good but this is getting ridiculous. See the image from google analytics:



Since November 2010 this site has been up and down more than a scary roller coaster, I'm ready to totally give up, because it is also causing an emotional roller coaster. Whenever it is on page 1 and getting traffic, it makes sales (amazon physical product), but then it just disappears again.

Also, the theory that google ranks pages and not sites sounds good, but for this site, all the pages are on page 1 for their respective keywords, or all the pages disappear at the same time. It is not like just the main page comes and goes, it is all of them, and it is at the same time.

Can anybody offer any advice?

Thanks!

[JoePNY]

Hi Evert, I have this one site I created in 2008 and it does the same thing. It will stay on page 1 for a few days and then it will disappear and come back after a few weeks. Recently, I started adding some more content and backlinks and it has steadily improved but every so often it will disappear again.

Take a look at your competition on page 1 and see how they stack up in relation to your website.

[2stroke]

I have a site that does this too, posted a thread on here about it a while back. I will literally rank #1 first page for a random amount of time, usually 2-7 days, then it will disappear for sometimes weeks, the cycle continues.

I went to the google forum and started a thread about it "google is broken", got a bunch of google heads all jacked up about it. I kept the thread going for entertainment purposes. All they could do is bash the site, but IMO there is no reason a site should randomly jump from #1 to #400+ every few days for a targeted keyword.

[paulgl]

That's because google is not broken, just because you say so and a bunch
of anti-google-knuckleheads keep assuming google owes them anything.

Google doesn't. Google chooses what it wants to show in search results in
a dynamic way. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

These threads are just annoying.

Everybody with a website just can't understand why google does
not just put them at the top, and keep them there.

Google has not become an internet empire by listening to whining
people who just happen to own a website.

Get over google. They could care less about you and it's time people
started getting a life.

Paul

[evertd]

Originally Posted by paulgl

That's because google is not broken, just because you say so and a bunch
of anti-google-knuckleheads keep assuming google owes them anything.

Google doesn't. Google chooses what it wants to show in search results in
a dynamic way. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

These threads are just annoying.

Everybody with a website just can't understand why google does
not just put them at the top, and keep them there.

Google has not become an internet empire by listening to whining
people who just happen to own a website.

Get over google. They could care less about you and it's time people
started getting a life.

Paul

Thank you for your "helpful" reply. Neither me or anybody else in this thread said that Google or the world owe us anything. I'm simply trying to understand the process. When loads of "experts" tell you something works this and that way, and loads of others tell you this or that is their experience, and then your own experience is different than that, it is natural to wonder why and to try to find out if you need to do something in a new way.

And now we've heard from others whose experience is the same as mine, I understand better that sometime sh.t happens.

[JamesGw]

Try diversifying your anchor text and link portfolio. I've recently become convinced (in part due to Electric Plumber's thread, but also from my own experiments) that anchor text spam is the main reason for the Google dance and sandbox effect.

[nicnac03]

Yeah my website is having the same issue. It's number 1 for it's keyword for 4 or 5 days then disappears for a few weeks as well. Perhaps you're right about the anchor text not being diverse enough. I'll try that.

[evertd]

I know this an old thread, but I wanted to update with further (thankful) confusion. I pretty much gave up on the above site, probably only built a handful of links to it and after months of a trickle of traffic, suddenly on Sunday I noticed on analytics that I had a traffic spike, and turns out, for the moment at least, this site occupies the first 3 spots on google for it's main keyword. Go figure!