How to deal with Google Dance?

[KentChow]

Hi all,

The keyword of one of my mini-sites was ranked on the first page. All the sudden, the ranking dropped out of 100. I believe this is called Google Dance. Luckily, my site is not de-indexed as I could see all the cached pages listed with "site:mysite.com" search.

How do I deal with this situation? Shall I keep adding content and building backlink? Or just adding fresh content on daily basis?

What I had done before the ranking dropped? I just submitted a few articles in a blog network for building backlinks. I didn't consider myself too aggressive.

I have experienced once before, it took about 1-2 months to see my site back to top 100 - it was back to page 1 and stayed the ranking for a while.

Any feedback and suggestion is more than welcomed. Really wanna get out of it soon. Thanks!

[barry dixon]

Originally Posted by KentChow

Hi all,

The keyword of one of my mini-sites was ranked on the first page. All the sudden, the ranking dropped out of 100. I believe this is called Google Dance. Luckily, my site is not de-indexed as I could see all the cached pages listed with "site:mysite.com" search.

How do I deal with this situation? Shall I keep adding content and building backlink? Or just adding fresh content on daily basis?

What I had done before the ranking dropped? I just submitted a few articles in a blog network for building backlinks. I didn't consider myself too aggressive.

I have experienced once before, it took about 1-2 months to see my site back to top 100 - it was back to page 1 and stayed the ranking for a while.

Any feedback and suggestion is more than welcomed. Really wanna get out of it soon. Thanks!

I have quite a number of websites on number 1 and page 1 of google and boy have they danced the last 5 weeks or so - up and down. one day back at number 1 the next day I can't even find them - this really drives me mad when you put in so much work to get them there and with a blink of an eye they are gone and off the radar...

[App Developers]

I just logged into this forum to ask this very same question!! I have dealt with the Google Dance before but for the last five weeks the Google Dance has been NUTS!! I have faded in and out so much I became concerned and stopped building back links......I just let it rest. It did then reappear. But as soon as I add a few back links it starts the dance all over again.
I also am not that aggressive so I was shocked to see it behave this way! Usually it isn't that bad. And I don't know how to handle it. It seems that when I let it rest for a while it will stop dancing so much but as soon as I add a few back links it starts all over again. I will say every time I appear back in the SERPS I am at a higher ranking. BUT being out of the SERPS for weeks at a time sometimes is really annoying me!!

[BarryWheeler]

Google has obviously been doing a lot with their algorithm as of late. Your rankings will gradually stabilize. I've seen this on some of my sites go on for months.

[KentChow]

Very good feedback, I think I will take it slow and write more fresh content for now. By the time, the ranking is back, I am at better position. Hope to get more Long Tail keyword traffic as well.

I just hate that the ranking is off and lose all my daily traffic in this period of time.

[KentChow]

I am curious, did anyone add in more fresh content or create backlinks - it would help getting out of Google Dance?

Any tips and tricks to share here?

[barry dixon]

Google has no regard for anyone but themselves - it is like they are on some distant planet and look at us, the punters as the alien's that they play around with as we try and make a living...

[App Developers]

I did try to concentrate on fresh content for a while to keep my mind off of the SERP situation. But it didn't seem to phase it at all. I still did the Google dance! good luck. it just really sucks!

[chukcha]

Originally Posted by KentChow

I am curious, did anyone add in more fresh content or create backlinks - it would help getting out of Google Dance?

Any tips and tricks to share here?

I have one site that I build backlinks like a mad dog and it's dancing a lot. There is nothing you can do about it I bet you have a from 3 to 6 month old domain. I have noticed by updating content and tweaking title/h1 tags it makes it jump a little but then it is back to dance dance dance, but that is ok. I do not stop building links, it will stabilize and once it does I half the amount of links I build.

Hope that helps.

[App Developers]

Well, mine personally is a much older site and behaves the same even with little back links. No matter what.....you can't get around it!!

[KentChow]

What it sucks is that my site has various long tail keyword traffic. All the sudden, many of them are out of 100 SERP.

I will try to create new content targeting new long tail keywords and see if they are ranked.

I hesitant to build too many backlinks for now. I hope the dance stops soon and keep SERP as it. I can't be too greedy to move up some high search volume ones.

[dhex]

I think I'm also in the same situation like you guys here. My site is almost 1 year old. The homepage has PR4 and the rest of about 100 pages all have PR2. The site has got some authority, I guess, because I now have 4 site-links in SERP when i get listed for two brand keywords. Recently, just when I start to see some great traffic, Google slapped me with this dance thingy.

Now my site is ranked #1 for its brand keywords and the site-links are intact as well but almost 95% of the long tail traffic is gone.

One thing I learned from other SEO site is that this happens when:

1. You dont have enough authority to rank for so many keywords (they say to build quality backlinks. number doesn't matter)
2. Others say, Google is using machine learning techniques to determine a sites SERP position in addition to what the have been doing so far (the 200 signals) and as a result this kind of unstable SERP occurs till your true position is determined.

I dont really get the second one but hey at least its good to have some explanation right?

The other important trend I noticed on my website traffic is that the dance is somehow converging from time to time:

Initially, it used to go off SERP for 7 days and come back for 4 and now it is gone for 3 days and back for another 4 days. I dont know the implication of that but in my opinion it may be starting to settle down....you know... like a vibration.

[KentChow]

One trick I have learned, is to use .edu backlinks to pass the authority juice to my site. I am trying to do so and see if it helps.

Will update you guys when my sites are back to SERP. Meanwhile, I gonna write a few fresh content targeting long tail keywords and see if they are indexed fast and be in SERP.

I don't have much patience to just wait. Meanwhile, I gonna buy some new domain names and build new ones.

[djredz]

I also logged to see if others were experiencing the same thing. It's a little frustrating as I don't know whether to stop back-linking. I havn't been agressive on the daily links, it seems the more back-links the further back the sites are going. I don't of if it's the type of links or what. I hope someone can help us figure this out.

[Heidi White]

I have two sites that had good traffic - which fell to almost zero within two days of me joining Google+

I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

I joined G+ on July 17.

July 18 - 50% drop in traffic....
July 19 - 98% drop in traffic (from July 17 and before)

Since then - no improvement, no dancing, no vibrations - just a lot of nothing.

[RevSEO]

Originally Posted by KentChow

I am curious, did anyone add in more fresh content or create backlinks - it would help getting out of Google Dance?

Any tips and tricks to share here?

You got it. Keep building content and backlinks, build amazing content to so that the backlink building process is done automatically for you by others

You can hold off if you want to, but this will help expedite the process and get your rankings back even sooner than if you don't do anything.

[ocvseo]

Originally Posted by KentChow

Hi all,

The keyword of one of my mini-sites was ranked on the first page. All the sudden, the ranking dropped out of 100. I believe this is called Google Dance. Luckily, my site is not de-indexed as I could see all the cached pages listed with "site:mysite.com" search.

How do I deal with this situation? Shall I keep adding content and building backlink? Or just adding fresh content on daily basis?

What I had done before the ranking dropped? I just submitted a few articles in a blog network for building backlinks. I didn't consider myself too aggressive.

I have experienced once before, it took about 1-2 months to see my site back to top 100 - it was back to page 1 and stayed the ranking for a while.

Any feedback and suggestion is more than welcomed. Really wanna get out of it soon. Thanks!

Google love Fresh and updated content.

[MaverickUK]

Hi guys,

One of my websites is currently doing the Google dance and the way to effectively deal with the Google dance is to continue building backlinks. It's important that you do not just stop building backlinks when your site drops out of the rankings, if you do stop and then start again when it's re-ranked, Google can identify these patterns.

I checked my site today and i'm again out of the rankings, on page billion or so. Within a few days my website will be back on page 1 for its keyword, in a higher position.

The longest i've had to ever wait for my rankings to return in a Google dance is 7 days, so just be patient and above all continue to build backlinks, do not stop.

[barry dixon]

Originally Posted by MostlyHarmless

I have two sites that had good traffic - which fell to almost zero within two days of me joining Google+

I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

I joined G+ on July 17.

July 18 - 50% drop in traffic....
July 19 - 98% drop in traffic (from July 17 and before)

Since then - no improvement, no dancing, no vibrations - just a lot of nothing.

No it isn't a coincidence - I am glad you posted as I was going crazy trying to figure out why my websites visitors died on the 17th of July. I have a website that was getting on average about 130 - 150 unique visitors a day up and until the 17th of July and has fallen ever since to around 8 to 10 a day. so what's with that, unbelievable...

[cbpayne]

Its NOT the Google dance; Google has been running various iterations of the Panda algorithm to update quality scores for sites:
Panda Update 1.0: Feb. 24, 2011
Panda Update 2.0: April 11, 2011 (about 7 weeks later)
Panda Update 2.1: May 10, 2011 (about 4 weeks later)
Panda Update 2.2: June 16, 2011 (about 5 weeks later)
Panda Update 2.3: July 23, 2011 (about 5 weeks later)

Official: Google Panda 2.3 Update Is Live

[stephencammeron]

Originally Posted by KentChow

I am curious, did anyone add in more fresh content or create backlinks - it would help getting out of Google Dance?

No, simply because Google Dance ceased to exist since 2008 already. There is no way you can get out from some thing that doesn't exist anymore. And there is also no way that something that doesn't exist anymore is the one to be blamed for.

[barry dixon]

Originally Posted by stephencammeron

No, simply because Google Dance ceased to exist since 2008 already. There is no way you can get out from some thing that doesn't exist anymore. And there is also no way that something that doesn't exist anymore is the one to be blamed for.

More information please - me no understand you???

[BarryWheeler]

Originally Posted by stephencammeron

No, simply because Google Dance ceased to exist since 2008 already. There is no way you can get out from some thing that doesn't exist anymore. And there is also no way that something that doesn't exist anymore is the one to be blamed for.

Really?

And who says so?

It's obviously happening to sites and to pages that are ranking. Sites appear #1, drop to #100 then back to #5 then to #125 and then all over ... until finally settling where their semi-permanent ranking puts them.

What's your evidence to claim this doesn't exist?

[roosevelt]

I wouldn't worry too much about the this issue, given whatever you are doing is white hat. If it's a little bit of gray then Google may overlook it or may not worry about it too much. However, it is obvious then they will knock you off. I highly recommend that you keep building content and relevant links to your page, however if you have been doing this already then I I suggest that you slow down the link building process. In a nutshell, don't put your eggs in one basket and target other keywords in other niches.

[kaedus]

Your site most likely needs to age and you need to keep working on it with new content frequently and high quality backlinks. Once it bounces back it will be very powerful if you keep working on it in this manner.

[Matt Ward]

The Google dance most certainly does exist, and I don't understand how some people can say that it doesn't. It may not be the same phenomenon that the original "Google dance" was referring to, but there is absolutely something in the algorithm that will make a site plummet until you fix it.

[glennforum]

Originally Posted by KentChow

Hi all,

The keyword of one of my mini-sites was ranked on the first page. All the sudden, the ranking dropped out of 100. I believe this is called Google Dance. Luckily, my site is not de-indexed as I could see all the cached pages listed with "site:mysite.com" search.

How do I deal with this situation? Shall I keep adding content and building backlink? Or just adding fresh content on daily basis?

What I had done before the ranking dropped? I just submitted a few articles in a blog network for building backlinks. I didn't consider myself too aggressive.

I have experienced once before, it took about 1-2 months to see my site back to top 100 - it was back to page 1 and stayed the ranking for a while.

Any feedback and suggestion is more than welcomed. Really wanna get out of it soon. Thanks!

I think it would be best if you just continue building quality content and quality backlinks for your website.

[fashionworld092]

dont worry of this dance do quality link building

Moreover concentrate on onpage as well becasue it matters alot

like duplicate content ,any voilation message or spam posts etc

[jonniee]

What are some good suggestions for adding new content without seeming to overfill the site?

[cbpayne]

Originally Posted by stephencammeron

No, simply because Google Dance ceased to exist since 2008 already. There is no way you can get out from some thing that doesn't exist anymore. And there is also no way that something that doesn't exist anymore is the one to be blamed for.

Originally Posted by barry dixon

More information please - me no understand you???

Originally Posted by BarryWheeler

Really?

And who says so?

It's obviously happening to sites and to pages that are ranking. Sites appear #1, drop to #100 then back to #5 then to #125 and then all over ... until finally settling where their semi-permanent ranking puts them.

What's your evidence to claim this doesn't exist?

Actually it was 2003, not 2008 since there was last a Google dance:
Google Dance
What is the Google Dance? | Forum Doc

[SerpPower]

hi, simply google dance (in my own definition) is that google haven't yet decided the best ranks for your website and because of that it keeps dancing your website through serps,and i myself consider this a big chance to prove to google that your website worth high ranking by optimizing it through on-page & off-page SEO ,because i think it will be harder to rank high after google have decided what your best position

Regards.

[KentChow]

Thanks for all the great feedback. Very helpful and motivating!

[brianlmaule]

i think to get out from the Google dance is to be use the quality contents and quality backlinks

[stephencammeron]

Originally Posted by BarryWheeler

What's your evidence to claim this doesn't exist?

The very fact that SERP is continuously moving is a substantial evidence already. "Google Dance" supposed to be an update that occurs every 3 1/2 weeks, which lasted for 3days.

[KentChow]

Quick update: One of the sites came out as higher ranking after 2 weeks. What did I do?

1. Changed the WP theme to a new one
2. Wrote 2 fresh unique content

[dhex]

Some dude at the webmaster world forum claims that he's able to resolve this yoyo issue by authority link(95%) and OOP (5%). Well, I tried the OOP and tried to reduce my keyword density a bit and when the next time my rank went south I also lost my two brand keyword rankings by one and two notches.

[markowe]

I generally see this "dance" as a good thing. It is a pretty natural phenomenon if you think about it - anything new is unstable. Imagine going to a party where you don't know anybody - for a while you will be bouncing around from room to room, then you will probably start to find your place, find some people you can talk to, and you settle down

OK, crap analogy, but the Google algo evidently needs some decent data to complete its info about a site - when there are very few known factors then small changes produce big effects, makes sense to me. My sites that have done this have always settled down eventually - EXCEPT when they were consigned to Google Hell. You can't discount that possibility either, unfortunately...

[mohalsaiad]

build a new backlinks to your website

[dagaul101]

Some say just continue doing what you are doing and the site position will soon be permanent

[eurekapsycrille]

Google dance isn't really a big issue because Google is doing some updates with their algorithms rapidly that sometimes affect your site's ranking in SERP.

All you have to do is to continue what you are doing.

[Exel]

It can be frustrating but there is no much you can do, you have to play by google's rules.

The best solution is to continue adding relevant content and the ranking should stabilize soon.

If you managed to rank before with your tactic - you will achieve it again.

[KentChow]

I agree that this is good too. When we are in Google Dance, do more backlinking. Anyway, it's off the SERP. Why don't you add more backlinks and hope it comes out with higher ranking? My 2 cents!

[kkchoon]

Just build my backlinks, your ranking will be stabilized.

What Is Google Dance and How To Deal With Google Dance?

[goodmast3r]

I have a site that was on the second page for a keyword. It has been almost month I loss the rank. I just keep posting one new unique content and do 5-10 blog commenting daily. it didn't work.

Everybody is saying you should keep creating content and backlink. I'll do the opposite now. I will keep writing article but wouldn't do any backlink. It seems that if you build backlink you will lose position. I have several website, the website that I didn't touch does not lose ranking.

[eddyjoy]

Google will rank the keyword if your site is indexed and the keyword you are going after has no much competition. But its content and linking that will keep your article up there. if you dont do that, then you will dance, or worse still be sandboxed.