How to deal with Google Dance?

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...

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!!

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.

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 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!

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!!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Google love Fresh and updated content.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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...

build a new backlinks to your website

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

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.

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.

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!

Just build my backlinks, your ranking will be stabilized.

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

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.

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.