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Has anyone noticed enormous changes to organic search based on IP?

by alldaycreative
6 replies
  • SEO
    • |
One week ago, I was 3rd page nationally for "copywriter" (I was FP for "freelance copywriter" "digital copywriter" etc so doing quite well) - this week, suddenly, and independently confirmed from 5 different people in my home town (London) I went to the top of the FP.

I've gone up and down since then (see my tweets at @alldaycreative) but have remained FP - but only within 100-150 miles of London. If memory serves, FP copywriter in the London region serves up 20k results locally, 60k results nationally - so I've won the lottery.

I've only heard about this happening with my particular search term, however -and I've not read about any major google algorithm updates this week. Already my phone has been ringing off the hook.

Can anyone tell me what's going on with Google, and if this hyper-localised IP address related ranking will continue?

I've blogged about my experience here - Hyper-localisation: The winners and the losers » Freelance Copywriter - Alastaire Allday - interested to hear others opinions.
#based #enormous #noticed #organic #search
  • Profile picture of the author Alex Cohen
    Basing one's lead flow on the whim of Google's ever-changing algorithm is a recipe for disaster. You never know when your site... for whatever reason... will fall out of favor.

    Develop several paid sources of traffic. You'll sleep better at night.

    Alex
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    • Profile picture of the author alldaycreative
      Lol, thanks for the advice. Slightly irrelevant to my question though.

      Only 1/3rd of my traffic is organic search, and I'd say it accounts for less than 20% of my business - most of it being repeat custom or word of mouth.

      However, being FP for copywriter in the london region is huge - it's about 20k searches a month, many of them solid gold leads from high value companies. So this is serious.

      While I'm not the kind of mug who relies on the whims of Google for his business, I've jumped to FP from page 3 for 20,000 people a month for my "ultimate" search term overnight...

      ...and I want to know why this is, how likely it is I will stay there, and whether there are other things I can do to tie my account "locally" (e.g. Google Places, which I already use) to cement my position.

      Can anyone help?
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  • Profile picture of the author Icematikx
    Keep building links, strengthen out your site as THE site for the search. If you're bouncing around the SERPs, your site is either:

    a) not old enough to be trusted
    b) not authorative enough to hold a firm top 3 placement
    c) losing links accordingly

    Just keep building links (try to build from .co.uk specifically).

    I just took my old driving instructor to top of page 1 for his city. I used .au domains, .ca domains, .co.uk & .com for linking to him (with my pbn). Took a while, but he's starting to slide into place now and holding top positions.
    Signature

    Just got back from a #BrightonSEO. I was given room 404 in the hotel I stayed at. Couldn’t find it anywhere!

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    • Profile picture of the author alldaycreative
      Thanks for this, Icematikx. _Everyone_ is bouncing around the FP at the minute, there are only 3 copywriters on FP, two of us are established (10 years and 5 years respectively, the other is new but has a lot of links), the rest are spammy job sites. And we're all going up and down like yo-yos. This started on Tuesday this week, things had been very stable before that.

      I've been going 5 years and have a wide number of links from quality sources and yes, I'm very much localising towards the UK - I can conquer the world later.

      What is odd, though, is that a week ago I was on p3 for "copywriter" (I've been P1 nationally for "Freelance copywriter" and "copywriter london" for a long time) and all of a sudden _everyone_ is bouncing around all over the place and it seems highly IP dependent - e.g. I'm showing up FP as far away as Southampton (150 miles away) but still on P3 in Birmingham (150 miles in the other direction).

      Have confirmed this with 12 others, so I know it's not just my computer being peculiar / personalised to me.

      I definitely think Google has released an algorithm update and not told anyone about it, and I'm not alone - read this: http://www.brafton.com/news/google-k...gorithm-update
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  • Profile picture of the author Icematikx
    You see, if Google can determine a specific City for your site, then it will. If you're submitting to a lot of directories and targeting London, then Google's going to find your site more relevant to London searchers. Google is all about improving the SEARCHERS experience. They don't care which websites they promote as long as it makes the searcher happy.

    Chances are, if you're targeting London copywriting, then who would be much more happy to find your site? A Londoner or a Birmingham searcher? While you cater for both, Google probably thinks the London guy will be happier.

    One of my authority sites is BOUNCING around at the moment. It's all tightly silo-structured with TONS of quality links from my PBN (I'm talking over 100 PR4+ links). Recently, a few categories have been bounding between pages 1 and 40. A few returned to Page 2 today after being stuck at page 30 - page 40 for a while.

    I have no idea what's happening.
    Signature

    Just got back from a #BrightonSEO. I was given room 404 in the hotel I stayed at. Couldn’t find it anywhere!

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  • Profile picture of the author alldaycreative
    For those interested, it's been over a week now and I have stabilised as FP for "copywriter" within London and the SE.

    These are interesting times - I personally don't think it matters that a copywriter be within a hundred miles of your business. Google, it seems, does. I think this has serious long-term implications for those people who choose to target a more international market and aim for long distance business.

    Caveat emptor. I localised - and now I'm stuck with London based business. Not a bad place to be in, but imagine if I'd localised to Outer Mongolia...
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