Why keyword rankings are dropping?

[Devin Holdcraft]

Can anyone tell me why keyword rankings are dropping?

I have 3 keywords in first page of Google with positions #3, #4 and #8 but they are dropped to page 2 of Google for 1 week. What are the main reasons and how to get them back top search engine results?

 

[khassani]

Hi,

Rankings in the 1st page of Google for specific keywords is subject to change if you don't produce constant work to keep those rankings. It might be that other websites that overtook you have better onpage optimizations for your keywords or / and if they have gained quality backlinks from authority websites.

What I like to do in this situation is to have a close look at my competitors and see what are they doing better than me in terms of onpage optimization for the keywords that I am targeting. For the backlinking part, I use tools like Majestic SEO to see what type of links my competitors have placed elsewhere that allowed them to outrank me.

All the best!

 

[SEOPub]

There could be tons of different reasons. A few common ones...

1) You were looking at personalized search results. Those higher rankings were never your real rankings in the first place.
2) You lost a few decent links (or even 1 really decent link to the site).
3) You have a dynamic home page. As you post more and more content, your internal link structure changes and will often cause older pages to lose rankings.

 

[Hawker]

Can anyone tell me why keyword rankings are dropping?

I have 3 keywords in first page of Google with positions #3, #4 and #8 but they are dropped to page 2 of Google for 1 week. What are the main reasons and how to get them back top search engine results?

Let me just rub my magic ball and it will tell me everything about your site and the answer to your question. And the answer is... 8.

But seriously, how can you expect anyone to give you anything other than a generic answer to that if you don't even tell us at least your website and the keywords in question.

Now then, you say this has only been for 1 week right? Was it all of a big drop all of a sudden 1 week ago today or was it a gradually drop?

1 week in terms of Google SEO is not a long enough time to diagnose any drop in rankings with or without data and access to analytics.

You should wait at least 4 weeks to see if there is any return as this can happen often if your SEO is not rock solid so get used to it until it is.

So some questions to ask

Do you keep analytics?
Did you study the decline data?
Were there any messages in Webmaster Tools if you use it, the date it happened?
What recent changes to your site if any prior to it happening did you do?

Some of the main reasons you loose rankings are;

• Rankings are never guaranteed.
• Rankings can change like the weather.
• There are more competitors sites doing SEO.
• Your on-page SEO score has changed because of some on-page changes.
• Some of your backlinks have been replaced or removed.
• Google done an update to its Algo and your site was affected by it.
• Rankings are never guaranteed.

Thats the generic answer. If you want a more specific one post more specific details.

Best.

 

[savidge4]

Maybe because of the Google Update that went into place on the 23rd? Its main target was sites with low CTR.

 

[Nemanja]

Nemanja

I also heard this more from other webmasters, their sites decreased traffic from 23rd but not sure what algorithms have Google updated?

While traffic from some sites are increasing by this update.

 

[savidge4]

savidge4

Specifically it is an "AdWords" update. There are a few things going on here. the most obvious thing I have seen is the layout of SERP pages. in many search terms there are no longer "Ads" in the side bar. Google more than hinted about this change in an effort to become more "Mobile Friendly" The other not so obvious change, the one thatis effecting you, is using CTR as the benchmark Google is weeding out poor performing ads.. well not weeding out, but increasing spend to stay in the listings, where as ads that are performing well are now paying less.

Interestingly this is also effecting SOME and not all of the Organic search results. It would appear now from what I am reading, and what I have seen with my own and clients sites is that it is effecting mid to high competition terms. I am beginning to wonder if this is not a slow roll out of some sort, it wasnt / isnt very snappy in its effect.

I will say I had never made the correlation between the adwords algo and organic results. So I am not understanding if this is a single update or multiple. When looking at Google you have to understand there are more than a few separate running algo's. There is the Geo based organic, there is "Local" ( think 3 pack ) there is the adwords algo, the shopping algo, the news algo, the standard organic algo and probably a few more.

It has been interesting over the years to get glimpses of how these all work together and how aspects of some are tied to others. This recent update I believe is one of those glimpses.

 

[wmguides]

To position the keywords on a same position in the search engines require continuous efforts. We often do more work for our new sites to get them on the first page of search engines but after achieving that position we do not continue the same efforts and as a result our keyword gets down. So for being at the same position in the search engines require same efforts all the time.

 

[kevinarndale]

I think you should provide a link of your website, then its on page and keywords can be checked accordingly. Its nothing to hide here, if you want your issues to be solved open yourself up.

 

[johnparker92]

According to me competitors are more or In your website some mistakes their, may be someone coped your web page content. once check on page things of your web site.

 

[janseo]

There can be couple of reasons one reason could be Google is constantly refreshing its algorithm the reason why keywords ranking is not stable. Another reason if you are updating your site content or making any url changes or on-page changes this can effect the ranking or you have stopped working on your site SEO and your competitors are working more efficiently.