Search Engine Rankings Can Go Up … And They Can Go Down
Rankings … It’s All Up To Google’s Ranking Algorithms
It’s been almost a month since I posted about rankings on my own sites, and after taking a look at some of the keyword phrases I’ve previously shared with you here, I am not jumping up and down for joy as to how there appears to be a little slippage going on in my Google rankings for a few of the keyword phrases used on one of my sites – The-Artistic-Garden.com. Grrrr … 
But I have to practice what I preach to my clients about ranking fluctuations, and so I won’t really get alarmed about this current situation. I’ve been through this a few times over the past few years, and I will go through the “Google dance” many more times in years to come. It’s all part of the SEO ranking “game” (it’s really not a game, of course, but sometimes it feels like it is!).
If Top Rankings Fluctuate … Do You Sit Tight or Start to Tweak Content, Your Tags, or What?
This is the million dollar question: “To Tweak or Sit Tight?” through Google’s, or any other search engine’s re-determination, and lowering of your keyword ranking positions. This is not a cut and dry question to answer. There can be one or more factors affecting a drop.
Very simply put, the major reasons seem to be:
- A Change in the Search Engine Ranking Algorithm: you and I have no control over this situation!
- Loss of PageRank/Link Popularity: did one or more high ranking sites yank a link pointing to your site off their site? (as but one example)
- Duplicate Content: did you add a new page(s) that too closely mirrors the content in an existng page for the keyword phrase that has dropped?
- A Penalty Has Been Imposed Due to an Abuse of One Sort or Another: black-hat SEO techniqes; keyword stuffing; invisible keyword focused text; link stuffing; to name a few.
- Broken Links on a Key Navigation Page: you need to always make sure internal and out-pointing links are all in working order on all the pages on your site.
- Server Problems: too much downtime which would keep the spiders from being able to enter your site.
- Or … the competition is finally beginning to out-rank you! (Oh-oh!)
To be honest, I don’t think I’m dealing with any of the above reasons. 
However … I do think I might know what the trouble is. I think that my ranking drops are due to a bit of erratic site accessiblity that really wasn’t a server problem, nor was it due to a goof-up on my part. Let’s just say there was a bit of a bumpy ride for about 48 hours a few days back, and I think that might be the reason.
But now, on the technical side of things, all has returned to normal for The-Artistic-Garden.com and I will patiently sit back and see what happens. In this situation, I am NOT going to start frantically trying to rewrite Title tags or Description tags for the webpages and keyword phrases in question.
Yes, sometimes it is necessary to reword, or reposition the keyword phrase in the Title tag and/or meta tags, and even to go back into the page of content and decide if you need to improve upon it in some way. Yes … sometimes competing websites for various reasons just start to stomp on your top rankings and thusly you may have to do a little freshening up of things in an SEO sense.
In addition, it may not just be keyword usage. You may have slipped due to other sites gaining more quality in-pointing links; they’ve added more quality pages of content; etc. Like I said, there are many different angles to consider when determining what is best to do if keyword rankings start to fluctuate.
But for now, I’m sitting back, taking a deep breath, and will wait a bit to see if my rankings go back to where they were before.
Usually One Of Three Basic Issues Affect A Change In Rankings
SEO Rankings Can Go Up … and They Can Go Down
I have been writing about how I am able to maintain top SEO rankings for the keyword phrase “garden art project”: read about it here.
At the time of that article (March 25, 2008), I held the #1 and #2 Google SERP positions. Today, I see I have the #2 and #3 positions, and also that the total number of SERPs (search engine result pages) that Google is showing has dropped significantly from 2.4 million to about 1.2 million.
Here is a screenshot I took a moment ago:
See what can happen in just a few weeks with rankings and other search engine results? The number of competing pages dropped significantly and I would have thought I’d have stayed up at the top with my ranking positions, but I haven’t.
But you know what? I’m not alarmed, nor really concerned, as little fluctuations can happen from time to time. I will just sit back for now and see what happens within another week or two. If this competing website is still at #1, then I will make a decision as to what I need to do to try and attain the top spots again.
Trust me, I am not boo-hooing, as #2 and #3 are still WONDERFUL Google rankings to have.
Why Do Keyword Phrase Rankings Fluctuate?
You can pretty well bet there is more than one reason why my rankings, or yours, or anybody else’s may take a small nose dive, a huge drop, or on the positive side, a rise in the rankings from week to week, or month to month. Some of us refer to it as “The Rankings Roller Coaster”.
There is one thing you can be sure of, and that is this: NOTHING is for sure in the search engine rankings wars! LOL Just as in life, the ONLY thing for sure is that things are in a constant state of change. And this applies to Google, Yahoo!, MSN and all the other search engines as well.
The Three Main Reasons for SEO Ranking Fluctuations
The three basic reasons for drops or rises are either you’ve changed your site in some manner; competitors’ sites have changed; or the search engines’ algorithms changed. Be aware fluctuations can be one or a combination of these three. To give you a little more insight, here’s a few more things to think about:
On-site issues:
Page content, products, file names, even the actual coding of your website might change every now and then, on down to daily or even hourly changes. (It all depends upon how you maintain your site.) Anything can cause a slight or even drastic fluctuation in the rankings.
However, all being kept about the same as far as what you normally maintain and “do” on your site, there shouldn’t be anything to worry about if you dip down a notch or two.
But, if you’ve caused a coding error, or caused a glitch somewhere on your site, you might experience bigger search engine ranking problems.
Back-links (in-pointing) links:
There can be a change or drop in some good quality links that point to your website from other well-ranking websites. This is something we usually haven’t too much control over. This is also something that will happen to even the best of sites.
Hopefully you’ve not fallen prey to buying “link building” software or hiring companies that promise to get you high rankings by purchasing in-pointing links. Normally these are junk links and though you may see a spike in your rankings, it’s a short lived situation. You can also hurt your rankings by going after links from websites that are in non-related niches, or in “spam niches”, and the like.
Just keep pursuing good quality, links from relevant sites to help counteract the times when you do lose a back-link.
Server down time:
Sometimes SEO ranking drops may be due to nothing more than your website being inaccessible when the search engines try to spider your content. Usually a single instance of inaccessibility won’t affect your rankings. But, if your site is down repeatedly during crawl times … you have a serious issue that needs fixing quick!
Remember: If the search engine bots cannot spider your site when they show up at your front door, then they’ve got nothing to analyze for your ranking positions. The solution to this possibility is to have a good reliable web host provider.
A change in search algorithms:
This is one area that you and I have absolutely NO control over. Google, Yahoo!, MSN and the other SE’s have these very smart analytical-type employees sitting in their offices figuring out complicated mathematical formulas that instruct the search engines on how to process the terms you and I are searching for in relation to the gazillions of web pages filled with another gazillion subjects. Whew … that was a mouth full!
In other words, it’s a well guarded secret as to exactly what factors are taken into consideration to deliver you or me good ranking positions. Don’t get me wrong … yes we can get a pretty good idea of what causes “good” rankings versus crummy or non-existent rankings, but the absolute answers are locked up somewhere in the search engine vaults! 
Suffice it to say it is true that the better the content and more theme oriented your website is, the better you will do in the rankings. And the better you’ve succeeded with your SEO optimization efforts, the better you will probably do in the rankings, too.
And then there is your competition:
If we could get rid of the competition, we’d all be in great shape! But seriously folks, new sites come onto the scene; other sites add new pages of quality content; maybe other sites gain a few more quality in-pointing links than you have; maybe a competitor starts paying better attention to their search engine optimization efforts than you are; maybe someone just wrote a couple of new articles using a keyword you didn’t have much competition for previously … the list goes on and on.
Do you get the idea of all the variables that can come into play when it comes to a drop (or rise) in search engine rankings?
I will be touching upon more of these issues in greater depth in future posts. But for now, I do hope you’ve gained some insight into the reasons for “the SEO rankings roller coaster” effect.
