Roller Coaster Rankings

[Rachel_J]

Hi All!

I'm an experienced SEO freelancer trying to help a company achieve great SEO results

I optimized a lot of pages which helped the site start ranking, but now some keywords are flying up and down seemingly at random. For example, one keyword went from #11 to under #50!

Is it a bad sign when there is instability in the keywords? Should I be seeing some "settling down'' on my dear keywords? If there is no settling, any suggestions?

[BlueCorona]

Hello,

It is very common for keyword rankings to fluctuate almost constantly, for a few reasons: search engines are constantly updating their ranking algorithms; rankings are based on user behavior-based signals like how often a link is clicked, bounce rate, etc., and those things are never constant; depending on your location and previous search results and actions, search engines will change the results you see personally; and on and on.

It's better to look at trends in your aggregate rankings rather than individual rankings, and also to focus on things like providing great content and building an authoritative linking profile than to focus on individual rankings on a day to day basis.

Overall, I do think you will see more stability when search engines have more data about how users interact with your site, but I know that the fluctuations in rankings will never stop. They will likely become less drastic, though.