Changes taken over in the SERP's: How long do I have to wait until i can rely on the (new) position?

[Cesare.Marchetti]

I changed different things on a particular page (mainly reduced the exaggerated keyword density --> spammy). I made it recrawl by Google (Search Console). The new version has now already been integrated in the SERP's.Question: Are my latest changes (actual crawled page in the SERP's is now 2 days old) already reflected in the actual position in the SERP's or should I wait for some time (how long?) to evaluate the effect of my changes? Can I rely on the actual position or not?

[manoman88]

Hi Cesare,

As there is no way to know exactly how long it would take to see the SERP effect on your new change, I actually advice to wait and see for at least one or 2 months. Also, there are many ranking factors, you can't just wait and see after a single improvement (keyword density) to get results. It might be good enough to work; but there might be other factors to consider as well.

My technique is prety simple, after making changes on a particular page, I use a specific amplification for this page (acquisition of backlinks, shares on social networks,...) to force Google Algorithm to not only take in consideration of my previous changes, but also to see this page as a really important one.

One or 2 months might be enough to see what the changes you made means in term of SERP.

[Katarina-Borovska]

Hi Cesare,

I made purely content changes to my page and I resubmitted it to Google. I could see the changed rank immediately - in my case from not having any results to result 50. I observed it on a weekly basis and the rank kept improving every time (without any further activity): 50, 37, 24, 18, 16, 13, 11, 6 - and I believe it's not over.

Can you rely on the actual position? No! My rank grows in a pretty unique way. Normally it fluctuates and the pattern would be more like 50, 24, 37, 11, 24, 16 - basically up and down. This is what I keep experiencing with majority of our keywords. Especially nowadays, Google is not as static as in the past and you can see this fluctuation very frequently, sometimes daily.

I agree, I would recommend at least 8 weeks' observation and between week 8 and 12 you might know where you are and optimise accordingly. I hope this works for you.

Good luck!

Katarina