Evolution of rankings over the course of time

[seoanalytics]

Hello,

Has anyone got experience on how rankings behave to climb all the way to the top once your do a redirect and change the design and content of your page entirely ?

[Matt-Williamson]

Hi - In my experience doing a rebuild/redesign improving the content and then redirecting sees fluctuations with some rankings dropping initially but overall there being a pretty quick positive response to an improved site with rankings peaking for redirected pages between 3 and 6 months. With quite a few terms that ended up page 1 average position 1-3 i have seen the most fluctuation in rankings during the first 3 months - assuming Google is deciding where you should sit testing a higher position and seeing if you belong there. Hope this information helps a little

[seoanalytics]

Hi Matt,

Thank you for the information. How about blog pages ? If I create a blog article today (brand new page) will it also take 3 to 6 months or is it faster because it is a new page that never existed before ?

[Matt-Williamson]

I think it all depends on your domain and what your post is about as to how quickly it can start ranking well. To get any reasonable ranking for a reasonable search term with some volume I would expect it to still take 3+ months to gain any real traction/rankings in terms of getting towards the top of page 1. This is obviously impacted by the competition of the terms your blog is trying to rank for and also other elements such as your domain authority and so on.

[seoanalytics]

Hi Matt,

Do you usually climb at once from let's say 3 rd page to 1 st page one day between that 3 to 6 month period or is the climb something that is almost invisible gaining  2 to 3 spots then not moving then loosing then gaining again ? is there a partern or not really ? Thank you,

[Matt-Williamson]

I tend to see bigger jumps prior to page 1 and then once on page one it can be slow moving sometimes gaining and losing a few places as it moves up. In the earlier stages you can see several movements in a month often weekly (hence Google Search Console having 7 day filters)  but again I tend to find slower on page one. It’s quite common to see ranking jump 3-4 pages or even more  on the way to page one. During the first 3 month or so you often see most movement slowing down in the months after as it settles to its potential on page one - again depending on what engagement and links keep coming in. I wouldn’t say there is a definitive pattern across all the sites and niches I work however the general improvement I have spoken about here is I have found common. I have seen others say it takes blog pieces over 12 months to reach their full organic potential.

[seoanalytics]

Thank you for the information.