Difference in which pages Google is ranking?

[BedeFahey]

Over the past two weeks I've noticed that Google has decided to change which pages on our site rank for specific keywords. The thing is, this is for keywords that the homepage was already ranking for. Due to our workload, we've made no changes to the site, and I'm not tracking any additional backlinks. Certainly there are no new deep links to these pages.

In SEOmoz dashboard (and via tools/manual checking with a proxy) of the 24 terms we have first page ranking for, 9 of them are marked "new to top 50". These are terms we were already ranking for. Google just appears to have switched out the homepage for other pages.

I've noticed this across a couple of client sites, too, though none to the extent that I'm seeing on our own.

Certainly this isn't a bad thing, as the deeper pages ranking means that they're landing on the content they want first, and I can work to up the conversion rates. It's just caught me by surprise.

Anyone else noticing similar changes?

[Dan-Petrovic]

I have been noticing this behaviour creep in slowly over the period of some months on many of the websites I monitor -- particularly eCommerce. The idea is that the user is sent to the very product page as Google determines that most users end up there eventually. Where they fail is by forcing users to end pages when they are not ready for it (still browsing and researching and would much rather see a category then a product page).

[davegr]

I've seen something very similar over the past couple of months. It seems like Google generally picks right and I'm pleased with the changes.  However, it has occasionally ranked less relevant pages for the keyword and I've seen traffic drop as a result.

[BedeFahey]

Thanks for the responses Dejan and davegr,

Are you finding that the rank of the newly indexed page is similar to the old page, exactly the same, or different?

[Dan-Petrovic]

In some instances it's simply swapped but in others it seems to depend on on-site. I am puzzled though that a page with no links ranked the same way the page with links.

[BedeFahey]

That's pretty much what I'm seeing. Definitely a mixed bag.

In my case, links to the deeper pages did exist, though certainly not in the same numbers as to the homepage.

I'm doing a bit of research now to see if there's anything else that might have influenced Google's decision. Looking at some of the backlinks on majestic, I'm beginning to suspect it's a partly because they're pages that are better targeted to the keywords, and have more closely matching anchor text.

[ref.price]

Hi there I have also noted some radical changes in my rankings but it also came with a 30% + drop in organic traffic.

have you experienced similar "side affects"?

[BedeFahey]

I've noticed a decrease in brand-focused searches for our site, but for our actual terms, no, no changes. Entry pages have definitely switched up, however.

Did your ranks end up getting negatively effected by the recent switch-ups, or are different pages literally being switched out at the same ranks?