One Keyword Rank Inexplicably Blasted Into Oblivion

[94501]

Good question. I guess my follow-up on that is; "too many" as a percentage of the links to the page. This page has maybe 6 links, 4 of them with the anchor text. Is that too many? There could be a press release that added to that number, but not sure where all that might be posted. Hmm... Open Site Explorer has picked up zero links to the page after almost two months.

It also sort of seems like a potential SEO weapon, like if you were mean-spirited and wanted to hurt a competitor's rank, just blast out a ton of targeted links.

[AlanBleiweiss]

It's highly doubtful that just six links trigger the slap.  In the situation with my client, it was thousands.  So it'll be interesting to learn if this one bounces back or not, or if something else is the cause.

As for why Google would slap for over-saturation of a particular phrase, I believe it was at SMX Advanced last year when I recall Matt Cutts stating that Google was working on surgical implementation rather than broad entire-site impact.

[inhouseninja]

Incidentally  - the page I am trying to rank for is still appearing for another key word phrase - it’s just for the main keyword phrase that it has disappeared out of Google!  But for another related key phrase the page is at number 2!

[94501]

Here's an update. These serps are 1 or two days apart: 11 75 63 33 So, it may have swung around past the dark side of the Moon and be on a trajectory to re-enter Earth's orbit.

[MarieHaynes]

Yay!  Let's hope it keeps going!

[Thos003]

That would seem like the thought process... but dropping it from 11 to 13 would still give them a comparison.  But hey, we are playing in their sandbox so they make the rules.

[Thos003]

I've heard some compare this scenario as the pendulum swing.  You give it a little push in one direction and it will push back the other a bit. The bigger the swing back the bigger the jump forward. Like a pendulum the point is to find the balanced center.

[94501]

I'm loving the optimism! I'll continue to post rank, in case anybody's interested in the experiment results.

[94501]

So here's the update I promised. The rank continues to jump around like crazy. I think it's been on every one of the first 10 pages in the last two weeks. This morning it was at page 1, #3. At this moment it's nowhere to be found! Isn't that strange? Best....Michael

[AlanBleiweiss]

Okay based on that pattern, I've seen similar volatility with some phrases but not others for a client in a highly competitive market, with the volatility lasting years.  From what I have been able to ascertain, in this case it was due to the fierce nature of competitive activity for those phrases - literally where X number of competitors have been fighting it out.  In that time-span we've bounced back to the top a number of times, only to have those phrases drop again, then rebound.

[94501]

Thanks Alan,

Hey, just got done reading your excellent piece on SEO audits.A super interesting point in that piece about link ratios.

I get what you're saying about competition.  Using SEOMoz's handy difficulty tool, this phrase is a 38% difficulty.  It doesn't seem like it should be this hard. If you want, drop me an email and I'll share some other details with you. Thanks! Best...Michael

[AlanBleiweiss]

If I had the time, I'd like to learn more specifics.  Unfortunately I struggle to eek out enough time to just participate here in the Q&A system as it is...

[94501]

I understand. This thing is more strange than mission critical. Best...Michael

[Thos003]

Yes... It's not just what you are doing but what your competitors are doing. It's an on going war out there. Bunker down boys.

[portalseo]

'Google Shuffle' Give it a couple of weeks and it should come back. Check the usual culprits (Dupe Content) and go over all the changes implimented before it occured.

[94501]

Hi,

Thanks for the message. Good points.

At this juncture on this term (thankfully not all keywords), it doesn't even seem like Google has a system.  It can be #5 or #75 or #23... whatever.

Like, if this was a piece of equipment, like radar in a plane, one minute it shows no planes and an available runway and the next minute lotsa planes and no airport. If it were a piece of equipment, you'd chuck it! Helluva way to run an airline!

[OcularConcepts]

Steve,

Give me an example and I will be happily accepting what you say here. That never happens. Even in most of the polluted niches like Web Design or online pills, backlink anchor text semantics seem to be working pretty fine. There are so many factors at play that it is easy to confuse it with semnatics of anchor text, but really doesn't works that way.

[OcularConcepts]

Did you check if the same page ranks at 11 and 73 or 75? I want to bring forth the classical page vs site discussion and it is not clear if it is an internal page that showing at the lower positions or is it the same page (home page may be).

If the home page was ranking and it has dropped, try and do a site search on Google with that keyword and link from the 2nd most important page to the home page using the same anchor. Of course, if some other page is ranking, this won't be a ranking penalty but some other thing at play which has to do with your webpage.

[SteveOllington]

I can give you tonnes of examples, I have some affiliate sites I test things with, and we've taken over client sites who had previously had that kind of SEO... It definitely works that way.

Also, we've made the mistake on our own clients.

Buy the new Link Love Videos from Distilled and you'll see that Wil Reynolds goes over it being an issue in his "Pitfalls and Mistakes" video: http://www.distilled.net/store/linklove2011-pitfalls/

[94501]

Hi,

I only check the highest instance of it. Today, it was at #17, which is where it's been for a while.

To answer your question, it's an interior page, not the home page.

Thanks!