Can anyone explain why my rankings jump from page 1 to page 2 each week?

[dotslash]

Hi,

Any time I have this sort of behavior on any of my sites it's nearly always been down to over-optimization for the targeted keyword.   Looking at your site you've got 'oak flooring' absolutely everywhere - in URL, Titles, bold text, links, image Alts and headings.  Looks over the top to me and I suspect this might be to blame.

Problem is it's not always that easy to correct quickly - you might fall before you improve if you reduce optimization.

Just my thoughts - good luck !

[British_Hardwoods]

Would off-page optimisation also cause this as well? I have made more on-page changes though, so I will look at this. Thanks.

[Alex-Harford]

As dotslash says - you have 'oak flooring' absolutely everywhere. Does the text on your homepage read naturally? Not at all! Make sure it reads naturally. You can mention 'oak' and 'flooring' separately and it will still help your keyword optimisation. At the moment you're keyword spamming, and it's obvious to the human eye - you should get it sorted as quickly as possible in case it becomes obvious to the crawlers.

[Alex-Harford]

As dotslash says - you have 'oak flooring' absolutely everywhere. Does the text on your homepage read naturally? Not at all! Make sure it reads naturally. You can mention 'oak' and 'flooring' separately and it will still help your keyword optimisation. At the moment you're keyword spamming, and it's obvious to the human eye - you should get it sorted as quickly as possible in case it becomes obvious to the crawlers.

[British_Hardwoods]

I have updated our site and made changes. I guess it's a matter of waiting now.

[Alex-Harford]

I've just noticed you're committing keyword cannibilisation too, which won't help. You're targeting 'oak flooring' across multiple pages. Check this post out: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-solve-keyword-cannibalization

Send a reply to this post in a month or so, I'll be interested to see how you got on.

[JasonHegarty]

How are you checking your rankings? If you are simply typing your keywords into Google and clicking search make sure you are signed out of Google and that you have deleted your history because as I have found recently I got all excited that I had managed to secure position number 1 for the term mortgage tutorials only to sign out of Google and find myself in position 7 (which I was till happy with but not quite as happy as p1)

Not sure if this may sometimes explain erratic movement but had I not have picked it up I would have thought I was being penalised and made changes when I didn't need to.

[British_Hardwoods]

Thanks for the reminder on this, but I'm never signed into Google and I use a few tools to check, and I'm afraid we're on page 2. I'm certainly doing an extensive sorting out, especially with the 'cannilbilisation' and over optimisation, as advised by the previous responses I've received. Here's to hoping we're back on page 1 soon!

[British_Hardwoods]

Hey, we're back on page one again at number 5 for oak flooring

Google Oak Flooring SERP

I'm freaking out somewhat, just wondering if it will fall back to page two. What do you think? I'm trying (very hard) to get this ranking stable at least and just panicking.

[Alex-Harford]

Don't panic.

Are you listed on Google Local, and the Google Shopping section?

[British_Hardwoods]

Yes and yes. Although for oak flooring on Google Shopping, we're listed on page 3 (should be second one, British Hardwoods). How can I improve our listing on Google Shopping? Or perhaps this is a question that I should scour/ask on a separate thread on seomoz.