Overview
Keyword ranking fluctuations and lost keyword rankings have become quite common. In the past, rankings would tend to hold off, unless another site gained enough authority to outrank you. These days, however, you experience more and more fluctuation. In most cases, they aren’t anything to worry about, and their reasons are clear:
- Google testing something in the algorithm or there has been an actual Google algorithm update,
- A shift in the user intent or incorrectly applied user intent, and
- Changes to the site or technical issues that have suddenly affected its performance.
Sometimes, however, you have to get to the bottom of things to analyze the sudden rank change.
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You may find this quick video helpful. Otherwise scroll down for more details.
Ranking Differences
There are a few primary reasons that contribute to why you might see different results in the platform compared to results in your personal search. We've outlined these below. This doesn't mean this comparison will always be different as some searches are more or less unique. To view a snapshot of the SERP as we captured it, you can utilize the SERP Preview feature.
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Time
What time of the day did you search for the keyword? Google's algorithm is always updating and constantly running and with that in mind, time can make a big difference. If we saw the search results page at 1:00 a.m. (CST) and you search for that keyword at 10:30 a.m. (CST), the SERP could be completely different as time has passed and Google's algorithm has been running the entire time.
Location
Location can have a huge impact the search results you see versus when in another locale. For example, if you are in Chicago and search for "things to do", they results will be significantly different than if the search was performed from Seattle. In most cases, the search results seen in the platform are from the national or country level, which is still different than results from a city or town within that country.
Search History
The browser cache (and cookies) is full of sites, information, data, etc.that are specific to you. All of this is personal information that other users will not have. They will have their own personal information for Google to run through and return results that reflect what is in their cache, not yours. The same goes for search history. Your previous search history ultimately effects your future searches. Google always wants to provide you results that fit you. This means they are taking your search history into account. Whereas our crawler runs without any search history or cache, similar to how a new user would search for the very first time to maintain consistency in the result set.
Google Search Console
The Rankings in Rank Intelligence and the average position in Google Search console are two separate datasets, with a few primary differences between the two including: filtering, profiles, and data. In Rank Intelligence the default rankings are captured on a national level whereas GSC is all based off of User Data, which is usually location specific. Google rarely shows the national level view to any user due to cookies, location, browsing history, etc. Every user receives a more Geo-Specific view of the SERP such as Chicago, IL or New York, NY.
Ranking Differences Summary
While we can't go back in time just yet and thus can't mimic the SERP at the time we gathered the rankings, we can try to mimic the platform SERP Preview by matching your location to the location you have in the platform and by depersonalizing your browser. To do this, clear your cache and use an incognito browser window. The incognito browser would need to be shut down before another search is performed to reduce personalization of results based on the latest browser session. Disabling Javascript from search can help further mimic a standard crawler. Even with these settings, results can be different.
Ranking Fluctuations
Ranking fluctuations can be quite common, especially when looking at search results on a daily basis. While some keywords may seem relatively stable, some other keywords show wild fluctuations, everyday. Over the years, we've narrowed down the reason for volatility for a keyword to a few primary factors.
Algorithm Updates
Not just the big algorithm changes like Panda and Penguin, but also hundreds of micro tests that take place each year. Some of these micro tests, or updates, include industry specific tests such as the payday loan policy or spam elimination specific tests such as catching hidden links on pages.
Seasonal Tweaks
Mother's Day, Black Friday, and Christmas are obvious seasons where the intent for searches changes. It is true also for behavior driven seasons too, such as flu season. A search for "flu" during the season would yield different results than outside the season. Also, summer vs. winter. Searches for snow shovels in summer would show less news results than in winter, altering the rankings.
Keyword Competitiveness
Things are constantly changing in the search landscape. A single link change to a site can have a ripple affect to all the sites that it links to and so on. The more competitive a keyword or industry, the greater the rate of fluctuation we see happening. This is especially true over the last 5 years since Google moved to Caffeine, its near real time indexing and ranking algorithm. Instead of having to wait for rankings to be calculated once a month or so, Caffeine allowed Google to index new data rapidly and re-rank results based on new data in near real time.
Keyword Intent
Getting more granular, a keyword's intent is also a determination of its volatility. Take the example of the word "printers." For the last 4 years that we have been tracking the keyword, we have seen the top 10 results change completely every few days. This indicates that Google has a tough time figuring out what the majority of users are looking for when searching for "printer." Are they looking for desktop printers? Are they looking for business printers? Commercial printers such as a Heidelberg Press? Someone that can help them print something with banners, t-shirts, or other large scale printing jobs, and so on.