Rankings Bouncing, Top 5 then Non-Existent

[animalstyle]

A month an a half ago, I did a site move to a new domain. The included a location database which ranked very strongly for the main terms for each page (business names) which are pretty competitive.

Since the site move, which didn't go so smooth, rankings for the most competitive terms only have been bouncing all over the place. I've been keeping an eye on about 150 keywords and there are a significant portion of them that are in and out. One day they will be top 5, the next they don't even register for the term, and back and forth day by day. Its been like this for the entire month and a half.

I know the advice will probably be - "wait it out", but this in combination with watching the overall traffic steadily decline down to like 1/4 of what the previous site was is driving me mad.

Is it normal to see keywords bouncing this aggressively? Is there an action I should take?

 

[Ryuzaki]

Google has different data centers with different indices. They're never all on the same page and are always split testing too.

Also, you did a major SEO thing. Google has a patent that will disrupt and randomize things for up to 90 days. And I know you've been doing other major restructuring of your site's categories, adding and removing thousands upon thousands of pages.

It's no surprise things are going haywire right now. You need to focus on what you can control and let Google do it's thing. As long as you keep reacting to them, they'll keep reacting to you. It's built into the system to confuse SEO's. It's all laid out in the patent that you can read yourself or read my laymen's explanation on it.

Everything you've been experiencing is to be expected.

In the meantime you can be publishing content, getting links, getting social shares, and getting traffic through traditional marketing means. It will settle. You'll likely get most of the rankings back but as we discussed in the PM, I think losing the partial match term in the main domain will land you a little lower, but nothing drastic and nothing you can't regain. That was a good move though, since you want to be able to grow past your previous cap.

 

[animalstyle]

Thanks @Ryuzaki
Just knowing I am not going crazy (or not fully at least) will be helpful in continuing to push forward. Its a really fucked up mind game to loose footing as you double down and push harder than ever.

 

[turbin3]

I highly recommend EVERYONE read the 2 links from Ryuzaki. It's probably one of the single most important things an SEO can learn, IMO, these days.

Stay the course. It's tough. It's damn tough. The best approach I've found, with the knowledge of the technology behind what's discussed in the links above, is to plan strategically and confidently move forward with what you "know to be right". It may not be right or what's best, but it's important to stay the course until you're confident it's wrong. In other words, plan out campaigns, plan out pieces of content, and then move forward with it without second guessing yourself. Stay the course. It may be 30, 60, 90 days or more. The day to day second guessing is EXACTLY what they intend for you to do, in which case the game is up. In essence, go all in and don't flinch.

That being said, based on what I've seen so far, one thing that seems like it may not be the best idea (at least in certain niches I've seen), is frequent manipulation of small on-page changes. Changing a link or two here, adding a sentence there. They actively monitor for this. Think more strategically about "updating" content, adding new content, UX redesigns and additional resources for old content (take an old "list" and give it a new and more useful UX for example). That is natural, more significant, users tend to appreciate it, and I suspect the more significant nature of the changes is possibly a bit safer.

In the meantime, with any migration, post-launch you really want to examine the fundamental aspects of the site and be highly confident there are no technical issues remaining. The typical stuff like long redirect chains, lots of 404's from important pages, domain/subdomain resolution, etc. Also see if Majestic has picked up and reflected the migration (for example, TF/CF metrics transferring over to the new location).

 

[animalstyle]

That being said, based on what I've seen so far, one thing that seems like it may not be the best idea (at least in certain niches I've seen), is frequent manipulation of small on-page changes.

Think more strategically about "updating" content, adding new content, UX redesigns and additional resources for old content (take an old "list" and give it a new and more useful UX for example). That is natural, more significant, users tend to appreciate it

It's all where you're focusing I suppose - I am trying to build for the long game so I have to constantly remind myself to focus on what's best for the user. It's tough because it takes more time and effort to do this, especially when things feel like they are sliding downhill at the same time.

In the meantime, with any migration, post-launch you really want to examine the fundamental aspects of the site and be highly confident there are no technical issues remaining. The typical stuff like long redirect chains, lots of 404's from important pages, domain/subdomain resolution, etc. Also see if Majestic has picked up and reflected the migration (for example, TF/CF metrics transferring over to the new location).

I've spend the better part of a month and a half doing just this. Checking and double checking that the technical side is on-point. I've been making changes that I think are improvements, my only hope is they haven't been seen as manipulation.

I've been watching ahrefs and the UR/DR values have just come up to where the old domain sat. Majestic looks good too.