There are a lot of things to know when if comes to understanding SEO, and I can’t go over everything in a single post.
However what I will be discussing in this post, are the reasons why you might experience a drop in rankings in Google and what you can do about it. If you want some more detailed instructions on SEO, I recently did a post on this here: Increase Google Rankings.
I receive a substantial amount of email from my subscribers, and unfortunately I can’t reply to all of them, apologies if you fall into that category, however one question I get asked a lot is, why sometimes Google rankings drop suddenly?
People email me extremely worried that they have done something wrong and that the big scary Google monster has caught them and is now penalizing their affiliate marketing sites with a drop in rankings.
Of course Google can and do penalize sites all the time, but from my experience it’s not for common things that marketers like you and I would be doing.
The email questions I get go something like this: “Matt I have just built some links yesterday doing XYZ and now today my site is nowhere in Google, help!!! What have I done…please help me!!”
You might think I’m exagerating with that example, but believe me I’m not.
Anyway it’s never a nice feeling when you check your Google rankings, only to see your site has experienced some form of a drop. So now let me explain to you what I have come to realize about drops in Google rankings and the reasons for them.
Understanding SEO
If you have a new site, with no trust with Google yet, then not only can it take some time to show up in the first 10 pages of Google, but it can also go through what’s known as a “Google Dance”
A Google Dance, is simply where your site can bounce around in Google. I’ve had sites go from page 1 to nowhere and back again in the space of a few days. When I first experienced this, many years ago now, I was amazed, it felt like an emotional roler coaster ride!
However before I discuss the reason why this happens, the good news is that most (not all) Google Dances don’t last that long, usually a few days to a few weeks.
As I mentioned above the age of your domain plays a huge role. The older your domain, the more Google trust it and the more stable it will be.
When it comes to building backlinks to your sites, I’m with the popular opinion that the links you build to your sites won’t cause any form of penalty in most cases (I’ll explain more on this soon).
For example if you get backlinks from a site that was selling Viagra, just because the link to your site is coming from a site that some people would consider dodgy, it isn’t going to hurt you.
It doesn’t take a genius to work out that if this kind of link did hurt your sites rankings, the internet would become a free for all, and everyone would point these kind of links to their competitors in order to get them out of the way. In fact it would create a whole industry of “dodgy links sales” who’s service would be to get your competition out of your way. This would be anarchy and it just doesn’t work like this.
However Google does still occassionally penalize sites for their backlink activity, and it’s obvious to them that you have paid for backlinks. The best example for this was when Google Japan got penalized by Google.com for paying bloggers to write blogs posts about a new widget of theirs.
Matt Cutts, who is the head of Google’s anti-spam department, quoted this in regard to the matter: “Google.co.jp PageRank is now ~5 instead of ~9. I expect that to remain for a while.”
So you can see that Google doesn’t like people buying links at all, but this example was a very big issue, as it was Google breaking it’s own rules, so they really had to act on this one, in order to uphold their reputation.
I have never experienced this myself and I highly doubt small time internet marketers like me and you will ever have to worry about this.
There are however things that you should not do to your own site that Google doesn’t like, such as over stuffing keywords into your articles, or disguishing links in your sites as the same color as your background etc…these are Black Hat On Page SEO examples, and these are things that may get your site dropped by Google.
One other important thing to understanding SEO and backlinking, is the concept of Link Velocity. This is simply the speed at which you build your backlinks. It actually doesn’t matter if you build a million links a week, what does matter is if you don’t build a million the next week and instead build 10.
This looks very inconsistant and Google may give your site a drop in rankings if they see this kind of activity happening. I have built many sites and been much more aggressive in the beginning with my link building, mainly because I am not that patient, and then after the initial first month I have dropped off on the link building. The result was that nothing changed, no drop at all!
The reason I tell you this is that from my experience the velocity of link building that you would have to change needs to be quite substantial, and is probably more noticeable on a new domain. Think about a high page rank site that all of a sudden had some breaking news about a famous person or politician. The site would experience a pretty large surge of backlinks in a short space of time, and I doubt Google would penalize this.
So to summarize this post, backlinks will very rarely hurt your site and when considering how fast you build links, just try and be as conistant as you can, but don’t worry too much if you can’t keep up the initial blast you give your site, just make sure you have some low level of maintainence link building going on to ensure you secure your spot.
Lastly the Google dance happens to everyone, it’s quite a normal part of understanding seo so don’t hit the panic button if it happens to you. Just carry on building links and it will settle down, and perhaps practice some Tango moves with good old Google!
Related articles
Hi Matt,
Great post again. I believe that Google has the aim of being as human as possible. Therefore being consistent in content delivery is being appreciated a lot. I do not spend much time building links. Actually I don’t have more than 20 links to my site. I do however regularly put useful and on page optimized content on the site and that seems to work well.
BTW I Implemented the on page tips you gave last week and the indexing tips and they worked like a charm! A new post got indexed within 24 hours and sought for and found by targeted keyword within a day!
Big thanks and kind regards,
Andreas
Matt Carter Reply:
October 4th, 2010 at 9:05 pm
Hi Andreas
No problem at all, and yeah the indexing is crazy, I had a new record on this very post, I clicked publish and I swear by the time I went to open my rank checker (30 seconds) this post was already indexed.
All the best
Matt
I guess the super fast ranking shows that the googlebot spends a lot of time on your blog Matt. Or maybe you have some super ninja pinglist?
🙂
Alex
Thanks for the great post, Im doing some aggressive link building at the moment and was wondering what the current thinking was – cleared it up a bit for me.
Also, congratulations! It sounds like you have a resident-spider!
Cheers,
Alex
Hi Matt
Good post, I think I’ll reference it in one of my upcoming newsletters.
I also get asked this question all the time.
Aaron
I’ve had this happen twice in the last 2-3 weeks while my outsourcer was building links but luckily I remember you mentioning this in your backlink blueprint product so I didn’t sweat it.
I’m happy to say all my keywords are now back on page 1.
Simon
Very informative, thank you.
In your experience, what exactly is a “shift in algorithms” ? Is it really that devastating, or is it somewhat of a myth ?
Thank you.
I’ve had this happen to me as well, and I ran to the forums asking the same question. So I can relate to the e-mails that you have gotten. I am still having this happen every couple of weeks with several sites, and they always come back about where they were before.
Hi Matt
Thanks for this bit of info. I recently purchased your article spinner , rapid rewriter . My sites are all fairly new so this info will help .
A question about backlinks, do you consider google news a good or cost efficient way to build backlinks. I have submitted 2 articles to google news sites and hardly received any backlinks . Both were paid services.
Regards
H
Hi there Matt! Always appreciate your great info on SEO and back-linking, thank you! I thought I would read something about the “sandbox” in your article when I started, as I think that is one of the most perplexing items with newly established domains…It is probably worth a whole other blog post, but do you have any good advice that I might share with the small business folks over at the Local Advertising Blueprint?
Thanks a bunch! E
Another great post Matt.
I have been through the dance lately and don’t understand why. I was ranking for several keywords on page #1 and I change my blog by putting a static front page. On Aug 2nd 2001 all my keywords went from page 1 to page 6.
On Oct. 1st 2010 for one day all my keywords went back to showing on page 1, but only for one day. They are all back on page 6 or so?????
I don’t practice any Blackhat stuff, but I have been using Article Distribution with AM Automation and about 12 articles. Looking at the stats all of these articles have been posted a couple thousand times.
In Google webmaster tools it says I have 20,000 links, but they are all deep links and only 130 to main domain.
Help????
I have a better question Matt. Why did you recommend a garbage hyped product like Traffic Syphon? I bought based on your recommendations and it is totally the opposite to what you teach. This product uses gray to black hat techniques for building links. Why would you recommend this? I realize you probably will not publish this comment but I do want your reply.
Matt Carter Reply:
October 5th, 2010 at 7:34 am
Hey Troy,
I think the link techniques in that course are good ones. I went through it and yes some of the techniques are grey hat, but to be honest the are very few white hat backlinking methods. If you want to contact blog web master and ask them for a link, or wait until people naturally link to you, then that is whitehat, but it is time consuming and very difficult to compete. However I will take your feedback on board, and I all for free speech.
Thanks
Matt
It really is a headache. One minute you are up there and you are ecstatic, the next minute you cannot find your site anywhere. The annoying thing is seeing your competitor where you used to be. I think psychopaths run Google and the ranking system is their little voodoo doll.
Still, you have to live by it. So thanks for the post – at least now I don’t feel like they have a special voodoo doll just for me (with extra long pins!).
Since Google is constantly tweaking their algorithm, you have to expect variations due to their weighting different on-page and off-page elements differently from time-to-time. Also, competition for relevance to a term will keep rankings in flux.
-bob
Matt Carter Reply:
October 5th, 2010 at 7:32 am
Hi Bob
Yes of course you do, and when I say fluctuations I mean very noticeable ones, not just re-indexing which you are referring to.
Thanks
Matt
Thanks for the reassurances, Matt! I’ve seen this happen to a couple of my (relatively new) sites, and it is more than just a little disconcerting! But they have come back!
Best regards,
Chuck
Sorry Matt I have to disagree with link velocity , I belt those links out for a month and frequently have 2000 links when some competitors have only 30, and then stop I should be at postion 1 to3 by then depending on my competition, my links start to drop but I always remain on position 1 to 5 and the dance brings me back to position 2 on average …
Why because my competitors are using spam links and they disappear and return and disappear again , where I always stay there.
How?
Links from article directories , the big ones, ezine, isnare, article biz etc, as many as it takes!!!
Links from high pr authority sites in your niche and yes directory links, also throw a few hunded non spam commenting and you are there to stay, guaranteed.
As the guys from FTS say your ranks fluctuate not from what you do but from the activity of your competition! But they cheat…and lose eventually.
You also need a shiny thing on your site to mesmerise the visitors so the bounce rate is lower.
Sound like hard work? It is !
Also google dance where you disappear and reappear …doesn’t happen to me!
Slow and sure wins the race, hope that;s some help to your readers.
Louis
Matt Carter Reply:
October 5th, 2010 at 7:31 am
Hi Louis
I agree with some of what you say, you make some good points, but I don’t think it is because your competition is creating spam links, it is probably more to do with the overall page rank being passed by the links you create and the links your competitors are creating. You do make some valid points, but unsure what you mean when you say you belt out 2000 links and then in closing you say “Slow and sure wins the race”????
I have experienced a site get caught in a 9 month Google dance, and it was a new domain that I built links to incredibly fast.
Thanks
Matt
One thing to keep in mind is that Google has multiple ranking engines and it can take quite some time before your site is indexed and ranked consistently by Google.
The apparent up and down of the site position may have nothing to do with your site but have more to do with how your search inquiry is routed around Google and the Internet.
Another factor to be aware of with Google is that if you are logged into Google (Gmail, Analytics, etc.) then Google will serve you results based on your search history.
You (and I) are most likely manic about checking our own sites position so we search for it often and as a result our history shows Google what is important to us and Google obliges by showing us what we search for most often…
There are many other factors to consider also. The history of your domain (was it once owned by a spammer and blacklisted?), the age of the domain, is the content good and fresh, has it been moved or heavily modified recently, all these can affect the ranking and position.
So my advice to all is to relax, take a chill pill and be patient, after all, Google is God of the Internet and we have to please and sometimes make sacrifices to the gods and hopefully your site is not one of them!
The reason why your post was indexed in 30 seconds Matt is sometimes we get lucky and publish a post right before Googles robot was already about to hit your site.
I look at it like a radar that sweeps around in a circle and sometimes we make a post just after the bots have left and it may take a few hours or days for your post to show up.
This site here is a brand new site I just put up yesterday and I only put a backlink from youtube and it got indexed under 15 min…
keatonbeachfl dottttt org
Why? For the same reason above. Got lucky… lol
Went from position 130 to 51 over the next 6 hours by doing absolutely nothing. Should be on 1st page by tomorrow. I do this with tons of niches. I mostly do this for fun now that I retired myself under 40 a few yrs back.
cya
-vic hutchinson
Hi Matt. I heard from another marketer you should’nt get more than 300 backlinks per months for a site. Is that BS or what? Great info…thanks.
Matt Carter Reply:
October 5th, 2010 at 7:25 am
Hey Chris
Yes I would consider the advice this person gave you on backlinks to be poor advice. Some people give advice when they are not actually doing the things they give advice on, and that’s a problem. I have heaps of sites that get more than 300 links a month, its link velocity that is more important.
Thanks
Matt
Hey, Troy Foote,
I purchased ‘Traffic Syphon’ as well…
however unlike you I found it remarkably insightful, and loaded with tried and proven tactics from some of the smartest marketers out there… There was also plenty caveats warning of the dangers of over doing some of the suggested tactics.
I tried everything they suggested and skyrocketed to the front page with 2 of my sites… just through simple trial and error.
I now know what gets me the most results.
So I’m wondering… did you ever put any of the suggested tactics in ‘Traffic Siphon’ to work, did you even try one single thing?… because it’s a little hard to understand why you label it as Garbage?
Just wondering.
Glenn.
Fingers crossed (hard to type this way) but I have not had a site completely deindexed ever. Dancing ranks, yes, but not delisted. I have had more than 300 new links to many of my sites, both through my own efforts and through natural linking. First, Google does not find all the links right away. Second, 300 incoming links is a pretty small number if there is an interesting news article or other great content – so that seems like a very arbitrary number.
thanks very much because i’m panic because this topic, i have this problem, i stop to build back link to my site because i think google not happy i build to many back link to my site thank you for you article help me ……
I cannot comment on SEO or how Google arranges their info. I can tell you that I created a web site around 5-6 years ago in straight HTML. I have no idea about that goes where. I wrote my original web site just as though i was talking to someone. It’s still up http:\\www.howtostartabakery.com I haven’t done much to it at all and today the site has 7900 to 9870 visitors a month and there is no PPC. Thats likely the main reason for poor sales
Thanks Matt, I’ve been going through this for the past 3 months with one of my websites. Its constantly dropping from #1 to #20 or even out of Google. And Im not even building links. So I gues Goolgle will Giveth and Taketh Away. Thanks
Thanks for this great post. Actually, you saved yourself from an email from me, because I was about to ask this thing. Thank you very much…
Hi Matt. Thanks again for the great post! I have 8 websites and all of them experienced Google dance. Only after 2-3 months they became stable. One of them disappeared from Google from the first page and never came back, but reached the first page on Yahoo and stayed there till now.
Thanks again, cheers!
Hi Matt,
First of all, thank you for all the great information – it’s HUGELY appreciated!
Talking of disappearing websites – I wonder if you might feel up to tackling a subject that hardly anyone mentions (and having tried to find out myself I can well understand why!)
Canonical urls.
Earlier this year I abandoned a website that I had worked extremely hard on because it disappeared. It’s out there – it just won’t show up for any of the keywords – very niche topic about certain types of books. I spent 3 full days trying to mend it and will go back to it at some point….but I was at my wits end!
I think my first mistake was using Google Webmaster Tools – which again, you hardly ever hear anyone recommend doing. Maybe it’s not such a good idea for relative newbies. I can’t remember all the ins and outs now – but I’m sure it had something to do with www or no www – the trouble is I couldn’t understand a word of what they were saying in the forum, and haven’t been able to find an explanation that I can actually follow!
I would like to know:
a) Should newbies stay away from Google Webmaster Tools?
b) Where in the website building process is the point where your www site might become a non-www site?
So, if ever you’re stuck for a topic for your blog, there’s a suggestion for you!
Thanks again for all your help,
Sue
Yeah, I have taken a serious hit too.
Even when I search my two keywords into Google it do not make it in the top 100. I will continue to sit it out and hope that eventually my rankings go up. Thanks for the good advice Matt.
Anyone know a good backlink outsourcer?
Cheers
Johnny
Interesting post.
Matt, do you know if Yahoo and Bing does this same “dance”? Two weeks ago, my website ranked #1 on Yahoo and had been there for several weeks. Suddenly, it dropped off and I’m not sure where it’s ranked anymore – at least not in the top 1000 of Yahoo.
I would be interested if you know this answer.
Hey Matt:
Is it also true to change the name in your comments?
I read that making the name different helps in SEO?
Is it true?
Thanks
Just when you think you have Google figured out you drop out of the rankings. I always say just concentrate on good quality content. The rankings will follow. (hopefully)
Great post Matt,
This always happen to me as well. I guess I have to try purchasing old domains.
Cheers!
Fantastic explanation of the Google Dance Matt! I also have experienced this myself and have learned to just ignore it and move on with my back linking.
I do at least 10 back links a day and outsource some of it too.
10 links may not sound like much, but when you’re adding
High Quality Backlinks it really makes a difference for ranking and pagerank over time. I’ll show you how I do that and I think your readers would love to know.
Anyways, thanks again. I always learn something on your site and your emails.
Another great post. I experienced the effect of the Google dance when this site was less than a year old. Things became more settled down as th site became more aged and I did more work on it. The site has been on top of Google for more than a year now with the term Information Depot. I have had more trouble with alexa ranking over the last few months, ranging from 2,000,000 to 8,000,000. This again requires more work.
Enjoyed this post. Good to read something that is in straightforward understandable language. Thank you.
PS Unable to attend your webinar – wish I could, but the sound on my computer has just disappeared, can’t figure out why. What a pain!
Google’s has me gaga! I’m spending valuable time trying to figure out why google doesn’t like me instead of writing new blogs that are bouncing around in my head.
After I spend a few hours commenting on keyword appropriate blogs, I often get 1st page listing on bing and yahoo…but google ignores me.
Your blog has great information, but so far I’m not getting it as far as google is concerned. Maybe it will click someday, or maybe I’ll just concentrate on the others and ignore google as they ignore me.
Thanks Matt,
Good post and thanks again for the webinar that you had this evening. It was insightful.
I used to worry all the time about Google and my sites. Now, I don’t worry because I do other SEO enhancements to keep my ranking with the search engines.
Getting backlinks is one of the things I do every single day for my sites. I don’t use any automation on it, just good old fashioned “hand crafting.”
Your friend (of Niche Profit Classroom) showed how to build satellite sites to get links and PR to the affiliate page which is your main site. (Thanks for that video) That means, the satellite page and main site are in the same hosting which means same IP address, right?
But I heard that links from the sites with same IP address contributes less than those from different IP addresses, is that true? If that is true, then Google would be clever to notice that satellite pages are our own creation and thus decrease the link strength, right? Am sorry if my question sounds stupid, but this is one thing that I bother too much, please help me describing how it works. Is this really serious to consider?
Thanks in advance
Thoufeeq
Hi! Matt; Great post. However I have already received the Google Slap..It would be nice if someone could outline a plan for getting re-established with Google.. Is this possible and can you give a step by step approach to get this done..
Thanks;RAY
You must be psychic. we were just discussing this topic last week in the office.
Phil
HI all
This blog is very informative thanks for sharing information. I have added it in my blog
I watch the videos, read all you say and what others say about it.
God i have so much to learn!!!!!!!!!
Hi Matt
” In fact it would create a whole industry of “dodgy links sales” who’s service would be to get your competition out of your way
Brilliant idea – I Found My New Niche!
Waahayyyyyyyyyyyy !!
regards Graham
P.S. Only kidding right?.
Hello Matt,
It’s very odd that you mention Tango moves at the end of your post.
I had just added new pages on my site about the “Tango” dance, and a few days later my site vanished from the first page of Google and is nowhere to be seen. I suppose it will come back as you say, but at what level I don’t know.
Thanks for all your advice.
Jane.
Hi Matt,
A very good post as per usual. I am considering using an automation tool for social bookmarking, any suggestions?
Thinking about Social Bookmarking Demon or similar?
I am also considering using an outsourcer, but I’m hesitating because of the lack of control when you’re dealing with an outsourcer based somewhere like India or the Phillipines?
Thanks,
Chronic Tinnitus
Hi Matt,
How much is too much when building backlinks on a website, and what is the daily recommendation?
I was thinking to use a tool to build backlinks, it does everything below.
Should I try it, What do you think?
Auto Create, Submit, & Email Verification All Accounts
Web 2.0 Properties
Social Bookmarking
Forum Posting
RSS / Feed Submission to 100+
And More…
Hey Matt,
Thank you, this post came just in time. I have yet to finish an affiliate site, i have a few in the works, but have been building a few small sites for people as a side job and using a site i built a few months back for my wife as an example to potential customers as i was resting in the number 2 position on the front page of google for 2 weeks straight, then Poof it was gone. I felt like a failure and a fool, i will just wait for it to show back up i guess. LOL
Thanks.
Hi there Matt! Always appreciate your great info on SEO and back-linking, This blog is very informative thanks for sharing information.
Hi,
Nice article.Thanks for sharing such useful and interesting information with me.
Great article Matt! Nobody really knows what Google does at times. Just when you think you have Google figured out they throw you a curve ball…lol. I’ve gone from page 1 to page 10 back to page 2 then page 1 at various time. I just keep plugging away!
Hi Matt,
Good post! But I have a problem with a site that has been up for over 6 years, hasn’t been changed for 3 years but recently put in a few backlinks.
Now the site is totally dropped from Google plus every other search engine. I can’t find any possible answer.
Do you have any ideas please?
Cheers
John
I have to be guilty of publishing many backlinks one week then nothing for months. At first I was posting a backlink wherever I could, then moved to on-topic backlinks… Inevitabily Im going to need to backlink only the top places that are 100% on topic… Thanks for the help!
Hi Matt,
I like the way you have conveyed this post as it shows how important using common sense in your internet marketing strategies can help along with your efforts.
Thanks for another great post! : )
There is so much to SEO but one at a time. Slow but steady seems to win the race with backlinking.
Hi Matt,
I love your take on SEO.. Helps alot.
Many also forget to remember in the SEO game it is a classic tale of the Turtle and the Hare..
Turtle wins the day!
Likewise with the SEO game, it is simply a case of the slow and steady SEO campaign wins the day..
Just my take.
Chris.
Matt
For online seo is internal linking done by the widget “recent posts” or do you have to link your posts by the links widget.
Many thanks
J
Matt Carter Reply:
November 25th, 2010 at 8:15 am
Hey Jeff
I use the Link widget so I can have the anchor text I want, and it stays on the page as recent posts changes.
Thanks
Matt
Matt
I would appreciate if you could confirm the actual link widget you use.
Many thanks
Jeff
Matt
It’s okay I found it
Jeff
Simply put, SEO is marketing through an understanding of how search algorithms work combined with a knowledge of what human users might search for. The end goal is to create a site that contains words for which people will likely search when looking for information such as that contained on your site.
Hi Matt,
Not sure if this is the right place for this question but here goes anyway.
I´ve just updated to Mozilla version 4 and have lost the nodofollow plugin. Any ideas if there is another one that we can use from someone else.
I dare say a lot of people are going to have this problem!
Thanks
Nigel
Robert Reply:
March 31st, 2011 at 3:40 pm
Firefox version 4 messed up some of my favourite add ons…. I uninstalled and went back to the last version 3.