My site was position 1 for (let’s say) ‘teddy bears’, and position 2 for ‘teddy bear’. It has been for over a year (except for a blip at the beginning of the week where it dropped to position 2 for a day).
During this week I made (what I thought was) a pretty small change on the page. Now ‘teddy bears’ is position 6 and ‘teddy bear’ on the second page.
It could conceivably be unrelated the the change I made, although none of my other positions seem to have changed.
In the original content on my teddy bears page I have a bunch of text, and a link to various teddy bear subcategories (eg fluffy teddy bears, retro teddy bears, large teddy bears) - about 20 of them. eg (example snippet)
This week I made a change to break the subcategories visually into groups, to make them easier to navigate, with a header for each group and links to each group at the top of the page eg
<!-- THESE LINKS ARE NEW-->
<a href='#teddy bears by type'>Teddy bears by type</a>
<a href='#teddy bears by size'>Teddy bears by size</a>
<a href='#teddy bears by price'>Teddy bears by price</a>
<table>
<!-- THIS ROW IS NEW -->
<tr><td><h4 id='teddy bears by type'>Teddy bears by type</h4></td></tr>
<tr>
<td><a href='fluffy_teddy_bears'><img src='teddy1.jpg' alt='fluffy teddy bears'>Fluffy teddy bears</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href='retro_teddy_bears'><img src='teddy2.jpg' alt='retro teddy bears'>Retro teddy bears</a></td>
</tr>
<!-- THIS ROW IS NEW -->
<tr><td><h4 id='teddy bears by size'>Teddy bears by size</h4></td></tr>
<tr>
<td><a href='large_teddy_bears'><img src='teddy1.jpg' alt='large teddy bears'>Large teddy bears</a></td>
</tr>
...
...
</table>
I would have though this was pretty small. There’s a handful of new occurrences of the ‘teddy bears’ term, but keyword density (in case anyone measures it) was about the same at a bit over 2.3% for teddy bears and 4% for teddy bear.
Could it be the extra terms? Or a change in structure (the page has kept a pretty similar structure for about 8 years, and has been ranking well for the last 2)? Or just coincidence?
Sure it’s possible that ALL of the competitors made changes to their site at the same time which improved their rankings (and the the ‘teddy bear’ market this is entirely possible).
I’ve reverted back to the old layout a few days ago and waiting to see if anything improves.
does google generally shake up a site’s position following small structural changes like this?
It is possible it had an affect, but of course the rankings are very fluid (competitors making changes, new sites, algorithm changes, new links, etc.).
I would wait a couple of more days and if the rankings are holding at the lower positions then you might want to switch back to the old format to see if that makes a difference.
As well as trying to fix this particular case I’m also trying to understand the effects of making changes on my site (as much as anyone can, anyway).
Should I avoid making even small structural changes to important pages on my site? Does Google generally throw a fit if you do?
I do not think you should be afraid to make structural changes. Typically changes that improve the code and structure of your page are helpful.
It is very possible that the change you made and the drop in rankings are not related, but if you had not changed it for awhile and then you made a change and the rankings dropped it seems likely it had some affect.
The key is to keep testing and learning, do not let this scare you off from continually working to improve your site.
I think, Search engine like the changes of every site often. Because that is doing for something like attraction,proper navigation, grow the performance,give the related results to the surfers and more. Wait for some times the keyword comeback the previous position or get back links to that keywords.
Thanks,
Off Page SEO
Thanks for the encouragement. Next time I should probably limit my changes to pages on which we’re not relying on the SEO success for the upcoming season!
[list=]
[] Changes to competitors under different searches, throwing their perceived value by Google off.
[] Other sites linking to your competitors.
[] Other sites linking to you
[] A couple of mentions on some social media sites
[/list]
It could be any of those and a million more that changed your rank. Many of them won’t have had much change at all, but I’d eat my hat if a tiny structural change threw your rank off.
Why indeed. I know there could be a million reasons for this and a million reasons for that. But there is a perceived cause and effect here (position constant for 2 years, site constant for 2 years - then make a change and position changes), which I’m trying to understand, as much as anyone can.
I agree with ULTIMATE that there are million of factors that affect ranking also I can understand OP’s concern that the same keyword which was stable for so many years now after small change its rank drop. I can understand your concern. I have some suggestions may be you can cross check;
May be revert your site to the old way it was - if it will regain its rank may be you can come to a proper conclusion.
May be you can experiment with some other site - with less competitive keywords - and you can measure the changes in more effectively i guess.
Personally i feel google will not going to check all those structural aspects - unless sites Tags keywords text etc change. So, i will suggest just wait for few more days and try above 2 options to get more proper conclusion.
Yeah, I’ve put all changes back to what they were and playing the waiting game.
Further changes will be tested on less critical pages. In this case it may have been a ‘blip’, but we weren’t in a position to be patient, unfortunately.
I think it is not a stretch problem, maybe it is caused by the imrpoved competitor’s ramking or your site has something with the bad backlink from the other sites.
Well, we’ve climbed up a few positions today. And one of our competitors who had ranked above us is now near the bottom of the page.
I haven’t felt any buzz on the forum about any major algorithm changes, but SERPs for this keyword has been really jigging about over the last 10 days. It’s a term that is starting to get busy this time of year. Is it possible that the increase in traffic for a particular term would cause Google to so frequently and radically re-assess positions?