Google Slower to Trust New Pages than One Year Ago?
-
It seems to me that Google is slower to trust (and rank) new pages today than in the past.
I used to be able to put up a new page and it would go right to the top of a competitive SERP.
For about the past year when I launch a new page it starts deep in the SERPs, sits there for a few weeks, then starts slowly moving up. These pages still eventually rank on the first page of Google - often at #1 or #2 after wikipedia or another strong site - but it can take a few months to get there, several months in a competitive SERP.
These are not "hot news" topics where freshness is an important factor. Instead they are product pages or general information articles.
Anybody else seeing this?
[ Just stabbing in the dark here... I am wondering if Google is relying more on visitor behavior these days and the delay is while they collect data?... Just stabbing in the dark.]
-
Thanks for the report, Jesse.
-
Thanks for the analysis. Your description makes a lot of sense. Maybe that is what Google is doing. Assessing to see if all of the boxes are checked.
-
The keywords that the articles target have a Moz KW Difficulty of about 50%. All of this is being done without any linkbuilding or other promotion. Just the ranking power of unique, substantive content on an authority domain.
A year ago these pages would have gone to the first page of Google within 24 hours. Now they still go to the first page but it might take 24 weeks.
-
Is it weird that I like this way better? It's making me work harder, but I think it's much more "fair."
-
Nice work on getting those quick rankings.
These types of results are becoming hard to get.
-
...in the past you'd see them have a big jump quickly and then start to fade back down...
Right... in the past a good page on a strong site would bust right to the top and Google would play "whack a mole". Now the good pages on a strong site will start deep in the SERPs and without promotion, they will climb slowly to the spot that you would have initially expected them to rank.
Instead of "whack a mole" google is saying... "prove the you deserve it". At least, that's what it looks like to me.
-
So I just 404'd an old page and changed it's URL and re-launched it last Tuesday. Today it has been indexed and is on page 3 for a fairly competitive keyword. That was much quicker than I expected.
Granted, I built a few links for this one last week and didn't let it just go without but I still find this relevant.
Also, I still feel like a few months back this would have happened by Thursday/Friday of last week.
Anyway that's my latest findings.
-
I'd agree. I think the reason is because there are so many boxes to tick nowadays if you want to have good rankings in the SERPs. Google is looking deeper into every website now (after Penguin 2.0) and this is clearly having an affect on how quickly websites are ranking for keywords on deeper pages.
On the flip side, whereas rankings would jump around quite a lot in the past, as Google as delved deeper into a website, hopefully once a new website has its rankings, there shouldn't be too much fluctuation which is great as you can put some budgets, strategies and plans in place.
-
It must depend on the keyword because in the past few weeks, I've had a couple of brand new domains hit the first page of Google very quickly. It's not for ultra competitive keywords, but it isn't for bad keywords that people aren't searching for either.
I've got well over 1,000 website that I do testing with, I'll add another 50+ this week to do some testing on.
Any particular keywords you guys want me to test? Give me something that is middle or the road, nothing too hard or easy, that way we should get some pretty quick results.
-
Good chance either some or all of these things happened:
a.) your competitors had built links through black-hat seo firms
b.) you are a victim/beneficiary of the Google Honeymoon (keep building links/content and don't be sad if you disappear in a few days back down the SERPs. You can gain it back quickly!)
c.) your content was stronger and your keyword/on-site SEO work was done proper
-
Social media plays a big part in getting noticed, crawled and indexed faster by Google, Bing and Yahoo. When launching a new website, try registering the main social networking channels (Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, LinkedIn) and complete user profiles, including the URL of your new website. If you regularly update each social media channel, connect with other users, and post relevant content, you may find that your new site gets indexed faster.
-
I launched a dental website a couple of months ago and within a month, we had incredible keyword rankings ahead of many of the competitors in the same town. We had a brand new url, brand new content and everything. So in this case, we seemed to rank well in a short amount of time. Our content was nothing special, but unique of course. I am still scratching my head to figure this one out!
-
ABSOLUTELY!
I'm so glad I'm not the only one. Lately I've re-launched a few penguined pages with new URLs so the 404 would rid the black-hat action. The keywords have slowly regenerated whereas in the past you'd see them have a big jump quickly and then start to fade back down (if your SEM campaign didn't keep up of course.)
Anyway I definitely have been seeing this lately. Good topic. Makes me feel better.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
My New blog has NO content since 2 months, the day it was launch, What to DO? Is it "DEAD"???
2 months ago, I publish a NEW blog, http://www.mervrating.org The blog has only 3 posts. I don't have much time to work on it. Does it HURT my SEO? Can I start working on it on regular basis and try to built authority or does it looks "dead" to search engine? I would like to bring it alive and give it a second chance, will it be hard if it has no content since the beginning? What is your opinions? Thank you, BigBlaze
Content Development | | BigBlaze2050 -
Google+ Authorship Penalties for Past Posts?
Our blog has recently been updated to allocate past posts from 2011 and on to link to one of our recent writers who just came on board in 2013. Our writer set up a new Google+ profile for our blog last month, and has tagged all of the past posts with his Google+ authorship code. Is there a possibility that this could actually hurt our writer's authorship authority and our blog's authority, since the blog posts and the Google+ profile activation dates will not match up?
Content Development | | eugeneku0 -
Google Blogger Vs. Sub Domain Blog - Authority building.
We are looking into offering blogs for our customers on their current sites that we have built & host for them. My developers have given me 2 options. 1. Sub domain with a hosted blog. 2. A Google Blogger blog with our customers sub-domain pointed to it. In my opinion I feel that a blog hosted on the sub domain is a better option as it is more authority then a Google Blogger blog. What does everyone think? Having a blog hosted on the subdomain would help with authority building vs. a Google Blogger site? Thanks for any help!
Content Development | | DCochrane0 -
Removing decent PA and PR pages?
I currently have some html pages that have camtasia videos demo-ing our products; however, these videos are WAY outdated and we no longer want to maintain them. The are only videos, no text at all is on the page. The pages have an average page authority of 40 and mR of 4. Should I just remove these pages or should I create a redirect to the homepage or product page? Or...? I have roughly 30 or 40 of these types of pages. Thanks for any help. Mike
Content Development | | Mike.Goracke0 -
FAQ page to target "long tail keywords".
I'm wondering if there is any benefit to creating a FAQ section on a website for the purpose of ranking for long tail keywords. If so, are there best practices in the way that the page is structured? Also, would doing this just help me rank the FAQ page for these terms or would it also help more critical pages on my website, such as homepage, contact, about, etc... which do not contain these keywords.
Content Development | | pharcydeabc0 -
Does Google penalize for duplicate blog posts?
Occasionally, I get asked by another blogger if they can repost (in full) one of our blog posts on their blog as a guest post. I've always been under the impression that Google penalizes this type of behavior, but I haven't seen any evidence. Is this true?
Content Development | | Event360300 -
Root page not coming up first
Hello. Any idea why site:www.bestprice.gr query doesn't bring the www.bestprice.gr as the first result? Could it be that the site is under a penalty? Thanks.
Content Development | | phaistonian0 -
Deleting a Wordpress Blog Page with no inbound links?
What are the concerns I should have in deleting a WordPress Page that is no longer relevant or a duplicate? Note: This would be a page that does not have any inbound links to it.
Content Development | | CMCD0