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
-
Single page verses multiple pages
I am working on a client website that has a Services section. Each service could have its own page. The problem is that some of the sections only have a 3 sentence paragraph. I am not sure if this is enough content to be considered quality. I am of course going to recommend that they revisit their copy and expand on what they do, but the question remains. Is it better to have one lengthy page of services or individual services/page even though the content is light? I know it would benefit from multiple if there was substantial content, but that is not the case in this instance. Thank you!
Content Development | | thinkseo0 -
Google Authorship and the "Fishkin" Outburst! Sorry Rand ;)
Should companies now shift away from creating great content and invest the time and money into something else? After Rand tweeted his frustration at @JohnMu in relation to "Authorship CTR's", it got me thinking - should we really be blogging as much as we should? https://twitter.com/randfish/status/481948721031024641 I'm certain Google ditched author profile images to improve "mobile UX" and "CTR's" for "paid advertisers". So what I would really like to know is - should small businesses continue to focus on developing great content? How has your marketing strategy changed?
Content Development | | GaryVictory1 -
Adding too many new pages at once - will it be seen as spammy
I have a database of around 10,000 business I want to list on my directory. My problem has been that my people have been adding to the database for over a year, but due to my hosting limitations adding them, caused my site to crash. I have now got this sorted, would going from 1,000 urls listed to over 11,000 may Google think I am trying to spam them. Would it be worth while dripping them in over time, or just adding them all at once. Any advice appreciated, Thanks
Content Development | | Andy-Halliday0 -
Does Google Dislike Slideshows?
I've noticed a recent drop in organic traffic and a slight dip in rankings. When I looked at who replaced us in the top spots, I noticed text heavy, in depth articles. We produce many articles in the slideshow format. Do you think this is the reason our rankings dropped?
Content Development | | TMI.com0 -
Pages and categories with the same name?
I manage a wordpress based site that is needing to under go a site architecture overhaul. the site is christ.org and one of the problems is it has 89 pages but really only 4 are navigatable (not a word apparently). The site also has over 400 posts so categories and parent pages are both definitely needed. One option is I convert a lot of the pages into posts, but would that happen to break any links pointing to those pages turned posts? Or another option is to keep the pages and posts and create a bunch of subpages, then I would most likely end up with similarly named categories and top level pages. I would guess the name of the category needs to be unique from page titles right? And not just unique but very much differentiated than any page title (not posts but page titles). Maybe what I need to do is convert the pages that are not really unique into posts and put them in the category it fits with. And then keep those that are unique as top level pages. The architecture needs some serious work I think 🙂 Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Content Development | | ThridHour0 -
Is it Possible for an Internal Page to Rank for Various Terms Based ONLY on Blogging Anchor Text?
Hi everyone, Our company provides about 6 different services, each with a specific page on our website: 1. Accept ACH Payments (/accept_ach_payments.html) 2. Client Management & Billing Software (/customer_management.html) 3. Small Business Merchant Accounts (/small_business_merchant_account.html) etc etc Now, here's the question. One of our blogging strategies is to write content about how our online platform can help various types of businesses manage and grow their business. "5 Ways Fitness Business Can...." "How Law Firms Can Benefit...." etc In these blog posts, we don't specify our product, but we do link back into one of those main service pages, so I might link fitness management software to the Client Management & Billing Software (/customer_management.html) page as well as legal billing software to the same client management page Since there are so many different companies that could use our software, we don't want to include them on the Cl_i_ent Management & Billing Software page. That page is just about the benefits of the system and how it works as a great CRM. So....to make a long question short, are we able to rank the Client Management page for "fitness management software" and "legal billing software" if we don't use those terms on the "client management" page itself, and only use it as the anchor text when linking? Instead of making a separate page about how we can be used as a fitness management platform, we'd like our "client management" page to rank for various terms like "fitness management software" "legal billing software" "online church donation software" etc BUT, we don't want to bloat the client management page will all those other topics and content. Hope that makes sense, Patrick
Content Development | | SmallBizSmarts0 -
New Link Tracker from My Blog Guest
Hi, Just come across this and thought I would share it, looks good from the outside but not yet signed up, going to though in the next hour or so. Anyway looks good - http://tracker.myblogguest.com/
Content Development | | activitysuper1 -
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