Is there a way to pull historical rankings for a keyword?
-
I have someone who's come to me and said that they have lost all of their organic keyword rankings. They did launch a site redesign a few months back so that could be a reason as to why. But after looking at the site, link profile, etc. It doesn't look like they could have been ranking for the terms they say they were. They have never implemented any SEO on their sites btw. I did not build this site and have not done any SEO, they are coming to me to solve the problem. I did notice in SEM rush that a couple months ago they were ranking organically for more terms (20 in July vs. 5 now), so they did lose some. Is there any way to see what terms they WERE ranking for?
-
SpyFu (paid version) can do this rather nicely. Not every keyword, but it can give you the Google rankings of a site against an assortment of keywords going back for at least a year. You can enter custom keywords and it will give you the data if it has it. It seems to not work on obscure, low volume keywords, which is to be expected. If it comes back empty, it means that either it doesn't have the data for that keyword, or the ranking was 51+. Don't use it for branded keywords, for example, if your company is ABC Enterprises and you check that keyword, it will likely come back empty. Don't assume ABC Enterprises did not rank for it's own name, but rather, that the search frequency is too low for SpyFu to include it in its automatic data collection process.
Google Webmaster Tools gives historical keyword data but it only goes back 90 days.
-
I use semrush for this. It can only go back a few months but does give you some incite.
-
Did you check their Google Webmaster tools in the Search Queries report? That should show you what terms were driving traffic
Otherwise check Analytics for organic keyword traffic and have a look at landing urls, you may be able to piece something together
-
Short answer, nope.
-
I don't know of a way to get that info. That's why sometime back I started a spreadsheet that tracks my ranking on certain keywords I think are important. I have a spreadsheet for brand based keywords and one for product category keywords. This way I check my ranking over time. I would recommend starting a spreadsheet and pulling the campaign keyword ranking reports each week from an SEOmoz campaign. They will keep some historical data as the campaign ages. I still pull them each week and add them to a spreadsheet just in case.
I know this doesn't help your current situation but will help prove that you are making progress. You could also see if they have historical keyword data in Google Analytics to see if they were getting visitors and/or sales on terms they claim they used to rank highly one.
-
I don't know of a good way to find this out after the fact.
What I would do in your situation is look at their Google Analytics (or whatever analytics package they have) and look at the organic traffic and see for yourself what type of change has happened in terms of traffic and associated organic keywords.
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
-
Google: What factors contribute to rank a landing page in a specific country?
Hi community, I would like to know what is the criteria to rank a landing page in specific country Google search. For example, if we want to rank our landing page for "GDPR Australia", what are the factors which will impact beside writing the cotent related to the above mentioned keyword? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Using Brand value for SEO: Can we use keyword with brand name?
Hi Moz community, I am curious to know this. Let's say there is a brand value for a company. It has it's own popularity that it's been mentioned across the internet and social media directly with brand name without their service or industry keyword. Now if the company started promoting themselves like keyword along with their brand name, will it help them to rank for that keyword. For example, Moz is already famous, now they want to rank for "SEO" and related keywords, so they started calling themselves on internet "Moz SEO"; will this fetch them in ranking for keyword SEO? My ultimate question is, using primary keyword along with brand name will work out in ranking for that primary keyword or not? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
A continuation drop in rankings
Hi All, We used to rank highly for the keyword 'Magazine Subscriptions' and after the past few months and have started to slowly go down the ranking. Recently we have spiked from #46 to #60 over the last few weeks. Anyone have any ideas on what could of caused this? Our website is: http://goo.gl/KnBkT9 We have kept updated the same as we have done with PRs, backlinks etc etc
Algorithm Updates | | DavidPatrick0 -
How much does a keyword focused domain matter today?
Is it still better to choose a keyword focused domain lets say over a branded domain in today's world? How much of a part does that have in the grand scheme of things?
Algorithm Updates | | HiddenPeak0 -
Keywords and meta tag discription
My meta tag description is the same on a lot of my pages www.okanaganbc.com It was done by the original designer. Should all of the meta descriptions and keywords be unique for each page?
Algorithm Updates | | Realtor1010 -
Why is map listing split this way ?
I am trying to figure out why map listings gets split up this way. Some people gets their maplisting to the right while the generic map listing block is down after a few organic listings . Didn't they at some point of time club orgainc + map together so only one shows up in SERPs ? q2Foz.png
Algorithm Updates | | Saijo.George0 -
Lesser visited, but highly ranked landing paged dropped in rank on Google. Time for a content update?
I noticed that my page one ranked landing pages that don't get a lot of love from me have dropped in rank big time on Google this week. This is a site that has static (meaning, I can't freshen up the content easily) landing pages for products that we sell. The pages that dropped are the ones that have the fewest inbound links, and don't get much attention on the social media side. Our most important landing pages have also dropped, but just a few spots on page one. This is a first for me. Does anyone think that this is a "lack of freshness" penalty? We are still number one on page one for our brand search terms. Would fresh content give me a shot at getting the pages back up? I'm willing to update them slowly, but before I go crazy, I'm reaching out to the pros here.
Algorithm Updates | | Ticket_King0 -
Very Erratic Ranking
Over the last month our ranking for "Web Design in Cumbria" has fluctuated from position 2 to position 10 a couple of times a week on Google UK.It tends to go to position 10 on a Friday but bounces back to position 2 on the Saturday. Then it goes back to 10 on Monday / Tuesday then back to 2 the next day. Does anyone have any idea why, cause it is confusing the hell out of us? Thanks Fraser
Algorithm Updates | | fraserhannah0