My SEO Journal: How I Have Achieved & Maintained Top Rankings - Part #10

• It’s All Up To Google’s Search Engine Ranking Algorithms •
• SEO Rankings Can Go Up … And They Can Go Down •

It’s been almost a month since I posted about rankings on my own sites, and after taking a look at some of the keyword phrases I’ve previously shared with you here, I am not jumping up and down for joy as to how there appears to be a little slippage going on in my Google rankings for a few of the keyword phrases used on one of my sites - www.The-Artistic-Garden.com  Grrrr …

But I have to practice what I preach to my clients about ranking fluctuations, and so I won’t really get alarmed about this current situation. I’ve been through this a few times over the past few years, and I will go through the “Google dance” many more times in years to come. It’s all part of the SEO ranking “game” (it’s really not a game, of course, but sometimes it feels like it is!).

If Top Rankings Fluctuate … Do You Sit Tight Or Start To Tweak Content, Your Tags, Or What?

This is the million dollar question: “To Tweak or Sit Tight?” through Google’s, or any other search engine’s redetermination, and lowering, of your keyword ranking positions. This is not a cut and dry question to answer. There can be one or more factors affecting a drop.

Very simply put, the major reasons seem to be:

• A Change in the Search Engine Ranking Algorithm:  you and I have no control over this situation!
• Loss of PageRank/Link Popularity:  did one or more high ranking sites yank a link pointing to your site off their site? (as but one example)
• Duplicate Content:  did you add a new page(s) that too closely mirrors the content in an exisitng page for the keyword phrase that has dropped?
• A Penalty has been Imposed Due to an Abuse of One Sort or Another:  black-hat SEO techniqes; keyword stuffing; invisible keyword focused text; link stuffing; to name a few
• Broken Links On A Key Navigation Page:  you need to always make sure internal and out-pointing links are all in working order on all the pages on your site
• Server Problems: too much downtime which would keep the spiders from being able to enter your site
• Or … the competition is finally beginning to out-rank you!

To be honest, I don’t think I’m dealing with any of the above reasons.
However … I do think I might  know what the trouble is. I think that my ranking drops are due to a bit of erratic site accessiblity that really wasn’t a server problem, nor was it due to a goof-up on my part. Let’s just say there was a bit of a bumpy ride for about 48 hours a few days back, and I think that might be the reason.

But now, on the technical side of things, all has returned to normal for The-Artistic-Garden.com and I will patiently sit back and see what happens. In this situation, I am NOT going to start frantically trying to rewrite Title tags or Description tags for the webpages/keyword phrases in question.

Yes, sometimes it is necessary to reword, or reposition the keyword phrase in the Title tag and/or Meta tags, and even to go back into the page of content and decide if you need to improve upon it in some way. Yes … sometimes competing websites for various reasons just start to stomp on your top rankings and thusly you may have to do a little freshing up of things in an SEO sense.

In addition, it may not just be keyword usage. You may have slipped due to other sites gaining more quality in-pointing links; they’ve added more quality pages of content; etc. Like I said, there are many different angles to consider when determining what is best to do if keyword rankings start to fluctuate.

But for now, I’m sitting back, taking a deep breath, and will wait a bit to see if my rankings go back to where they were before.