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Musical Chairs Un-Merry Go Round
Google has always been the ones calling the dance, but lately, I can’t even tell what tune is being played.
I get the feeling right now that for any site that wasn’t created as a covered wagon on the Internet is playing a game of musical chairs. We never know when the music will stop or where we will end up.
In the past two weeks, I’ve found myself on page 1 and on page 5 for the same search term within 5 minutes.
I’ve seen search results that have consistently been on page 1 for all this year now either at the bottom of page one, middle of page two or “NO WHERE TO BE FOUND”.
The covered wagon site always appear to be grandfathered in. They might bounce above or below the fold but their bungee cord is very short.
I have one search term for the lab where we were gaining every month till two weeks ago when we simply disappeared all together.
Google Top Search Way Back Machine
Google Webmaster tools top search queries added a way back machine feature which makes it easy to track where those keyword searches have landed. Great tool, but it still doesn’t explain or tell me how the musical chairs bungee jumping got started.
I’ve seen this a couple of times before, It was short lived and order was restored. I sometimes think it is a case of fix 1 thing break 10 others doing and then break 10 more trying to fix the previous 10, till it gets worked out.
Bungee cord is also known as shock cord. Hum! yep, I would say that pretty much what many of us are experiencing.
While this is going on we are being whipped about all over the place and find our statistics and search hits reflecting the wild ride we have been on at the Google Theme and Wild Gyrations Web Park.
Post Tags: google bungee shock cord , google gyrations , Google Theme and Wild Gyrations Web Park
Stumble it!
10 responses so far ↓
1 GO Zone Jeremy (6 comments.) // Jun 21, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Been reading a bunch of old posts on this blog today and I must say…you have knack for metaphors, lol.
My site http://www.gozonegateway.com has been bouncing all over the place lately…as I write this it’s #7 for the phrase GO Zone, but it was just #5 10 minutes ago!!
2 Ashley Drake Gephart (1 comments.) // Jun 21, 2008 at 11:31 pm
My website has been fine but my blog is going crazy as well. I thought it was just me. I don’t know what to expect anymore. I hope in the next week or so it straightens out. I am tired of the Google dance.
3 Dave Smith (491 comments.) // Jun 22, 2008 at 6:41 am
Interesting observation that it is only your blog that is moving around a lot lately.
I was wondering if it was just me which is why I wrote the post. Now you know we are all in the same game of musical chairs and bungee cords.
I too hope it ends soon and we end up back at the top of the bridge and not at the end of the cord.
4 Charles Woodall (1 comments.) // Jun 23, 2008 at 1:21 pm
I’ve been riding the bungee for about a month now. Before the middle of May, we were in first position for ‘Dothan real estate’ and ‘Dothan homes for sale’. We dropped to second page for one and off the charts for the other.
No rhyme or reason to it at all.
5 Laura Cannon (1 comments.) // Jun 23, 2008 at 9:07 pm
I’ve had the same problem. Thanks for your post! Now I know I’m not alone. And, yes, I am having the issue with my blog but not my website. It’s very strange.
6 Justin - Honolulu real estate (8 comments.) // Jun 25, 2008 at 1:58 pm
The movement that you see is because Google is serving results from numerous datacenters and they are testing different algorithms on different datacenters.
I am seeing the movement as well for several search terms that I follow. One of the new algos gives preference to newer content so blogs should be doing better on these datacenters.
7 Dave Smith (491 comments.) // Jun 25, 2008 at 2:34 pm
I’m familiar with different datacenters but that still doesn’t explain the wild differences.
If Google is testing different algorithms on different datacenter that might explain some of it. What is your source of information that Google is doing this?
“One of the new algos gives preference to newer content so blogs should be doing better on these datacenters”
Again, what is your source for this information I would like to be able to link to it for our other readers.
8 Ken Smith (18 comments.) // Jul 1, 2008 at 9:02 am
Dave don’t expect a source, because Google will never tell you what it is testing (as I am sure you already know).
I have been steady except for some major terms. The small terms all stay within 2 spots on any given day and never move to much, advantage of an older site. The major term has bounced between #3 and 18, that is way to much variance IMO.
9 James Wheelock (6 comments.) // Aug 10, 2008 at 11:15 pm
Hi,
I have noticed a crazy version of this for my new blog. I bounce back and forth from #9 and #156 for one of my keywords. Has anyone experienced the dramatic of a yo-yo?
10 Justin in Oahu (8 comments.) // Aug 11, 2008 at 11:54 am
@Dave - I am a professional search engine marketer for 7 years now. I have a group of peers that we bounce information off of. As Ken says, there is no source. We have several test sites that we use to base our conclusions from.
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