I know I said I wasn’t going to post any SEO related posts, but this one has me scratching my head.
We have an SEO client who is obsessed with his rankings. OK so I know that describes about 55% of SEO clients. This client though checks his rankings manually using Google as often as a day trader checks a volatile stock.
For the most part he is ranked quite well, in the upper 3 sometimes down to 6. On local results he fluctuates between first and 12th.
When I check his analytics I can see that at least one person has visited his site almost 200 times in a one-month period. I have asked him to not check as frequently as it could skew the results.
Yesterday he emailed me in a panic that his site was now on the second and third pages of his results. I did a search and his main page and related articles were showing up third, 6, 8 and ninth. I had an associate check and she came up with slightly different results, but still not as bad as he was getting.
Then it occurred to me – I do not know 100% that this is accurate, but given what I know about Google and their desire to always show relevant results and to get you to click through on the results shown; this makes sense.
Every time he searches for his main keyword phrase and he doesn’t choose any of the results, Google thinks they have not given the most relevant results for the search for his main keyword phrase; so the next time he searches for his main keyword phrase they may deliver different results. As he keeps searching they may keep showing different results, with his company “dropping” in the results.
If there are any fellow SEO’s reading this, have you ever had anything similar happen to any of your clients?
