Most Important Reasons Why Your Website Rankings Are Not Stable

It’s all about rankings today, isn’t it?

And with good reasons. A high rank means higher visibility. Higher visibility means more people see you, they know who you are. This gives them the chance to hire your services, to buy some of your products. However, for whatever reason, your website seems to fluctuate, to have its rankings meander from level to level. Well, there is usually a good reason your rankings are all over the place, and it isn’t the capriciousness of the internet gods (though they are tricky). Now, it’s most likely a very legitimate reason.
The article below deals with just that. So, if you want to figure why your website rankings aren’t the best, read on.

Link audits

First things first – might there be a link audit in play? Before you start revamping and overhauling your website, check and see if you’re in the middle of a link audit.
Namely, SEO, the internet, this wonderful cornucopia of information at our fingertips is made manifest by links. They’re a pretty big deal. So, if there is an audit in play, it’s completely normal that your rankings are shifting. When you remove bad links, you get a boost in ratings. Sometimes you can end up with an accidentally removed high-quality link. In that case, you might see your rankings drop.
Basically, be aware when a link audit is happening, and act accordingly.

A serious algorithm update

Next, you might be in the middle of a serious Google algorithm update. Namely, Google might decide to change things up and to do so dramatically. All updates will be followed by fluctuations, simply because the rules have been slightly changed.
You might also notice that these changes last for some time, that they take ages to develop, or to set. So, because updated are usually rolled out in smaller waves over a span of days, or weeks, you can expect shifts to occur in such a time frame as well.

URL changes

A problem with URL changes is that they really do freak out Google’s spiders. Namely, it’s not like you just changed your name when you switch URLs. You are basically changing your address, and all of a sudden, Google’s algorithm see a new website with the exact same content as you had. Figuring out whether you are malicious or not might take a while, as it will actually get you back to where you were.

Search penalties

Then, keep an eye on search penalties. Now, this happens because of a couple of reasons. One, you are simply doing something wrong, and you somehow got away with it until now. Poor load speeds, keyword stuffing, and low-quality links – the works.
Of course, any strong SEO and marketing company will tell you that you need to practice due diligence and actually comb through your website from time to time. However, a penalty can also happen when Google decides to change the rules a bit, and punish you for behaviour that just a week ago was fine.
While this may sound unfair, it usually isn’t – you will notice not only a drop in your rankings but a drop in the rankings of your competitors as well.

Changes in content

You might have decided to change things up and are messing with your content. Bad links are like dead weight, they are keeping you down, keeping you low. Once you cut them off, once you delete it, you just might see your rankings surge upwards.
Or, perhaps the opposite is happening. Perhaps you had fantastic work and content until recently. Then, for whatever reason, you perhaps published things of questionable quality. Now your rankings are suffering.
Of course, perhaps the completion got stiffer, or you’re most powerful content just got disappeared. Whatever the case may be, we suggest you stay thorough and see what sorts of changes might have brought upon these fluctuations.

Radical shifts in trends

Surges in popularity might be a core factor in keeping your rankings where they are. If a topic you covered got serendipitously quite powerful, or if the opposite happened and some mediocre content become uber-popular, you might notice significant variations.
This might be because a certain brand or product hit the news, or perhaps a lot of influencers started talking about a specific beneficial item or product. You might have lucked out in the past and now reality is rearing its homely face, or perhaps you are just now in luck, so enjoy while it lasts.

A negative SEO attack

SEO is, of course, non-negotiable if you want high rankings. However, did you know that negative SEO attacks happen? These things do happen and are mostly tied to somebody bombing you and spamming you with negative links. Of course, Google will notice this is spam, after some time. Until then you might notice certain fluctuations and changes.

Conclusion

In the continual, long search for higher rankings, for pushing forward and moving on with conversions and boosts, we sometimes get frustrated. All our hard work, and still our rankings waiver, they morph like the shifting sands. So, it might be that your rankings are dropping because of your suffering from some Google penalties. Or perhaps the competition got stiffer. Perhaps Google is going through an update or issues that might, or might not be in your control.