Rankings Fluctuating

[robc]

I have an issue with a client's ranking on Google. On Google.co.uk, pages from the UK, they are ranked at no. 3 for their keyphrase (quickmovenow.com - phrase is 'buy my house'). The site has been ranked at no. 3 for the past 4 months.

We have also seen the site ranked at no. 3 on 'pages from the web'. However, over the past few months, this ranking has fluctuated - sometimes the site is at no. 3, other times it is not in the top 100. I have rankings for other sites which fluctuate between pages 1 and 2, but I've never had a ranking in the top 5 on Google one moment, then not in the top 100 the next.

Prior to Google changing its display, the site used to be at no. 3 for mispellings eg 'buy my hosue' on google.co.uk (pages from the web) so it's not as if the page has been removed for spam etc.

We've checked all the obvious things, we're not overdoing the links with this anchor text etc. Can anyone give any advice as to why the page ranks at no. 3 on pages from the UK, but often nowhere on pages from the web (and even occassionally showing at no. 3 then disappearing!).

[AussieWebmaster]

Google has been playing a lot lately but the move could be due to people moving in to the space, it is a competitive area so they could also be doing filtering and at l;east you end back up

[j0nyDzine]

I haven't paid attention to it in a bit, but when was the last time PR was updated.. have seen some of my big sites all shift a bit (in a positive direction at least).
Don't want to say it's related; More a curiousity on that...

[robc]

Thanks for your replies guys. This has been going on for about 3 months. The 1st page of results has been quite stable, apart from my client's site! It just seems very strange that it can be at no. 3 one moment & then totally gone the next - I could understand if it was knocked down to page 2 - at least I would have something to work from then.
Thanks

[JohnW]

Yeah every once in a while a site picks up this bouncing or yo-yo behavior. Theories are that it comes from a weakness (or OOP) in links, or, Google algo rotationally promoting a site to see if it deserves better rankings (they have a patent for this), or that the site is on the edge of some type of dynamic filter. I'm sure there are other notions as well.

What changes have been made to site or inbound links before this started?

[gobeyond]

Being at the top for 4 months isn't very long. So, ranking changes are common. It sounded like you have done the right thing to get the site to the top. Keep doing what you are doing and over time, you will see the rankings are stablized. I would not worry too much about short-term flucations.

The goal is to keep the site up there for the long run.

[Puneet Thakkar]

my sites are having huge changes in the rankings .... the keyword for which my sites used to rank on top 10 ... now are around 50 - 50 in Google :(

and yesterday night i saw some changes in pagerank too ... it seems pagerank update is going on :)

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

"Buy my house" ? I'm really surprised that around 10,000 people seem to search for this keyword phrase every month in the UK (according to the adwords tool). I don't understand why so many people would search for "buy MY house" (as opposed to "buy house", "buy a house", etc.).

Would be interested in hearing what I'm missing? lol Maybe it's a language thing (English not being my first language)? or is that what people in the housing market tend to search?

[JohnW]

desperate people do strange things ;-) please-oh-please buy my house....

[AussieWebmaster]

I wonder if my is a stop word?

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

What do you mean by stop word (not familiar with that expression)?

[AussieWebmaster]

terms like the and but - they do not use them in the search - small inconsequential words

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

Ah I see, so you were wondering if "buy my house" really just made google do a search for "buy house"(?)