Hi I ranked for a very long time 1st place for a competitive search phrase on mobile and desktop All of a sudden about two weeks ago, we no longer rank 1st on Desktop but STILL rank 1st on Mobile It seems impossible given Google officially said they phased our desktop search results and mobile were the authority yet here we are mid way through 2021 where there are two completely different search results for the same phrase. What on earth am I supposed to do to get back my lost 1st place listing from a desktop search? Weirdly, Google webmaster tools says the URL is not in the index... yet it is when I search it direct. Then when looking at the URL via one of the other options in webmaster tools it says everything is fine and no issues. I requested a reindex, made no difference. Two weeks on, still #1 when searching from mobile Still no where when searching from desktop the page itself has nothing special about it that's mobile focused, literally just a single mobile responsive meta tag and that's it. Same content for rest of page. Any ideas????
Can you share the keyword that you are ranking in the first position for mobile devices? Sometimes you forget to change the URL setting or the region in your browser on desktop but on mobile devices, it is fixed by default. Maybe on desktop, you are checking your keyword on Google (.) com but you have optimized it for the .au domain (or the region you are targeting). Cross-check before check the ranking of that particular domain. Without checking the website I can't suggest you anything.
believe me I wish it were that simple it's multiple people checking it in multiple regions no special search or settings it doesn't matter regionalised or not as this particular phrase is multi region and doesn't have competitive local search rank 1st on mobile in multiple regions used to rank 1st for a long time on desktop now nothing anywhere at all on desktop for same keyphrase. It's not like it dropped ranking, its literally gone from the first ten pages of results plus+ still 1st on mobile it's as if something has gone wrong with the google index for desktop and the site has been unindexed for just this one page only for desktop I've read online that Google has had this sort of bug more and more common and is rolling out a report a search bug feature
If you aren't using verbatim search when checking with your browser, you are subject to influences of that browser's history.
thank you for that clarification, my listing shows first again if searching via verbatim results. I was unaware of what that did or that it even existed! which now leads me to wonder, why was I not showing 1st for my own personalised and suggested results? (in fact not showing at all!) isn't that strange that for me as the website owner, Google completely hides my website? and how does that work for everyone else? if everyone has personalised suggested results, how can I ensure I rank for them if Google is hiding my website like this. Obviously the average search user isn't searching in verbatim mode. Much appreciate your advice
It's a very complicated algorithm and virtually no one knows about it - even a lot of SEO professionals. And there are so many posts related to it here, I normally don't even mention it. People are quick to dismiss the possibility. But if you are going around and looking at competitive websites with your browser, Google is going to lower your ranking for your own website when searching with ALL Results. Everyone gets a slightly different search, so all we can do is do our best to rank in verbatim results. You are chasing your tail if trying to rank using your Google History.
Google has confirmed it's aware of a bug that's causing search results to not fully render for some people.