Decrease in KW rankings on Google

I had a 1st page ranking for a competitive word but we're now at the 4th page. Nothing has happened, except good SEO practices on our end (changing title tags, etc). Has this happened to anyone else recently?

 

how long have you been 1st for? It changes constantly, check back in a couple of days and you will be back at 1

 

I noticed that there are some periods of "testing" or something, I've had two instances where a website ranked like EXTREMELY well on a popular keyword, and then within a week it was back down to some lower pages. Like as if it was testing how it performed with high ranking.

Do you think this "testing phase" theory is true?

 

Perhaps you should consider undoing the title tag editing you did

 

The topic starter edited his title tag?

 

the title tags were all good SEO though. Before, sitewide, I had my URL as the title tag. Now, there are two specific keywords for each page.

 

I think this is something that happens when google is tweaking their algorithm.

 

If you haven't lost any good inbound links and you are not trying to spam or stuff keywords in the last changes done before the drop... which might be the reason, Then just give it some time to recover.
However and make sure to check your backlinks.

 

It's actually a norm when it comes to competitive niche so fluctuation in SERP can be expected hopping from one page to another.

 

My PR didn't increase but my site went from 3rd page to 1st page, 4th out of 10.

 

SERPs change all the time. In order to get a stable position in SERPs, you need to build backlinks. And how old is your site?

New sites have lot of fluctuation in SERPs.

 

continuously work on SEM work

 

It is normal. Maybe your competitor has made efforts and rank high.

 

Well it is a competitive keyword, so you have to do really well for that. maybe those people ranking behind your did much better in terms of SEO than your site.

 

can u give site url