Ive been ranked in the top 10 of google for about 3 months now for a keyword which I have been constantly been working on up to about a month ago, now everyday it is in a different position for this keyword, why is google throwing it around so much?? 3rd on monday, 7th on tuesday, 5th on wednesday, 4th on thursday and today 3rd this morning now 5th!!! why isnt it staying in one position and updating once a week??
Google is using many different servers when indexing the sites. This means in this example that your site is indexed as #3 on first server, #4 on second server and #5 on the third one..
And ranking also differs in different countries according to search trends there and origin of web site
The fact is that the search engine bots are always updating their index and this happens frequently. It's a way for google to make sure that the search engine has the best and updated content available.
Sites moves up and down in the SERPs all the time. For new sites the jumps up and down are often larger.
It's because every time you use google you are connecting to a different data centre, try a search in all the data centres at once (you can google it)
In some ways this is a good method of searching. Having someone stuck at number one all of the time might not be fair, the google dance isn't that bad. But it can be frustrating when you're the one thats dropping
If you have quality backlinks and a lot if that - you shouldn't have much of a problem. Keep working on it.
They are really seriously inconsistent...the dance is so regular now I can watch my sites going up and down by the hour. The other thing to think about is...when you are searching for your site in the serps...what DC are you getting results from. There can be vast differences from one to another.