A couple weeks ago I probably experienced whats called the Google Dance since the rankings for my major 2 keywords suddenly went from 3rd and 7th to 8th and 28th and then slowly went back to their original ranking in the following weeks. Last 3-4 days my ranking for Yahoo, Live and Msn went all down and I was wondering if there was something known as Yahoo, Live, Msn Dance that would be similar to Google Dance? Is this something that happens often to all of you or should I worry about it ? Thanks! Vincent
Rankings tend to bounce around. I track my 'money' keyword phrases - about 150 phrases - by pulling their rankings once per week. I then have a separate list of about 50 keywords whose rankings I am actively working on (through on-page, on-site, and off-site SEO) which I also pull once per week. If you're looking at your rankings more often than once per week then I think you're wasting time and causing yourself unnecessary stress LOL. Even pulling them weekly is like watching grass grow sometimes. I don't worry about drops unless they are big... and they don't recover in a couple weeks. The engines have different data centers... Google had like 22 data centers a while back. They are frequently testing new algorithms on random servers... the indexes themselves are frequently out of sync. You can sometimes get widely varying results depending on which data center you get directed to. I would just keep an eye on them. If they don't bounce back in a couple weeks then I'd get concerned and start digging.
You're probably right I'm looking at them way too often given that there's too many variables that can make those swings happen. Thanks
first things first.. are you still updating your site.. link building or any changes? it might be the reasons of changes on your rankings..