Strange reverse movement on high-competition keyword.. wtf

I've taken a client with a high competition keyword all the way from 200+ up to 14 in G over the past three months... but over the last week it has actually begun slowly slipping one spot at a time every day or two, and is now down at 18 in G.

The odd thing is that I have consistently turned the link velocity up on this particular keyword as it progressed and an in fact still blasting away. Oddly enough it's still gaining in Bing and Yahoo, but quite the opposite in G.

So could this be that my link variety is becoming too narrow? As I have been using more or less Senuke and one other key program for most the MS linking?

Or is a week of slight losses normal before a jump to the first page on high-competition keywords?

14-18 is no great drop IMO.. And the answer also lies in your question. Without link diversity, your velocity can work against you. Add a few quality links to let the ranking stand.

It really depends on a ton of factors, but I am sure you already know that. Hrmm Senuke and one other program. About how many links are you building a week to this site?

It could be just a small dance, but without more info it will be difficult to say. I would concentrate on getting more variety of links. In particular, I would look to add wiki links and edu/gov links. I experienced a similar problem a while back, and when I started going after wiki and edu/gov links it did wonders to stabilize my SERPS

I might be wrong but i thought movement was normal, most my keywords move up and down constantly, ive just been hit for my main term. I dropped from 10th to 12th and now to 15th in a few days, i'm hoping to see move back up again any day

Maybe yr competitors are building more/better backlinks then you. You should add some high PR links. For me senuke blasts lead to a lot of dancing

sixalarm said:

It really depends on a ton of factors, but I am sure you already know that. Hrmm Senuke and one other program. About how many links are you building a week to this site?

It could be just a small dance, but without more info it will be difficult to say. I would concentrate on getting more variety of links. In particular, I would look to add wiki links and edu/gov links. I experienced a similar problem a while back, and when I started going after wiki and edu/gov links it did wonders to stabilize my SERPS

Click to expand...

Ummm, probably only a hundred to 200 directly to the MS a week... but those are well-spun articles mostly. The 2nd, 3rd, and 4th tier links number well into the thousands I'm sure... but as you can see I'm working a pyramid strategy, so that's nothing unusual.

I have a wikibot, but haven't had time to get it up and running yet. I think I'll do that this week, and look into some .edu links... though the only ones I have easy access to now are BC's But maybe a few wouldn't hurt.

It's not a high-competition keyword if you could rank in the top 100 with just SEnuke
I would suggest actually doing some SEO for a change.

thats not even much change to worry... just give it more time.

I always take any movement from G to be a good sign, as long as the site is legit and you are not going crazy with the nukes you should be fine but it never hurts to change up keywords and link diversity