What is going on with Google?

Hey guys,
in february we optimized the onpage text of a client's specific page we knew it needs optimization. Shortly after that, the page jumped from Rank ~50 to Google page 2 for the main keyword. Now, something really weird happened a few weeks after.

My mobile ranktracker shows suddenly rank 35, but when I manually search the page on my phone, I can still find it on Page 2. PRT (Desktop) on the other hand still show page 2 rankings but if I search the page on my Desktop I don't find the german URL at all in the SERPS, but the english one on Rank 35.

There is also a very similar Keyword to the main kw with almost the same search volume, which was completely untouched and still ranks stable on page 2 for both Desktop and mobile SERPS. What could it be, that the page doesn't rank anymore for the main keyword but only in the desktop results? This seems to be no classic penalty, could it be just a bug?

It also has to be said, that we haven't built any new Links since new year or anything else, that could have triggered a penalty. We also never overoptimized anchors or tried anything too fishy like GSA or Sape. Is this propably a bug related to the random deindexing that happened to some sites since the recent updates?

The only thing that came to my mind was that I told the client to let the page fetch again in the search console, but tbh I have no idea what is happening here. I also wonder why the ranktrackers show exactly the opposite of what is happening.

It's tough to say since I don't know your niche. I can tell you two experiences of mine. Adult content and e-commerce are 80% of my bread and butter. For adult niche I had the simple answer from a Google source: until Google find a way to heavily monetize adult content, we just don't care about what you do or how coded your sites were. That's why black hat still work so fine.

Other niches? Mobile SERP and desktop SERP are different animals and you need to check your competition. Always, really... ALWAYS track your competitors. Make use of some metrics to determine changes. SILO works fine, spoofing KW searches also do the job.

I don't know if you rely on voice searching but you should. One of my clients websites climbed to #1 after having his business listed on local SEO when you ASK google directions to the nearest 247 open Dentist.

After all, does you competitors have gone up? Or you just have new players in town? Retrace your steps and you find the answer. Good luck

It is a Ticketshop with no adult content. I've also looked the domain up at Sistrix and it shows a Visibility rise of the whole site of almost 1.000%, I have never ever seen such random movements. I guess Google is heavily screwing the SERPS again.. I guess we'll have to wait and drink tea.

kleinerwauwau said:

It is a Ticketshop with no adult content. I've also looked the domain up at Sistrix and it shows a Visibility rise of the whole site of almost 1.000%, I have never ever seen such random movements. I guess Google is heavily screwing the SERPS again.. I guess we'll have to wait and drink tea.

Click to expand...

Might be a sandbox time. Indeed, some google results are laughable for a moment and one week later things look alright again.

The Domain and the subpage itself are over 10 years old or what do you mean by Sandbox?

kleinerwauwau said:

The Domain and the subpage itself are over 10 years old or what do you mean by Sandbox?

Click to expand...

When Google are fetching new content related to your keywords you might be lets say... Sandboxed. It happened to me but after two or three weeks things got back to normal. They are evaluating and comparing new, updated and older content.

Weird stuff? One of my sites skyrocketed after adding similar content to YouTube. It's a pretty simple video containing photos and footage from the store itself. Well, it worked.

But I'm getting aware that I'm having better results updating content than creating new ones.

A thanks for the insight, I've never experienced such weird movements yet. Let's wait and see what happens. I'm gonna update this thread, as soon as we or Google resolved the issue.

Google is more and more going in the direction of "Live results". Sooner or later such thing as "settled rankings" like we knew before won't exist anymore. If I update my serps right now it will show 20 alerts for some keywords, if I update it again 5 minutes later the same keywords will be in a different position again.

Its totally fucked up and broken or it is no coincidence and on purpose. Since a few months I see heavy changes in the algorithm. Its like a total mess. Within two months one of my money sites jumped to #1, one week later to #35, then one week later to #6, then back to #50, then to #1 etc. How to deal with this situation? I could go crazy or care less. Google was a great way to drive traffic by ranking websites, but these days it seems to get unreliable.

Right now we can already see how search results become "personalized". Check it by yourself: Search for a keyword in your normal browser and then do it again in the incognito mode. Very high chance of different results.

nakamura said:

Google is more and more going in the direction of "Live results". Sooner or later such thing as "settled rankings" like we knew before won't exist anymore. If I update my serps right now it will show 20 alerts for some keywords, if I update it again 5 minutes later the same keywords will be in a different position again.

Its totally fucked up and broken or it is no coincidence and on purpose. Since a few months I see heavy changes in the algorithm. Its like a total mess. Within two months one of my money sites jumped to #1, one week later to #35, then one week later to #6, then back to #50, then to #1 etc. How to deal with this situation? I could go crazy or care less. Google was a great way to drive traffic by ranking websites, but these days it seems to get unreliable.

Right now we can already see how search results become "personalized". Check it by yourself: Search for a keyword in your normal browser and then do it again in the incognito mode. Very high chance of different results.

Click to expand...

Sometimes the results are even different with 10 minutes in between two searches for the same KW in the same browser. Seems like they're testing sort of live indexing indeed. They aren't really good at it so far

nakamura said:

Google is more and more going in the direction of "Live results". Sooner or later such thing as "settled rankings" like we knew before won't exist anymore. If I update my serps right now it will show 20 alerts for some keywords, if I update it again 5 minutes later the same keywords will be in a different position again.

Its totally fucked up and broken or it is no coincidence and on purpose. Since a few months I see heavy changes in the algorithm. Its like a total mess. Within two months one of my money sites jumped to #1, one week later to #35, then one week later to #6, then back to #50, then to #1 etc. How to deal with this situation? I could go crazy or care less. Google was a great way to drive traffic by ranking websites, but these days it seems to get unreliable.

Right now we can already see how search results become "personalized". Check it by yourself: Search for a keyword in your normal browser and then do it again in the incognito mode. Very high chance of different results.

Click to expand...

One client of mine appears #7 for desktop searching. If I mobile search the same KW let's say... 2 KM away from his restaurant, he's #1. For business Local SEO looks like calling Uber. The nearest one will be dispatched for you.

Twitter are investing big money to compete with Google for the searching business. It's gonna be a curious battle.

You location affects the rankings you get on Google. Both for mobile and/or desktop.

Donald Kwame said:

You location affects the rankings you get on Google. Both for mobile and/or desktop.

Click to expand...

I've noticed. Even incognito and not logged on. Since I was talking to a friend of mine about car parts (using T-Mobile voice network not Internet) not Whatsapp, and my emails got flooded with car parts advertising... I'm scared. And no! I didn't search for car parts using internet.

Let's figure out?

Renfield-Files said:

I've noticed. Even incognito and not logged on. Since I was talking to a friend of mine about car parts (using T-Mobile voice network not Internet) not Whatsapp, and my emails got flooded with car parts advertising... I'm scared. And no! I didn't search for car parts using internet.

Let's figure out?

Click to expand...

If your phone android? If yes, the possiblity is there. My hunch. Not very sure though.

Even turning off, your phone can capture audio and images. Removing the battery is the only way. When your battery is about 0% in fact it's 20% still on, so parts of the software are kept 'alive' capturing location, audio and images.

Orwell was right! The awful part of this? The storage of all this content. Easy target even for wannabe hackers.

Renfield-Files said:

Even turning off, your phone can capture audio and images. Removing the battery is the only way. When your battery is about 0% in fact it's 20% still on, so parts of the software are kept 'alive' capturing location, audio and images.

Orwell was right! The awful part of this? The storage of all this content. Easy target even for wannabe hackers.

Click to expand...

Do you have prove for such statements? I know Google listens to everything when turned on, but even when the device is Off? Sounds scary man!

I'll try to pass you some links. It's scary, very scary. All in name of The Patrotic Act from Obama. All manufacturers are obliged to follow the rules or they cannot sell their products in USA. By default? All over the world except China, Russia, North Korea, Bahrein, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

Some politicians in Europe brags that they have information able to f*ck Merkel, Germany and Brussels because of Bank corruption that are putting lots of European countries on their knees. Future is dark my friends!