aletta
Posts: 3392
Joined: 09 Jul 06
Trust:
07 Oct 15 9:50 pm
Hey Caroline,
I haven't heard of any new Google algorithm updates.
How long had those pages been ranking well for those keywords? Had they held those rankings for months already? Or had they been steadily climbing up the rankings, and now they've dropped?
If they were holding steady at a particular position for months, and then they suddenly dropped a significant amount, I would be a bit worried.
If they'd just been climbing up the rankings steadily over the past few weeks or months, and suddenly they started falling... I think that's more normal.
I experienced this recently with one of my own sites. It was climbing and climbing and climbing, and then suddenly it fell.
I get the feeling that Google might "try out" different sites at different position, and watch how satisfied searchers seem to be with it. If a page gets good engagement and it seems like people are really enjoying it, then Google might let it stay in the good ranking position.
If people aren't interested in clicking on it, and they don't seem to find it useful when they DO click on it, Google might drop you back after they've given it a good chance.
In my case, I checked my meta description and it was terrible, and my click-thru rate was also terrible, so I'm guessing that Google saw that too and decided to drop me back.
Maybe this is what happened for your clients? Google "gave it a chance" but didn't like what they saw?
