Sudden drop in rankings

B

bay37

New member
Apr 5, 2009
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Heres the deal -

Around 3-4 days ago I decided to install Google Analytics on 6 out of many of my sites. Today all 6 sites dropped by about 5-30 positions in the SERPs.

Other websites - those that didn't have the tracking code on - stayed the same (all sites of +- same age, structure).

I don't normally believe in the whole "Google conspiracy" thing... but what the fuck? Seriously, what the fuck happened?

Has anyone else here had similar experience? Anyone ran any tests on the subject? I would love to hear your thoughts/results.

Thanks
 


What I think,

Google uses the analytic data to either promote or demote your rankings..Data such as how long people visit your site, revisits, CTR or whatever.. They determined your sites didn't deserve the rankings you previously held. I'm pretty sure I read a post a while back from someone who had the same thing happen and after they removed G Analytics the site shot up again.

Or let it ride out and see what happens..
 
Would be interesting to know exactly what they are looking for in the analytics data. I'm going to run a few tests on this over the next few weeks.
 
bay37 said:
I don't normally believe in the whole "Google conspiracy" thing...
Click to expand...

Start believing.

/cue x-files theme song.

But no, seriously. Beneficial or not, this is why I don't use G analytics. It's like saying "Hey, let's offer some MORE information to this colossal data mining corporation."
 
Bofu2U said:
bounce rate .... *cough*... take it off or improve your BR.
Click to expand...

Yeah I kinda figured its the bounce rate they didn't like. Don't see a way to improve it though, going to remove the code from all but 2 sites and see what happens next.

Motherfuckers.
 
I know that you can opt out from sharing Analytics data with Google (from inside the options panel). I simply removed the channels/tracking code from the sites. Now just have to wait and see if they start moving up again.

Back to building sites... :D
 
bay37 said:
Heres the deal -

Around 3-4 days ago I decided to install Google Analytics on 6 out of many of my sites. Today all 6 sites dropped by about 5-30 positions in the SERPs.
Click to expand...
Sloppily transparent of them.

If you believe the bounce rate theory, then all 6 of these sites all had the same bounce rate problem. There wasn't one site with a good bounce rate. Does that sound probable.

Are these sites all in the same niche?

Have you submitted a sitemap to google? Do you also have them hooked up to webmaster tools? Can they see everything, deep into its flesh.

What I don't understand is why the ranking would return if you take away analytics. Google is saying, we'll punish you while we have this data, but once we can no longer see data about your site, we'll reward you again....I guess they lose the ability to control their algo if they lose the specific peice of data triggering the drop...

Let us know the results of your tests.

Go with Mint, Mint: A Fresh Look at your Site until your site becomes awesome, then share your data again.
 
Four mini sites are back on page one as of today. The other two are climbing back up too, but a lot slower (1-2 positons a day). Nice.

Yeah they all had a relatively high starting bounce rate, which started to decrease as Google got more data. Different niches, same structure.

I guess that while they don't have access to Analytics data, the algo. uses a different approach to evaluate your sites. The drop in SERPS is probably temporary, unless the site is really fucked up. Its just another variable in the magic formula, whatever. I'm done with Analytics for now.
 
The GA team claims that they don't take your own personal bounce rate % into consideration when they rank your site. But if you have high bounce rate, people obviously don't want to read your shit anyways.
 
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