Ranking jumping back and forth 350 at a time

[Randy Kirk]

Out of over 400 clients in the last 5 years, I have one site that constantly jumps around on keyword rankings. The website is Best NY Acting School | Acting Classes Starting Now | 212-877-2219 and the main keywords are acting classes nyc, acting schools nyc and all variations. I have consistently kept either his website or places listing in the top 10 for three or four variations of these keywords, but over the four years he has been a client, it is not uncommon for some of these to jump 350 ranking places one day and then back a few days later. In the last 8 weeks this jumping around has become even more pronounced. We have been pursuing a backlink effort which might be effecting things, but for the other sites that we are doing the same backlink effort, we are just seeing modest improvement.

Has anyone else seen this? One of my associates suggests that it might be a server issue or some kind of problem with the code on the page. Thoughts?

 

[Linda Buquet]

Randy you posted in general Local SEO and ranking. Rule of thumb, if general Q it goes in whichever appropriate general forum, but if specific client Q and link to their site, it should go in help and support.

I was GOING to leave this in the general thread if it looked like it was going to end up being more of a general ranking discussion.

But I found SOOOOO many problems with this listing I decided to move it to help since I'll be sharing all the issues I found. Busy now and still need to do more research but lots of issues on this one. Back when I can.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Sorry have 2 family health crisis today and no time to type a bunch, so sorry just going to blurt all this out without cushioning and explaining, due to lack of time. And need to do it now while I have all screens open to the research I was doing for you so don't need to start over later.

So business name I believe is KW stuffed. That does not appear to be the real name of the business. Plus there are 2 listings and I believe there should only be one.

Name on site: Acting School for Film and Television
Listing 1 Name: NY Acting School for Film and TV (this appears to be the school)
Listing 2 Name: The New York Acting School (this address appears to be the office)
(So neither appears correct.)

Maybe it's been edited in dash. But on the live listing the categories are heavily GEO stuffed.

#1 "Drama School,acting school in nyc,Acting Classes nyc,NY Acting School,acting school in new york"

#2 "Instruction,Acting School NY,New York School for Acting,Acting classes New York,Acting School in New York"

The KW and Geo stuffing titles and categories things above are major violations and the 1 biggest reasons listings get suspended.

Additionally I don't think there are 2 schools just a few blocks away are there? Is one more like an office?

Bottom line is both have violations, both are competiting for the same city and keywords and the locations are just a few blocks apart.

I bet these are partially merged in the back end. When listings merge the info morphs and changes constantly. One listing takes over, then the other, the data mishmashes. This or roving penalties at search time could possibly account for the wildly changing rankings.

 

[Randy Kirk]

Thanks Linda,

That is the name of the school, keyword stuffed though it may be. : /

The Broadway address does not have Geo info in the categories or description.

There is no evidence of and of his businesses being merged. He has several businesses.

The issue is not with Places as much, although it jumps somewhat more than I'm used to. The jumping around is the website, itself.

 

[Linda Buquet]

That is the name of the school, keyword stuffed though it may be. : /

The name on G+L is: "NY Acting School for Film and TV"
Only 14,000 Matches in Google

The banner on site is: "Acting School for Film and Television" (No NY and no TV)
106,000 Matches in Google (Name on site is normally correct and citations support this one as being the correct name.)

But a majority of citations are also for "The New York Acting School for Film and Television" 76,000 matches so still a lot more than the version of name that's on the G+ L page.

"The Broadway address does not have Geo info in the categories" Odd that the live listing still shows all the geo stuffed categories. Wonder when those were edited out.

So I'm just saying with the 2 listings sharing cats, being close by, similar names and the added KWs in the name, that would possibly not look to the algo like they are part of the name, there are things that could cause penaties at search time or ranking confusion.

When you have a big ranking change I'd compare where the ranking is at in AOL. That will tell you whether it's a pure organic ranking change or whether a penalty, merge or possible duplicate confusion or something on the Places side of the house is in effect.

BTW listings don't have to show signs of a merge to be merged on the back end and when they are, data often changes back and forth in unpredictable ways so can cause all kinds of weird problems.

Not saying there is not something affecting the organic ranking too. Just saying the organic fluctuations are hard to pinpoint and could be backlink related. But Places issues are pretty easy to spot, so wanted to at least mention them.

 

[Randy Kirk]

He's been a client for 2 years and all my cites are new york. Might have had earlier ones. I appreciate your insite and we will start the clean up. : )

 

[mborgelt]

Randy,

With what tool are you tracking these result? How often does this happen in a month period or in a 6 month period? And how long does it stay at the 350 range?