Google going up and down

[christopher]

Since perhaps last November our average position for google keywords had been hugely more variable than previously. We have panicked when we've seen our best keywords plummet, only to see others rise to the top, and then a few days later its reversed again.
E.G. We used to consistently be no. 3 for "cat gifts" and "gifts for cat lovers" it just never varied. Now we can go down to 20, and up the next day to 3. Whilst other keywords seem to go the other way and counter-balance this.
I'm not sure if it's something I've done - or just a different google behaviour. Any thoughts?

Chris

gifts for cat lovers

[Flowers]

Hi Chris

We bounce around a bit, not so much for our main search terms (eg order flowers, send flowers) but our category based keywords certainly do hop around, similar to you we can be 2 or 3 for weeks on end, then plummet to the 30's for a few days, then back up again, usually a bit lower than a peak position but then we edge up and up until this process repeats itself.

From what I understand (and this is purely our layman understanding) is that google shuffle the results around and test clickthroughs, bounces, time on site etc and see who should be where based on whatever algorithim they use to ascertain if the customer is being delivered what they were looking for.

Generally this means that we go back to where we were because we merit being there and the customer does whatever google is looking for as a signal that that page is doing it's job correctly.

The only time I don't feel this is correct is when a brand dominates all the search terms whether they are relevant or not where they seem to get too much weight.

It can give you an indication on where to improve though, if you have the reverse of this happening where you'll go up for a short time then spend a lot of time lower, then that page could maybe do with a tweak to try and hold onto that higher position maybe?