One SEO professional asked John Mueller about why some of his pages are being hit in the rankings.
So their question is: what happens if they are at position 8, 10, or 12, and suddenly they disappear from the search results?
Is it really the case that Google is trying to understand the overall quality of the website? Or could there be some other technical issues?
When the pages are live, and they are in the SERPs, when they get indexed, they are at the eight position, or they are very close to the first page of Google. And suddenly they seem to drop out from the SERPs.
Is Google really treating this as a quality issue?
John explained that he doesn’t believe that, in this situation, there is anything specific that would cause rankings to change like that.
This is usually a very natural situation.
It’s possible that, over time, things go up, and then they can also go down. It’s also possible that pages drop out of the index and new pages come into the index. And even the rate at which pages come into the index and drop out of the index may change over time.
However, just because this happens for some pages, John would not necessarily see this as a sign that it must be a quality or a technical issue.
This happens at approximately the 00:35 mark in the video.
John Mueller Hangout Transcript
SEO Professional 1 0:35
Hi, John. Hi. So my question is related to the pages, which are [inaudible] ranked at 8 or 10 or 12, and suddenly they disappeared from the SERP. So is it really like Google is still trying to understand the overall website quality, or there could be some other technical issues because when the pages are live, they are in the SERP, when they get indexed, they are placed at like 8 position 10 or 12, or 15. So being at very close, or near to the first page, and suddenly dropping out from the SERP. How does Google take it like, is it more kind of the quality issues that Google feel, or there could be some other technical issues?
John 1:24
I don’t think there’s anything specific that would cause rankings to change like that. So that usually is something which is quite natural. And that’s sometimes overtime, things go up, and then they can also go down. It can also happen that pages drop out of the index and new pages come into the index. I don’t know, this might change over time, that’s kind of expected. So I I wouldn’t say it’s, it’s indicative of a quality issue or a technical issue. Of course, like quality and technical issues can cause that too. But just because this happens for some pages, I wouldn’t necessarily see that as a sign that it must be a quality or a technical issue.
SEO Professional 1 2:17
However, it is mostly related to 99% of all pages. So, all of my pages, they suddenly get ranked somewhere closer to the first page and suddenly they disappear. Like they could be there for one or two days, and then they disappear. So is it more related to the website quality issues that Google is still trying to figure out whether this website is built correct to show to the users or, or still there could be like some more kind of like technical issues, or maybe some JavaScript issues, because we are using React as a server-side rendering. So even that would cause something related to that?
John 2:56
I mean, if you’re using server side rendering, then the JavaScript wouldn’t be playing a role there, because we would just see the HTML version. If it were technical issues, usually, that would be pretty clear in Search Console. And that, like those pages returned a 404, or no index or something like that. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s really impossible to say, in general for a website, but like, for most websites, it’s pretty normal that some pages kind of get indexed, and show up in search results. And then at some point, they drop out again, and things kind of shuffle around a little bit over time. It’s not, it shouldn’t be the case, like everything is indexed, and then everything disappears. If it’s really the whole website, then that would sound more like a bigger issue. But the general, like light fluctuations across search are kind of expected.
