I give up with Google... what am I missing?

General
22

@Tivah
I just published two new posts. I agree with you; things feel unpredictable right now. By the way, I like how you write!

23

Bram said:
@Tivah
I just published two new posts. I agree with you; things feel unpredictable right now. By the way, I like how you write!

Thanks! And yeah, new posts are different. Don’t check them daily. Depending on the competition, it might take time for your new content to rank.

24

@Tivah
I’ve noticed Google seems to favor content based on location. Do you think that helps with ranking? It seems different from things like backlinks.

25

Tivah said:
When did you make the update?

Just two days ago.

26

BillSmith said:

Tivah said:
When did you make the update?

Just two days ago.

You might just be in the middle of a Google dance. Google likes to test rankings.

27

BillSmith said:

Tivah said:
When did you make the update?

Just two days ago.

It’s too soon to say what’s going on.

28

Tivah said:

BillSmith said:
Tivah said:
When did you make the update?

Just two days ago.

It’s too soon to say what’s going on.

Two days? That’s barely enough time for anything to settle down.

29

Tivah said:

BillSmith said:
Tivah said:
When did you make the update?

Just two days ago.

It’s too soon to say what’s going on.

Too early? Alright, I guess I’ll wait until next year then.

30

@BillSmith
Haha, nice bit of sarcasm there.

31

BillSmith said:

Tivah said:
When did you make the update?

Just two days ago.

It’s definitely too early. Give it a few more days to see where things land.

32

For me, Bing gave me #1, but then de-indexed my whole site a week later. I have no idea why.

33

Did you change your Page Title or URL? Changing the Page Title could definitely affect your ranking.

When did Google last index your page? What’s your click-through rate? Did a different page start showing up in the rankings too?

If you added new content, did it include changes to H-tags? Did you alter any other part of the page’s index?

Lots of questions here, but these are worth checking.

34

@SHANIA
I didn’t change any of that. Just updated a few dead links.

35

BillSmith said:
@SHANIA
I didn’t change any of that. Just updated a few dead links.

What’s your click-through rate?

36

Just undo the changes and resubmit through Search Console. It’ll come back.

37

Don’t worry, it will come back.

38

This happens a lot when you update pages. Especially with newer sites. It should come back eventually.

39

Did you resubmit your sitemap on Search Console? Did you set up redirects for those broken links?

40

I don’t have time to deal with this stuff anymore. I’ll just hire an SEO expert. I want to make content that people enjoy, but Google keeps getting in the way.

41

Maybe it’s time for a search engine that only serves smaller publishers.