Article Submission Review

Google Bounce? Or Keyword Maturity?

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Are you a victim of the “Google Bounce”? Maybe it’s just a case of keyword maturity (or lack thereof). This is not some official term that you are likely to find in Google documentation. For that matter, I don’t believe I’ve ever heard anyone else reference “keyword maturity”. But keyword maturity is a term we use to describe some of the behavioral patterns that you’re very likely to see in your SEO work. More important than what it is (or how I’ve defined it) is what it means to you and your SEO linkbuilding efforts. So let’s dive in…

NOTE: The term “Google Bounce” or “Google Dance” is used to refer to lots of scenarios because different people use it to describe different behaviors – there is no real definition because it’s just a phenomenon not something “official”. Another form of Google bounce occurs when your site suddenly sees one or various keywords all drop rankings overnight. We talk about that scenario in this post Article Submission – The Three Month Phenomenon.

To understand what I’m talking about when I refer to keyword maturity, let’s first define a scenario that we can relate to. Let’s say your site is about “dog training” (yes, I know, this is the most over-used example in the history of SEO) and that your primary keyword is “dog training”. Furthermore, let’s say that the site is about two years old and that you’ve been doing some SEO for that keyword for the past couple of years as well. Lastly, let’s say you want to branch out and enter into “obedience schools” as a keyword that you want to target for new SEO efforts.

Keyword maturity is simply a reference to how established a particular keyword is for your site. In the example above the keyword “dog training” would be considered to be a very mature keyword. You have significant history with it and the site and it will likely have very stable rankings (whether good, bad or average – they will likely be fairly consistent). The “obedience schools” keyword, however, is the opposite. It is a very new or immature keyword for your site and its rankings will follow a much different ebb and flow.

To illustrate this graphically, consider the following chart below:

DISCLAIMER: There are no “typical” results in SEO. If you’ve been following us for any length of time you’ll know that we are very consistent about that message. Your results will vary from niche to niche and from site to site. There are “trends” and there are “patterns” that repeat themselves, and to be good at SEO means to learn how to identify those trends and patterns, plan for them and take advantage of them. So don’t even think of sending us the emails of how your ranking chart doesn’t look like this, etc… This is an example of one keyword in one niche. For some the “immature” phase may be a very short period of time, for others longer – it will vary. Okay – ‘nuff said…

What you see in the chart above in the yellow area is that when a keyword is immature it bounces around a lot in the rankings. This is very common and, if you step back and think about it for a minute, makes perfect sense. You’ve introduced a new keyword and begun to link build to your site for it. Google, quite simply, just doesn’t know what to think about it yet and so it will bounce you around a lot. Don’t panic – this is a GOOD thing. If Google didn’t do this then your quest to get onto page #1 would be impossible. It is good that Google re-evaluates and takes notice. This can be a very nerve racking period of SEO because you can see wild swings in the rankings. From #18 to #127 overnight and then back to #23 four or five days later. You may even experience periods where the keyword drops from the rankings entirely. Now, we’ve seen lots of variations on this timeline, so don’t take this as a figure to be set in stone, but generally this “immature” phase will last from 45 to 90 days.

Help – I’m Bouncing All Over The Place

So, what do you do during this period? Just try not to obsess. Keep it simple and keep it consistent and realize that you don’t control Google. You just need to “go with the flow” for a bit. The important thing is not to make wild adjustments to your linkbuilding profile in this period. I may be a bit paranoid and I know that all of the rankings are programmatically determined (meaning no one is actually looking at them) but I tend to believe that Google is “testing” you on several fronts. First, it is testing to see if your site does or does not deserve the rankings and thus bounces you around to “observe”. But, we also know that Google is on the lookout for obvious signs of manipulation and I’m of the firm belief that the best thing you can do is just ignore the results and keep the linkbuilding consistent during this period. If, for example, you drop down 100 spots and you “panic” and stop link building, well, to me, that looks “odd” and sends a message to Google that perhaps this was all artificial. Or on the contrary if you make some radical shift and increase your linkbuilding 10x or something – same thing. Bottom line is just keep it simple, keep it consistent and take some comfort in the fact that this phase will end if you just stick with it.

Over time the “maturity” of your keyword increases and so does the consistency of the rankings. Now, in the chart above, there was sustained and consistent linkbuilding occurring for the particular keyword. Don’t just think you can blast at it with your favorite article submitter and then leave it be – SEO doesn’t work that way. For continued growth, you need continued effort – plain and simple. If you’re not getting the SEO results you want, well, then you have to do more (or do “better” – many times the problem is that you’re simply not getting much bang for your SEO buck).

Step Back and Reassess

After the immature phase, you want to first let your results settle in a bit and then reassess your SEO efforts. When they settle in, if you’ve already achieved the desired ranking – great. But more than likely, you’ll still be short of your goal and need to reassess your approach. The effort to get from page #10 to page #2 is usually far less than it is to get from page #2 to page #1 and many, many times less than the effort potentially required to get a top 3 ranking. This is not a linear process. In the beginning you will see quicker movements for less effort. This phenomenon discourages many DIY’ers and inexperienced SEO practitioners because they feel like they’re just not getting any reward for their effort. The problem is simply that the closer you get to that coveted #1 ranking, the more intense the competition becomes. It make take just as much effort to move from #8 to #5 as it took to move from #127 to #8 – again, this is not a linear model.

Don’t be discouraged by this fact, rather embrace it. It is good that the competition gets tougher because it serves to weed out those that aren’t committed to getting results. If you stay focused and determined in your SEO efforts you will, in time, achieve your goals. During this time, after the immature period is over and rankings have begun to settle in, consider mixing things up a bit. Don’t allow your SEO efforts to fall into a routine or pattern – constantly mix them up and change them so that you get links from fresh and diverse domains as well as diverse link types (see our post entitled Article Submission – The Three Month Phenomenon for more reasons about why you should be mixing up the SEO). Do something new – add a blog network like Linkvana into the mix, or go get yourself some profile links, or social bookmark links, or directory links – but do something different and mix it up. You should really be doing this all along to maintain a well balanced and diverse link building profile that will look more natural to the search engines.

Summary

By understanding some of the trends and patterns of SEO – like keyword maturity – you can begin to develop a more sound game plan and more realistic expectations as well. The first observation that you should be making is that SEO takes time. We see this so many times and it is the #1 reason for failure by all who endeavor to learn SEO – they expect overnight results. We see this pattern repeat itself every single day both with people who do their own SEO and with clients as well. That is why we turn down many clients in the site evaluation process because many have unrealistic expectations. Then on the DIY front – those who purchase tools to do their own SEO – the statistics are even worse.

The number of times that we’ve gotten an email like “I bought XYZ tool and I’ve been using it for 2 weeks now and I still don’t see any results” is incredible. Do yourself a favor, if you’re not going to commit to at least a 90 day evaluation period, don’t waste your money (on a tool or a service). That’s why SEO starts with education and understanding. Think about it this way, if it were that easy, wouldn’t everyone be an expert? Would you even want that? I know we are very pleased that SEO is tricky – we certainly don’t want everyone under the sun being our competitor overnight because it’s so easy… So step back a bit and take a deep breath before you dive in. SEO is very rewarding but it takes some patience and in this immature keyword phase patience is the theme that should dominate your outlook.

Let me know what you think with your comments……

 

Tags: google bounce, learning seo, seo advice