In one of the weekly chats that John Mueller, Google’s SEO expert, had with the webmaster community, one of the listeners asked why his website, which has been ranking well for more than seven years, had suffered a loss. Position on some of your keywords lately.
John Mueller explains that the main reasons a website loses positions is related to how fast the internet is changing
Mueller’s answer to this question was long and well-founded and explained various reasons that could have led to this loss of position. The answers are not a list of “SEO mistakes”, but rather problems that should be understood in context a particular website, although it is possible to extrapolate it to other websites to understand why positions are sometimes lost on Google even when things are done well.
Here are the reasons Müller offered to explain the loss of ranking on user pages:
-The first positions on Google are temporary: Many experts believe that once a page hits the top of Google, it will stay there forever. However, the internet is a very dynamic environment that changes with speed. Therefore, it is normal for the pages that occupy the first few positions to change from time to time.
-Internet changes: Following the thread of the previous point, everything on the Internet is constantly changing. And not just Google’s algorithms, which are regularly updated, but the practices as well, and the pages themselves too. Some pages will close and any links pointing to them will no longer be provided, or the competitor’s pages may have more links or generate better content, or come up with a new page that works better for all of those keywords.
-Google’s algorithm changes: Every time the Google algorithm is updated, the pages that occupy the first positions on the results page are changed drastically. This doesn’t have to be due to a change in ranking factors, but Google is changing the way you read and understand content. A few years ago, Google ranked list pages, today EAT and Core Web Vitals are given more consideration.
-Change user: The way users search Google is changing, as is the content they search. When a product becomes popular, all related searches increase, but when the trend stops, they decrease. When creating content, never forget about trends or seasonality, as these can affect the positioning of a page.
The importance of keeping pages up to date
Most of the pages that are consistently positioned in the top positions of Google do so because they keep updating their content, making technical improvements in terms of usability and navigability, and building good relationships with their readers.
It is not enough just to create content without interruption. You need to be aware of user and search trends to maintain your position on Google.
Here is the full video of Mueller’s explanation:
