Google’s John Mueller mentioned this week that experiencing “extreme” ranking fluctuations can be expected after publishing new content.
It’s not uncommon for these fluctuations to continue for one or two weeks post-publication.
This issue was discussed during a Google Webmaster Central office-hours session when a site owner posed the following inquiry:
”… a number of our visitors were requesting information on a topic, so last week we created a page dedicated to answering those questions. On Friday, upon completion, we launched it and submitted it through Search Console. Almost immediately, for a search concerning the long-tail term on that topic, we appeared at number 12 in the rankings… and then on Saturday, the page virtually disappeared from the index, making it untraceable.
Another page on our site, our index page, which is not even remotely related to the topic, shows up in the couple 100s in the rankings. We’re trying to figure out what kind of problem this could indicate, or where we should even look.”
Mueller said this scenario is “completely normal.”
When Google first indexes content, it must estimate its position in search results. Sometimes this estimation leads to overestimating or underestimating the new content’s rank.
In time, Google identifies the best ranking position for that content, which may take several weeks, during which the ranking can fluctuate before stabilizing.
Regarding new content, Mueller advises to anticipate significant ranking fluctuations, which might entail disappearing from rankings entirely only to reappear later.
You can find the relevant part of this discussion in the video below starting at the 3:48 mark. A complete transcript of Mueller’s response follows the video.
”That can be completely normal. The tricky part is when we encounter new content, whether on a new site or an existing one, we have to estimate where it’s most relevant to show it. At times, we estimate its ranking fairly high but, over time, that stabilizes.
So it might settle in a similar position, fluctuate for a while, and then stabilize, or it might eventually rank higher or lower.
Especially with brand new content, the rankings you observe will likely fluctuate a great deal. For instance — I’m just suggesting a timespan — a week or two until the rankings stabilize at a level deemed appropriate…
Though it might seem extreme, it is possible for something indexed to initially rank high, vanish for a few days, and then reappear at the same or a slightly different position.”
