I don’t know what Google calls it, but I call it the “Google bump”. That is when new pages soar straight to the top of the rankings. The problem is that a week or two later, they sink right back into oblivion.
I’ve been studying this effect for a couple of years now. I can repeat it consistently. Within a week, I can get a page ranked within, or near the top 10 for my targeted keyword phrase. Within two weeks of that page hitting the top ranking, it sinks back, sometimes several pages!
Check your expections, and scrutinize your SEO firm!
First of all, the reason for this post is to inform small business website owners to be aware of this pattern. An SEO firm can (if they know what they’re doing) get your page to quickly rank for a search phrase. The temptation is for them to send you this ranking report saying “look what we did… you’re #3 for [insert search phrase]!” The problem is that they don’t follow up two weeks later with “your page is now #89 for [search phrase]“.
So, just be informed that you will see quick results from optimization efforts, but those efforts will last about two weeks, then die off quickly. These are expected results… it just happens that way. But don’t let your SEO give you some hokie explanation for the up and down.
