If you’ve ever spent time optimizing a website for search engines using search engine optimization (SEO), you’ve probably felt the pain of seeing your rankings plummet after an unexpected update . Even if you’ve never heard of SEO, chances are you’ve run the same search query multiple times and gotten strangely different results.
The goal of Google search (and other search engines) is to provide you with the best possible results on the web for a given query. So is it reasonable to think that the “best” possible website for your query changes regularly?
Maybe, but let’s take a deeper look at what makes search engine rankings so volatile.
The Basics: How Search Rankings Are Calculated
To understand why search rankings are volatile, you must first understand how search rankings are calculated. Google works a lot like other search engines, and is the dominant competitor in the search engine market, so we’ll use it as the main example.
Google begins by indexing websites and web pages. If the Internet is all the books ever written, the index is a kind of well-organized library, where the right book and the right page can be found with relative ease.
When a user enters a query, Google tries to provide the best possible results on search engine results pages (SERPs). To do this, it must provide results that are contextually relevant and reliable.
Contextually relevant content is chosen based on the type of content involved and its relation to the initial consultation. For example, if you search for something like “tech startups,” you’ll want to find actual tech startups or articles about them, rather than content about hot dog stands or water balloons. This seems obvious, but coding a machine to determine relevance is more complex than it seems.
To be trusted, a website must demonstrate that it is a reliable resource for others. The easiest way to do this is earn lots of high quality links from other trusted publishers; the number and quality of links you have will directly increase your authority, helping you rank higher. This is why so many brands depend on the outside link building services for SEO to increase their authority and climb the ranks.
With this understanding, why do search rankings change so frequently?
There are many explanations.
Search engine algorithm updates
First, you need to think about search engine algorithm updates. Google’s ranking algorithm isn’t a stagnant piece of code; it is something that evolves on a regular basis.
Throughout the first decade of Google’s existence, the algorithm went through some massive changes. Webmasters and content creators quickly tested the system, manipulating their content and spamming links as black hat tactics to improve their rankings. To combat this, Google refined its parameters for what it considered “quality” content. In the early 2010s, a series of major updates named after animals (panda, penguin, and hummingbird, to be exact) helped set better standards for content evaluation, evaluation of ‘links and query interpretation, respectively.
Since then, Google has introduced a large number of smaller but impactful updates. In fact, there were thousands of micro-updates in 2018 alone. Google is notoriously open about these updates and how they work; in fact, sometimes it denies having issued an update at all. However, through data analysis, search optimizers can find out the essence of the new update.
New updates can do a lot of things. They can fine-tune how Google evaluates content; if your best content suddenly doesn’t look as impressive, you can fall in the rankings. They can fine-tune how Google evaluates links; if any of your incoming links are deemed to be of higher or lower authority, it may affect the overall authority of your site. They can also change the way they analyze user queries, affecting your likelihood of being considered “relevant” to your customers. They may even add new features, change the look and feel of a SERP, or introduce new content entries that compete with yours.
Almost any change, even a minor one, can affect the overall landscape of search rankings. And because updates are so frequent, it’s only natural that search rankings change on a regular basis. Fortunately, most of the updates are small, and many of them only affect certain industries or types of sites, so it’s not a complete free-for-all.
Content updates
Search rankings also change because web content is changing. Remember, if you’re constantly updating your site with technical changes, new content, and new inbound links, chances are there are thousands, if not millions, of people like you doing the same things.
The Internet is a complex tapestry that is constantly changing. Every time someone enters a new search query, Google is forced to consider a whole new set of circumstances. Did a link from a new, high-authority source finally beat your competitor in terms of authority? Have you published a new blog post that is more interesting or relevant than previous content?
When combined with the high frequency of Google search algorithm updates, it’s clear why there are so many disruptions in search rankings.
Other factors to consider
Updates and new content aren’t the only factors to consider when it comes to search engine volatility, of course. There is also:
Personalization Google is increasingly focusing on personalizing its search results, using factors such as demographic information, location information and past searches to tailor its search results. Consequently, if you perform two identical searches at different times of day or in different locations, you may end up with strikingly different results.
Machine learning. Some of Google’s latest updates, including RankBrain, they have machine learning elements that help them “learn” and update automatically on their own. RankBrain, for example, is constantly learning how people search, so it can better understand the context of long-winded user queries. Google doesn’t manually push updates here, so it’s natural to be responsible for sudden and frequent changes, especially for long-tail keyword queries.
New features. Sometimes Google updates introduce new features that change the layout of the SERPs. For example, you may have noticed that Google often responds directly to your queries with “rich answers,” which help you forgo the need to click on a link to find the answer yourself.
Index updates. The index that Google uses to rank queries is also updated frequently. New content is not instantly added to the index; it usually takes time to be available.
How to reduce volatility
If you’re interested in higher search engine rankings, you’re probably interested in reducing volatility. Is there a way to keep your rankings more consistent?
The short answer is no. It is important to update your site regularly, adhering to new technology standards and introducing new content for your visitors, and these changes will only affect your ranking. Even if you kept it completely consistent, the sites you compete with would be adding new content and making changes daily, and Google would be constantly refining the way it considers and ranks search results.
That said, you can rest assured that Google’s motivations to provide users with the best possible online experience will remain consistent. As long as you make a genuine effort to improve user experiences and provide them with the content they want to see, you should be able to consistently increase your rankings.
The future of volatility in search rankings
Google has gone from introducing occasional major revisions to its search algorithm to releasing a steady stream of small tweaks as updates. Consequently, we can assume that Google is satisfied with the way its algorithm is working and the future will be mainly focused on making small incremental improvements. Volatility in the future will likely be less extreme, but more frequent; search rankings will constantly change, but major rises and falls will disappear.
Some volatility is a good thing for search engines because it means users get a more up-to-date and more accurate list of results. And with the current state of Google search and user expectations, volatility seems to be in a good place.
Nate Nead
Nate Nead is the CEO and managing member of Nead, LLC, a consulting firm that provides strategic advisory services in multiple disciplines, including finance, marketing, and software development. For over a decade, Nate had provided strategic guidance on M&A, capital acquisition, technology and marketing solutions for some of the best-known online brands. He and his team advise both Fortune 500 and SMB clients. The team is based in Seattle, Washington; El Paso, Texas and West Palm Beach, Florida.
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