We dropped 20 places!
We had dropped position on our second highest keyword by 20 places (on Google.com.au for Australian sites only)! Our drop was from number 1 (which we have held for over a year) to position 20. At first I thought “Oh no, what did we do wrong?”, but then I noticed other keywords had very little change.
Start the research
I started doing some research into the keyword and noticed that we were not the only one on this keyword to drop so many places; in fact, we had the smallest drop compared to other competitors, who dropped 30-40 places.
Who replaced us?
I reviewed who was placed in the top 19, and not one of our competitors was in the top 20. Every single site in the top 19 were “non-profit” sites or information-based sites with no sales funnels. Out of the top 5 results, 4 of the sites are .gov.au. Check it out for yourself.
Is this a new algorithm test or a hiccup?
In conclusion, the only thing that I can see is that Google has changed the way it ranks sites for “private health insurance.” It has clearly ranked sites that are informational more then “sales” orientated. Is this a sign of things to come? Should all SEOs be worried? Could this change be a push from Google to increase revenue via Adwords?
