Why has my business moved down Google’s ranks so much?

Author: Ryan Walsh
Date: 23/07/2026

Google ranking fluctuations (ranking flux) have always been a thing; however, Google seem to be rolling out updates much more regularly.

Now, from a business perspective, we get it: you might have put in major effort to shift your organic rankings up in order to increase sales.

However, when an organic traffic dip occurs, the fluctuations may well be wide-ranging over a huge range of keywords, and well, it’s stressful. We get it and naturally businesses will want to find a fix when Google ranking fluctuations occur.

However, as with any business-related problem, you need to fully understand the whole picture to make an accurate judgement on how to fix this problem.

So, let’s do just that; let’s look at what causes Google ranking fluctuations and then we will move on to some possible fixes.

First things first: why do Google’s organic rankings fluctuate so much?

Google rankings change sometimes like the weather. One moment your 1st place the very next day your 10th- so what is happening here?

Where a business is ranked on Google is sometimes described as where the business appears in the “organic SERP’s” or search engine results pages.

Now, your website could be static, no changes made for perhaps the last few years. Therefore you may find it odd when the organic rankings suddenly drop like a lead balloon.

This could be for a whole range of reasons, some of which we will come onto later on in this article.

 

However, here are some of the more common reasons for organic positions moving:

• Google is rolling out an algorithm update
• The website is being redesigned and undergoing substantial design and u.x changes
• Loss of external backlinks
• Website going offline for prolonged periods, for example website hosting issues

Let’s look at some of those reasons in more detail:

 

Google Algorithm Updates

Google is constantly fine-tuning and sometimes implementing large changes to its core algorithm.

This could be Google’s algorithm engineers working to fight spam. Alternatively, it could be because Google is readjusting the importance of its hundreds of various ranking factors.

You can think of these as a kind of “software update”.

It’s important to know that Google’s core algorithm is made up of many different ranking factors.

Some are deemed much more important than others; however, during an algorithm update, Google is rolling out or testing something new- this means links may get lowered in importance and replaced by say dwell times, which causes a major readjustment of where the businesses are ranked.

 

Google’s job is to serve the very best and most relevant answers/results

Google’s purpose is to supply quality answers to queries. Google, especially due to algorithm changes made by Google Hummingbird now means that the company can understand very complicated queries. Google is constantly always working on the quality of the answers it supplies. Whether that be by changes to Google’s AI, or the organic links.

Now, because Google sometimes has millions, if not billions, of answers and pages it can use, it’s constantly deciphering ways to surface the best and most relevant results.

This sometimes means Google reevaluating how it evaluates answers and how it ranks websites.

 

How should we, as a business, adapt and react during a Google algorithm update?

The thing is, you shouldn’t react and start making changes straight away. First things first, you need to understand and appreciate what the

Google update was targeting; sometimes that’s link spam, sometimes it’s websites with too many thin content pages.

Now, it often takes a while for SEO experts to understand the Google update and it has impacted companies.

Then often, various businesses and SEO websites often say for example, businesses with content thin websites, within the YMYL industries have been most greatly impacted.

For example, a major news site, such as Search Engine Land, and the great Barry Schwartz may release guidance on what that Google update was for.

Then, for example, if the guidance stipulates that content-thin websites, or websites with weak Google EEAT, were impacted, this allows you to plan. For example, you and the content marketing team may spot potentially hundreds of pages that are content-thin and could do with some improvement work on those pages.

Once new content marketing is added, that’s helpful to the shopper; this should improve the Google EEAT score.

As such, when Googlebot re-crawls and re-indexes the work, Google’s algorithm may then rank those improved pages higher.

Therefore, our best advice is when a Google algorithm update is rolling out do not to panic.
that when a Google algorithm update is rolling out, do not Don’t start making changes all over the place; instead, take your time and read the guidance from SEO experts such as from Barry Schwartz on what that Google update was for. Then look at your own website, be critical, and ask: Is this why we are now incurring lower organic rankings as a result of this?

 

Then make a plan to recover from the Google update.

Better answers

Sometimes a business will have offered the best possible answer and been ranked number 1 for some time for that keyword.

However, now the answers offered by some other businesses are deemed more comprehensive and helpful. This is how ranking losses begin: better-quality answers start to rank higher.

 

More helpful

Often there’s a physical store that many shoppers return to just because the customer service is really good and the staff are helpful.
This can be the same with content marketing; if the work is really helpful and well written, the page will normally have a higher Google EEAT score.

This means the page or website better demonstrates a higher level of expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. This means the page will be more helpful and dispense better-quality advice. This means that pages with higher Google EEAT scores do tend to rank higher in Google.

 

Google automatic or manual actions penalties

What a lot of businesses do not realise until it’s too late is that Google can issue manual action and algorithmic penalties. Some businesses keep pushing and pushing their organic SEO in the wrong direction, using methods which are not approved by Google.

This means that sooner or later, when highly spammy or manipulative SEO practices are used excessively, the business will incur a big fat Google penalty.

 

A Google penalty (Penguin & Panda for example) is something that shouldn’t be taken lightly by any business.

For example, if a business uses spammy or manipulative SEO practices, such as keyword stuffing or purchasing backlinks en masse, this can cause major SEO headaches.

 

A Google penalty can cause the following issues:

– Major drop in organic rankings
– Complete removal from Google’s index (De-indexed)
– Loss of sales
– Loss of visibility across a huge range of keywords

 

For example, if a business is subjected to a Google Manual Penalty, it means that a member of staff at Google has manually assessed the quality of the business’s search engine optimisation and then issued a Google penalty.
A Google penalty occurs if you flout Googles rules.

For example, they have link experts who can see that the business may have built a lot of spammy links. If a lot of spam links are built, using spammy anchor text and come from link farms, then can mean for example that a Google Penguin penalty is applied.

Google can therefore impose a manual action penalty, or sometimes they can apply an algorithmic penalty.

This means that the business website could be removed from Google’s index altogether sometimes in a process called “de-indexation”. You often receive notification of a Google manual action penalty within your business’s Google Search Console account.

Here are some of the ways businesses incur a Google algorithmic/manual action penalty

 

Purchasing backlinks

A lot of businesses that don’t have a clue about how to build links sometimes purchase backlinks.

However, a word to the wise: you shouldn’t purchase links. Backlinks need to be earned, by writing very high quality advice, such as what you are reading here, other businesses will then naturally link back to your websites domain. When you accumulate a lot of high DA links, naturally over a long period, this is what marketing agencies refer to as “having a strong backlink profile”.

As this is one of the most important Google ranking factors, its important to have strong links.

 

Keyword stuffing

Keyword stuffing has been a problem with businesses’ organic search engine optimisation for a very long period of time.
It’s been a major cause for so many businesses receiving a Google penalty. This can result in the business being “de-indexed” which basically means the business disappeared completely off Google’s organic results.

For example, a particular keyword might be used excessively in page titles, main body text and in the meta description, this can cause a penalty to be incurred, such as a Google Panda penalty.

Ever since the time of Google PageRank, businesses were stuffing too many keywords onto a page to try and get the page to rank higher (This doesn’t work!) . This can trigger, for example, an algorithmic penalty and therefore what we would encourage you to do, is to write naturally.

Dispense your advice in a writing style that’s similar to how you would have a conversation with a real customer stood right Infront of you.

Make the work helpful, yet also write it so that everyone can understand it. If you make the article too confusing and technical, the bounce rate will increase.

Cloaking (showing different versions of your site to different users)

Cloaking can be another old, fan-shioned, and outdated method of search engine optimisation.

Sneaky redirects

Redirects can sometimes be intended to deceive a shopper. For example, they may click on one meta title only to be taken to a completely different page.

Thin content

Now this, being “thin content” is perhaps the most common issue that our team sees as regular as clock-work. In our experience, thin content is often prevalent on e-commerce websites in particular because of the sheer volume of pages.

The reason is that writing product descriptions and helpful advice can take many months of work. Often, businesses haven’t got the time or the marketing budget to write helpful content en masse that will earn a high Google EEAT score. Therefore, sometimes pages are just, well content thin, they don’t offer much advice, and not much effort has been exerted to persuade the shopper into buying that item or service.

Therefore, sometimes they just cut corners or don’t add enough content marketing to the page.

This is what is deemed a “thin content page”, which is a page where there’s not much helpful advice added. The text is minimal and won’t be enough to help a shopper find and purchase the right product.

Competitor activity

Sometimes, a business will rank number 1 in its city for a really profitable keyword and the business and its owners can be reaping the benefits of that for some time.

That business may be ranked there because it has an extremely strong backlink profile or because the business simply really threw themselves at the wheel offering a plethora of content marketing that is super helpful.

However, nothing lasts forever, and competitors may overtake you if they publish better work that is simply a bit better quality.
For example, a competitor may build more links, offer better content marketing, and provide more helpful advice which simply gives them that SEO edge.

Simply put, it’s possible to be outworked by the competition; it will take great time and effort to overtake an established competitor, but it is possible.

Rank tracker tools

From our considerable experience as one of the area’s best and most modest SEO agencies, it’s perfectly normal for Google rankings to fluctuate from day to day. Often, businesses will see on various ranking tracking tools that, day to day, they have perhaps moved down the organic SERPs a bit and perhaps get a bit annoyed by that.

This is perfectly normal to move up and down a few organic places.

Which is why the leading digital marketing agencies often take a view of average organic rankings a month at a time. This gives the company a better understanding of where the business ranks over the longer term.

If there is a dramatic downward movement in the organic rankings, we encourage you to check whether there’s a Google update rolling out at the time. For that take a look at Search Engine Land. After you have done that, you should check whether there is a manual or algorithmic update rolling out.

Content marketing refresh

When we started writing this article, we mentioned that businesses that provide the best answers will rank higher on Google. What can sometimes happen is that a page will rank number 1 in Google’s organic rankings and businesses, well don’t keep their work updated.

However, if that page is not kept updated, well, it can quickly become outdated and stale.

Newer answers will therefore replace it. This means that the older answer will move down the ranks.

Competitor analysis (You have to keep an eye on the competition)

A key part of the SEO process is to benchmark where your business ranks in relation to your direct competitors.

However, this shouldn’t be a one-off process.

You should conduct a competitor analysis regularly. The reason is simple: you can often spot one or perhaps many competitors moving up the Google’s organic rankings quite quickly. This poses a threat, as at that pace they will overtake your business, pushing you down the organic ranks and perhaps grabbing your potential new leads and sales.

You can then gauge why that is; for example, perhaps their content marketing is really well written and high quality.

You then use this to influence your own business’s marketing strategy. For example, you might write better content marketing.

 

Frequently asked questions:

Can fluctuations in keyword rankings impact sales and overall organic traffic to my website?

The short answer to that is yes, most definitely. If you rank lower, even if your business just moves a few places down, this can severely impact organic traffic quantity. This then has a direct impact and correlation in terms of sales.

Let’s take, for example, a Google Core Update rolling out right now. This can mean that the keywords the business may rely on to bring in sales for various products may move down the organic ranks, sometimes substantially.

This can mean that sales will temporarily drop, or, if not recovered from, they may continue to decline. It also means that organic traffic will often be lower unless the organic rankings improve.

 

What should we do if a Google penalty causes Google ranking fluctuations?

If you think or know that a Google penalty has impacted your business, then the best thing to do is to contact a specialist penalty recovery agency.

For example, if you have received a link penalty, it’s best to work with an agency that has demonstrable experience with link penalty recoveries.

If the business has a lot of experience in this area, they will be able to help your business disavow toxic links and start to recover.

 

Final thoughts

Our final thoughts would be, we are one of the best agencies around so do give us a ring in order to improve your sales. Secondary to that, we would say that ranking flux is perfectly normally, however, if your business is suffering from a decline in organic rankings that is more prolonged, then action is needed.

You need one of the best agencies in the business to help you drum up more business, and therefore you need us.