If you have ever found yourself wondering why your site’s rankings have declined despite investing a lot of time and effort into updating meta tags, internal linking structures and keywords, you are not alone. In fact, everyone working on search engine optimisation (SEO) in any capacity, from small business owners to experienced professionals, has experienced rank transition.
What exactly is rank transition?
This is Google’s strategy to identify the techniques of spammers who are continually readjusting to secure a solid ranking position and deliberately catch them out. Rank transition does not permanently punish site or content modifications. Instead, it delays the effects those alterations will make to ensure that chasing rankings using manipulative strategies is not rewarded.
Spam Techniques Targeted by Rank Transition
When a spammer attempts to positively influence the ranking of a webpage using any combination of the following rank-modifying techniques, they will likely be perplexed by the subsequent effects on the ranking position of that page.
-Keyword stuffing: The process of repeatedly inserting a keyword to attempt to make the webpage appear more relevant.
-Tiny text: Inserting keywords within a page in extremely small text to make it appear more relevant to a variety of search queries.
-Invisible text: Attempting to enhance the relevancy of a webpage by integrating keywords where the text and page background are the same colour.
Google’s attempts to discourage underhand techniques have been welcomed by professional SEO services in London such as Elevate UK, who have been consistently practicing white hat techniques to improve the search visibility of their clients in an honest and proficient manner.
The Duration of Rank Transition
Google’s patent specifies that rankings may decrease for approximately 20 days and will settle on a steady position around 70 days after modifications have been made.
Ever since Google doubled down on its efforts to mitigate the effects of spamming and ranking manipulation, many SEO professionals have been constantly battling to understand the potential effects that strategies might have on websites in both the short and the long term. Good SEO takes time, and although it can be frustrating to have to wait several months to accurately determine the effects of any new alterations, it is difficult to deny that rank transition has had a positive impact on search results that has ultimately benefitted both search engine users and site owners.
