Rank Monitoring Experiment: Unfavorable Queries

Do unfavorable queries have affect on rankings of a web site? I made a decision to run a check and examine if rank monitoring for a phrase like [generic keyword] -[brand] would affect the rankings of stated model within the [generic keyword] SERPs. If this looks like I’m leaping forward of myself a bit, I’ll clarify:

• relying on how rank monitoring is applied, it might or will not be perceived as precise human customers trying to find a key phrase;
• it has been speculated earlier than that rank monitoring instruments can affect a key phrase’s reported search volumes;
• prior to now I’ve run campaigns with the aim of adjusting the search options by way of, amongst different issues, inflating the search quantity of a desired suggestion with automated instruments posing as human consumer brokers – no, Google can’t inform the distinction;
• I’m not the one one who has achieved this – infact again within the day at the very least one search engine marketing has been instructed by Matt Cutts to chop down the MTurk actions;
• for the sake of avoiding pointless publicity, I’m not revealing the question or the model concerned on this experiment – I’ll simply consult with them as and [brand].

Conditions: I picked a mid-tail, industrial intent key phrase the place model X has been traditionally rating on the primary web page fairly stably. I arrange rank monitoring for 2 queries:

2. -[brand]

Here’s what I noticed:

The highest 100 for (white areas stand for proxy bans):

The highest 10 for – discover the overall variance:

[brand] web site rankings for through the experiment – the bottom level is moused over for readability:

The highest 100 for -[brand] – discover the larger variance in particular person URLs’ rankings:

The highest 10 for -[brand] – discover how the overall variance differs from that of the highest 10 for :

After some time, the unfavorable question monitoring was stopped  – beneath are the model web site’s rankings for over the interval when no unfavorable queries had been tracked:

What to make out of all of it: I can’t 100% verify that operating unfavorable queries impacts a web site’s rankings. It is a pattern of 1 question in a single SERP over a restricted time frame so most likely statistically ineffective. The model web site’s drop to No. 5 at one level may very well be influenced by my experiment, or it may very well be only a random fluctuation. The extra secure graph of the model web site’s rankings exterior of the experiment can show both level. Nevertheless, what we can’t ignore is a a lot larger variance of the URLs within the SERPs for unfavorable queries than for normal queries – it’s virtually as if Google, if instructed to serve up the outcomes for the question however not the one end result it has all the time thought belongs there, does probably not know what to serve up.

Be happy to share your ideas beneath within the feedback.