Anti-Guru Talk - The Reality VS What The Sales Pages Say.

Hey, it's Tim here! :)

Most experienced Wealthy Affiliate members know this, of course.

And most beginners might know this theoretically... But haven't seen it or really experienced it in practice yet:

The Waiting Game AFTER You Published Your Review/Content...

Let's take a quick look at this screenshot, taken from the Google Search Console:

(If this is too small, here's the screenshot in original size: https://ibb.co/FzrVbfG)

The green line marks the date (2021-05-20) when I published a new review on one of my websites...

The first blue arrow marks the date (2021-05-25) when Google indexed the new content for the first time.

And the second blue arrow marks the 1st of this month. (2021-09-01)

A Few More Facts

The website is just over 3 years old, there are no known issues or "punishments" from the search engines, and the website is obviously not in the "Google sandbox" anymore.

Furthermore, it ranks for several articles and reviews, and new content is added and published frequently. (at least once per week)

This new piece of content was - since the 20th of May - not changed or touched at all.

What Can We See Here?

1) For over 3 months really nothing happened.

2) The content was not ranking on the first page of Google for the first 3.5 months.

3) Even on the 1st of this month (over 3 months after publishing the content) the review had - according to Google Search Console - a whopping 5 impressions. (an no clicks)

4) The vast majority of all 1,750+ impressions (and all clicks - not shown here) happened within the last three weeks, 4 months after the content was published initially.

What Can We Learn From This?

Simple: The first few months after publishing a review for an established or evergreen product (for which a few reviews already existed) are dominated by "The Google Dance".

During that time it seems as if nothing happens.

This is normal!

Your stats all show zero or near-zero impressions and clicks.

Your "current avg rankings" are all over the place, jumping and dancing around.

That's Google's way of trying to find out where your review or really any new piece of content belongs.

That's totally normal.

What Should I Do During This Waiting Game?

Two things:

1) Don't check your (page) stats every day. There's really nothing to gain by watching your stats during that time...

Instead:

2) Move on to create and publish the next piece of content.

That's really the best use of your time, especially during this "Google Dance" phase.

Don't try to "improve" your content during this phase! Why?

You simply can't say with certainty where your new piece of content will end up ranking.

That's why the "best use of your time" is focusing on the creation of new content.

Thanks for reading, I hope this helps a few new folks!

Stay awesome,

Tim