Has anyone else noticed peculiar changes. I checked one keyword that has a high search volume and found all the top ten results have been altered. Several new pages moved in including ebay and amazon.

Changes in the search results is the nature of search engines, and of the internet.

Agreed. Hopefully, things are slowly leaving the old link exchange and spammer era and entering a new time where these people get punished

SERPs change constantly.
SERPs change by datacenter queried.
SERPs change by personalization.

The question is...why are you wasting your time rank checking when you could be doing something useful? And don't say it's because if you rank, you get traffic...that's parrot logic.

Before you stress out, That is If one of the top listings were yours for the terms you researched & based this question on that is, and not unrelated pointless terms that wouldn't help you at all. You need to take into account that Search Engine algorithms change - it seems to be the only way to properly adapt & regulate as industries them self change -

Besides the mathematical algorithms receiving additional factors to be calculated in the overall equation, also keep in mind that websites / campaigns change daily, you may even notice them change every few minutes in some cases for the following:

• Targeted Inbound linking strategies (Utilizing Anchors)
• Organic Inbound Linking (Natural)
• Rich quality Content density relevance to the keywords

In a Non-competitive world where you are the only one in your field, sure you can stay in top spots for eternity. However in reality competition is dog eat dog; hypothetically: while yesterday you had 5 pages of quality content / 150 Organic inbounds / & 1,500 Strategic inbounds --- TODAY --- your main competitor just updated with 9 pages of quality content / 320 Organic inbounds / 2,300 Strategic inbounds.... I'm sure you can see why the competitor would bump you out of your spot just using these 3 minimal factors in an overall mathematical equation.

Do i think you should never check your Ranking Stats (I am NOT referring to Google PR, thats Not an accurate metric measurement tool) & Only focus on the campaigns at hand? No, while I do think that you should focus on your campaigns as a primary, I also think that Stats checking is a key mathematical element providing Viable information as to your Weak Vs. Strong Points, Unsuccessful Vs. Successful campaigns, Traffic Vs. Conversion %, etc......

I must add that being a catch all is not a wise choice, focus more on what YOU do best & hire somebody else to do what THEY do best for you. This allows you more targeted efforts to aid in your future growth / expansion potentials. The more thin you spread yourself, the more bad Public Relations that can slip through. Once you get a large amount of Bad PR-Public Relations, its hard to redeem yourself & become a viable source again in the eyes of the consumer.

The sites that have good content will ALWAYS float, SERPS or natural traffic, are the ones with great content. Focus on creating the best content available in your niche and you won't have to worry about algo changes.

Originally Posted by 3pointRoss

The sites that have good content will ALWAYS float, SERPS or natural traffic, are the ones with great content. Focus on creating the best content available in your niche and you won't have to worry about algo changes.

having good content isn't enough to rank in SERPs, you will be needing a lot of inbound links especially quality inbound links.