Google is a tough beast to gauge. My ranking have gone up over the last couple of months, for may long-tailed keyword strings, but my overall traffic is down. The “Caffeine” beta site has me ranking even higher than I am currently, but due to its total unpredictability, I am currently neither high or low on this new piece of technology.
Has anyone else experienced higher rankings for long-tails, but decreased traffic over the last couple of months ?