rocket_rob
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 156
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Posted: 11/15/2003 11:57 am
Checked the SERP's this morning for my main 1-word and 2-word search terms and my site is nowhere to be found. A google pattern seems to take place every 3 weeks or so, just like the "no longer exists" dance. I was not listed in Google at all a couple months ago for these terms, then I was listed and my position hardly wavered more than 1 spot for maybe 3 weeks. Then a movement (higher, thank goodness) where I was my highest google rankings ever for these terms. That was maybe 3 weeks ago, now today GONE.
Does anyone have an explanation or similar experience with their google rankings? I don't know if I should panic or just wait a day or two for things to settle but with the holidays coming I am worried that I am screwed.
FWIW I did make some changes to my home page a week ago but find it hard to believe that these changes would drop my completely out of the index. They were relatively minor changes and certainly nothing that would be considered spam.
Anyone with any ideas?
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REMbraNT
Joined: Jul 29, 2002
# Posts: 82
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Posted: 11/15/2003 12:20 pm
no idea but I have this same problem. I started promoting a brand new site form june and I got better and better rankings months by months. I was in the top3 for various keywords but this afternoon I checked my rankings and boom. Where am I? nowhere!
I think we can start panic the latest on monday. SOmething must happen in 2 days, or not at all.
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ferret77
Joined: May 31, 2002
# Posts: 354
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Posted: 11/15/2003 01:38 pm
3 sites i had that where number 1 just disappered for there search terms
I might have linked to bad neghbor hood
or something, I'm starting to feel sort of sick
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SEOK
Joined: Jul 24, 2002
# Posts: 288
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Posted: 11/15/2003 01:42 pm
I have the same problem, it spans 30+ sites and all of them have been affected. I have multiple sites on multiple IP's and all of them have been killed. Only crap seems to come up in the google search results... If you are listening Google... "NOW is not the time to be fuk-in around with your algorithm... Christmas is coming for Christ's sake!"
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rocket_rob
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 156
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Posted: 11/15/2003 01:53 pm
Misery loves company. Nice to know it is just not me. I am holding out hope that I will reappear as high, or higher, than ever soon. I would be really worried if I found out I was now #647. It seems that I am not ranked poorly, just not ranked. We'll see I guess but this all makes me feel like crap in the meantime.
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ferret77
Joined: May 31, 2002
# Posts: 354
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Posted: 11/15/2003 01:56 pm
i noticed some of my competitors sites have dropped also, just not as much as mine
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rocket_rob
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 156
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Posted: 11/15/2003 02:03 pm
I checked my logs (nothing better to do since I have no orders!) and googlebot has visited my site more today than any day since 9/12, when my traffic went down until 10/11. So the pattern looks like every 30 days. By 12/15 I should get traffic back - right when Christmas shopping is basically over. Just when I *thought* I finally established a solid google presence everything goes into the crapper. I need to go drink.
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g1smd
Staff
Joined: Jul 28, 2002
# Posts: 10280
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Posted: 11/15/2003 03:40 pm
Yep, there is some sort of "update" and "dance" going on.
Other forums reported it about 36 hours ago, and it looks like it might continue for another few days too.
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ak
Joined: Dec 17, 1999
# Posts: 180
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Posted: 11/15/2003 05:05 pm
Yeah, same results. I had some #1 positions and they seem gone.
I know my sites aren't banned, though. Unimportant, nondescript keywords that others don't compete for, seem to be doing okay for my rankings --- just not my important keywords. Dang!
Same thing is happening to my competitors. It's strange -- directory type sites and news sites are scoring better than individual company sites.
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DANXtendlife
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 58
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Posted: 11/16/2003 03:23 am
Hello everyone,
Just thought I'd add a bit.
I have had some very strong rankings for some very very competitive terms in the health industry. Some of the most important ones (the ones for my homepage) just totally disappeared yesterday. I mean, nowhere to be found. I looked in the top 300 and I don't exist. I made no changes to my site, nothing. To go from being in the top 10 to nowhere definitely hurts.
Worse yet, the sites that have filled the spots are horrible, borderling irrelevant. This is objective assessment on my part...I'm talking almost no content in most cases, things like that.
However, I have not been banned from Google. My site is still in there if I type in my URL.
It's very very frustrating to say the least, but I can't believe these changes will be permanent.
So, let's all keep our fingers crossed and hope things revert back to "normal" soon.
-Dan
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g1smd
Staff
Joined: Jul 28, 2002
# Posts: 10280
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Posted: 11/16/2003 04:54 am
Check again mid-week. The situation will be totally different.
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rocket_rob
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 156
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Posted: 11/16/2003 05:06 am
I wish I could share your optimism. For my situation the top results are still the same, as they always are. The #1 result has been #1 probably 98% of the time for the last year. If it falls it goes to maybe #2 or #3. I sure wish I could understand why, because the site, to me, looks very ordinary and its hard to figure how it has been "optimized" for such a high ranking for a very competitive term.
What's more distressing to me is the complete crap that outranked me when I was pretty damn happy with my rankings, and obviously WAY outranks me now. I don't know if doorway pages, or mirror sites, or what the proper technical term is but they have an almost identical home page hosted under numerous url's, many of them free web hosting sites. The top 3 inches of their home page (and bottom 3 as well) is nothing but a listing of search terms. You cannot easily read them they are in such a small font and hard-to-read color. One or two clicks takes you to the "real" site which has a completely different look and feel.
Sadly, all I make of this is that the honest guy, the guy following the rules, takes it up the keister. The lesson here is to lie, cheat, spam, ignore and break every so-called rule because - let's face the facts here - you are rewarded for the behavior while the honest approach is punished.
I guess my next SEO strategy is to just get a couple dozen free web hosting accounts, plaster a custom, keyword overloaded, spammy home page on it, and have it link to my "real" site. Seems that these pages gain the high rankings easily and will drive people to my real site.
It is obvious to me that google's algo cannot enforce their rules adequately, so the rule breakers benefit while the guy putting up clean, relevant, on topic content gets the shaft.
America is a great place, ain't it!? All the benefits and rights go to those who cheat and break the law.
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rocket_rob
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 156
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Posted: 11/16/2003 05:07 am
<<Check again mid-week. The situation will be totally different. >>
And you make this statement because???
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nmottet
Joined: May 21, 2002
# Posts: 65
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Posted: 11/16/2003 07:17 am
SEOK said: "I have the same problem, it spans 30+ sites and all of them have been affected. I have multiple sites on multiple IP's and all of them have been killed."
I have 6-7 websites. Most of them have lost a few positions in rankings while they had been #1 for 4-5 months. One of them completely disappeared (it had already disappeared in June for a few weeks).
I recently cross-linked a bit more and i was wondering if it was not the reason. Perhaps Google is getting more clever in finding out cross-linking patterns even if websites are on different IP.
SEOK, are your websites cross linking? to which extent?
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rocket_rob
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 156
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Posted: 11/16/2003 08:11 am
If google has become more clever how does this "gateway" site rank #6 out of 3,260,000 when the site itself (where this site redirects to) is not ranked at all?
Isn't this just a doorway page, on a free hosting site, with no useful content, keyword spam, and redirects?
The site is www.anzwers.org/trade/xxxx/
I have left the actual site name out to protect the guilty.
The index page is filled with what I would consider spam. Click on a category and it takes you to another page within that domain, clicking on that page redirects you to the *real* yahoo store domain.
Maybe this is a completely legit set up? I guess I should just follow suit and instead of being unlisted in google for a relevant, optimized site I can get highly listed by setting up a page of crap.
This is all so frustrating.
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g1smd
Staff
Joined: Jul 28, 2002
# Posts: 10280
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Posted: 11/16/2003 08:17 am
>> And you make this statement because??? <<
Googleguy: "Give it two or three days for results to settle"
See: http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/18296.htm (500 post thread)
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SEOK
Joined: Jul 24, 2002
# Posts: 288
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Posted: 11/16/2003 08:27 am
nmottet, Some of my sites are crosslinked but only the relevant sites. Each has unique content and most sites over 10,000 pages listed with google. I am pretty sure this is not the root cause of the problem. Many of our individual product pages remain relatively unchanged in their listing status but the home pages for all of the sites have dropped considerably for many terms we used to in the top 3 for. The only thing I can think of that is causing this is that google is again readjusting how they compute inbound links to the homepage. My guess is they are running results without the benefit of external links. This is the only reason so many useless unlinked sites have attained high rankings.
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Pongo
Joined: May 27, 2002
# Posts: 665
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Posted: 11/16/2003 11:05 am
Well this is a first for me... I read here every week that a site or two is gone from the serps and my sites are never out but this time I have a monster money maker gone for no reason - super clean site, good linking, no spam just gone.
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philh
Joined: Sep 14, 2001
# Posts: 3050
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Posted: 11/16/2003 11:15 am
g1smd
I think a better interpretation of GG's comment is - The situation MAY be totally different.
And, not wishing to dampen anyone's spirits, my experience is there are usually very few major changes from the first batch of new serps to the final serps when all settles in a typical Google update.
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Pongo
Joined: May 27, 2002
# Posts: 665
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Posted: 11/16/2003 12:12 pm
Just a quick tech note... When I use allinanchor: The site I refered to above is right where it should be for it's key phrases.
Looks like anchor text is not being included in the algo right now.
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