Google Slap?

[deaddogdesign]

I have a site that has been on the first page of Google for 4 months now. Usually 1-4 and for a lot of pretty tough keywords. Today is the first day I noticed for my main keywords it is not on there anymore. Nowhere to be found! Not sure what happen. Lot of other keywords went down a lot. My traffic value went up from 6k to 28K and I had a record high day in traffic yesterday. However, today not ranked.

Please don't anyone say the Google dance, because I have been up there for four months jump around a bit. Not sure what to think. I haven't done any blackhat seo or anything unethical. Really kind of worried about it!

[Player777]

I noticed the same thing on one of my sites today. Yesterday i had record traffic for a site that is over a year old . And today my main keyword which was on the first page of google for a competitive keyword is now on page 19. And all my keywords have taken massive dives down the serps.
Is google slapping everybody across the board today?
Anybody else have any thoughts on what happened or if this happened to you?

[Look4VGames]

You arent going to want to hear it you already said so, but i do believe it was the google dance. Reason why is i also have a site that did the same thing, i looked around quite a bit at all my sites and realized today google seemed to index alot of my unidexed backlinks so it gave me a huge surplus in backlinks, and i am no where to be found, so i do believe my site will bump back in a few days and yours should to.

[lokodomain]

The same thing has been happening on and off for me over the past 2 months. I have posted threads on the google webmaster support forum, but they don't have a clue
Google Houdini - Why Does My Site Keep Disappearing And Then Reappearing - Webmaster Central Help

SEO is a double edged sword you 3 - 6ranking for a keyword only to find that there is hardly any traffic for that word unless your in the number 1 spot. Then you have 3 - 6 months at the top before the next major algo update goes and messes up the ranking you worked so hard to get.

Time for a new angle on traffic generation I read this article and it made me think that Google can kiss my ar#e. Time to turn the tables and change the script

[Player777]

Ive had a google dance before. I have many keywords on front page. Usually what happens is 1 keyword dances. maybe drops back or dissapears then comes back.
The other keywords stay put
This time every keyword has dropped back and alot and many have totally dissapeared.

Ive never seen every single keyword dance at same time before.
Have you ever had every single keyword dance then come back?

[deaddogdesign]

Ok, the thing is it is a 2 year old domain so I didn't think it would dance that much and it has been up there for 4-5 months. That and usually it is just a keyword or two, but they all went south. I do know Google did do a big update not to long ago, so I hope I am worried for nothing.

I guess that does make sense if I had a lot of backlinks to be found Google might look a little unnatural, but they are from authority sites. I really hope your right Look4VGames.

Please let me know what anyone find

[Look4VGames]

Originally Posted by deaddogdesign

Ok, the thing is it is a 2 year old domain so I didn't think it would dance that much and it has been up there for 4-5 months. That and usually it is just a keyword or two, but they all went south. I do know Google did do a big update not to long ago, so I hope I am worried for nothing.

I guess that does make sense if I had a lot of backlinks to be found Google might look a little unnatural, but they are from authority sites. I really hope your right Look4VGames.

Please let me know what anyone find

Well im thinking google did some sort of update today, due to the sheer number of backlinks i built that werent indexed in the longest time because i never ran them through my energizer, but nearly 300 were indexed all at once today, and my site disappeared, thats why i am completely leaning towards google updates and it is a dance. I was ranking positon #6 for a term that gets 450,000 search traffic a month, so it is disappointing.

[deaddogdesign]

ok thanks a lot for the information. My webmasters is showing me hardly ranked for anything now, so I will just need to have a little faith that hopefully that is it. My traffic value from seo for firefox went from 6k to 28k surely I can't get penalized for that. Also, all the authority backlinks I added can't hurt. Must be some kind of update today and hopefully everything pops back or I will be looking for more work shortly.

[dvduval]

It could be a case of another update. Google is constantly making tweaks. There are usually at least 100 minor tweaks per month. Most likely something google did had an impact, or else some data about your site was processed and refactored.

[deaddogdesign]

I know I brought a lot of authority links to my site over the last couple months. Probably just me freaking out. Maybe google indexed 10,000 of my links today .

[deaddogdesign]

Wow, still down on Google and I have 5 keywords ranked in the top ten. I used to have 100. Very disappointed.

[jhonsean]

It is normal to the common sites that we have, the only thing that we can do is to continue to build links it is more helpful rather than worrying about google dance.

[Wechito]

Something similar happened to one of my sites a couple of months ago. It was after massive link building.

I usually build my links slowly and that time I was experimenting. Maybe it is just a coincidence... I don't know.

I did nothing to the site for 2 weeks and then started to add more links slowly. In one month or so my page showed up again and started to gain positions until reaching page 1.

[deaddogdesign]

How slowly do you usually build your backlinks to your sites. I probably did about 10,000 in 3 months which I didn't think would be to aggressive or anything like that. But, the thing is they were from authority sites and some from text-link-ads dot com so I thought I would be good.

[Wechito]

Originally Posted by deaddogdesign

How slowly do you usually build your backlinks to your sites. I probably did about 10,000 in 3 months which I didn't think would be to aggressive or anything like that. But, the thing is they were from authority sites and some from text-link-ads dot com so I thought I would be good.

For a new site this is a very aggressive backlinking campaign.
It is not only about the number of backlinks you build but also about the consistency with which you build them.

I usually start building very slowly but consistently, and slowly increment the number of links.

[deaddogdesign]

Originally Posted by Wechito

For a new site this is a very aggressive backlinking campaign.
It is not only about the number of backlinks you build but also about the consistency with which you build them.

I usually start building very slowly but consistently, and slowly increment the number of links.

ok it was a two year old domain and I felt it could handle the backlinks. Also, using a lot of social media. It shouldn't affect my whole site though, because all the links were deeplinked to internal pages and stuff.

[Derek S]

what was your sites backlink count before the 10,000 links? I would only add that many links in that time span if my site already had at least 100,000 links indexed and aged to begin with.

Site age is important but I feel it goes hand in hand with aged backlinks. If a site is two years old but all the links come from the past 6 months I think the site age is irrelevant.

I age my site over a year slowly adding 2,000 links that stick over 12 months... All around a single main competitive keyword phrase. I also slowly add content pages around long tail keywords and build links to the inner pages. After the sites rank becomes stable and the pages/links are a year old, I THEN get more aggressive with my link building.

SEO is a very slow and fidgety process - but very lucrative when you know what you are doing.

[deaddogdesign]

Originally Posted by Derek S

what was your sites backlink count before the 10,000 links? I would only add that many links in that time span if my site already had at least 100,000 links indexed and aged to begin with.

Site age is important but I feel it goes hand in hand with aged backlinks. If a site is two years old but all the links come from the past 6 months I think the site age is irrelevant.

I age my site over a year slowly adding 2,000 links that stick over 12 months... All around a single main competitive keyword phrase. I also slowly add content pages around long tail keywords and build links to the inner pages. After the sites rank becomes stable and the pages/links are a year old, I THEN get more aggressive with my link building.

SEO is a very slow and fidgety process - but very lucrative when you know what you are doing.

Hey Derek,

I had about 8-10K and over the last 3-5 months I added about 10-14K links. However, a lot of the links were sitewide ones like 2k from one. 1k from another. Then their were deeplinks which went to each individual page. With a couple sitewide links in there on inner pages to mix it up. Blog comments, social media links, forums, articles, guest blog post, ect.

My site was stable for 4 months on the first page of Google for 100 or so phrases. Even varied anchored text and everything. Praying that it is just a Google update or something. Not sure how I am going to recover from this, as it is my main source of income

[myagi007]

I've had a similar problem but it has only happened since the new year, juat to confuse eveything though I have 2 sites and 1 has dropped off the radar and the other has been bumped up. I'm completely confused as the site which has dropped has been on the fornt page of google for over 6 months...... just hoping it comes back quick!

[deaddogdesign]

You know what I think buying a couple links from TLA might have hurt my site. Any thoughts on this?

[hilhilginger]

Originally Posted by deaddogdesign

You know what I think buying a couple links from TLA might have hurt my site. Any thoughts on this?

One of the problems may be your competitors are running behind with a lot of spam back links. I believe, TLA should have generated some spam links for you.

[SEO Coach]

deaddogdesign,

i had something like this happen to me recently when I upgraded my sitemap.xml plug-in.

After realizing my site had literally fallen off the map, I went into a panic and reverse engineered everything I had done in the previous two weeks.

i found that the xml plug in had totally screwed up my site map and robot.txt file.

After fixing both of these issues up, I was back on page one after 9 days.

maybe something to check?

[deaddogdesign]

Originally Posted by SEO Coach

deaddogdesign,

i had something like this happen to me recently when I upgraded my sitemap.xml plug-in.

After realizing my site had literally fallen off the map, I went into a panic and reverse engineered everything I had done in the previous two weeks.

i found that the xml plug in had totally screwed up my site map and robot.txt file.

After fixing both of these issues up, I was back on page one after 9 days.

maybe something to check?

Hey thanks a lot for the help. I am on xml-sitemap dot com generating a new one and uploading it now

[txhepoker]

Originally Posted by SEO Coach

deaddogdesign,

i had something like this happen to me recently when I upgraded my sitemap.xml plug-in.

After realizing my site had literally fallen off the map, I went into a panic and reverse engineered everything I had done in the previous two weeks.

i found that the xml plug in had totally screwed up my site map and robot.txt file.

After fixing both of these issues up, I was back on page one after 9 days.

maybe something to check?

Wow, i uninstalled and reinstalled my wordpress sitemap.xml about 2 days ago. Today, I just got slapped! Do I fix it by downloading my map and just putting it in my webmasters tool or do I have to do something different?

Also my google places disappeared from 3rd to 65th. And All my site text that show up under my name is GONE!

I really hope this is it so I don't panic!

[tanero]

3 days ago one of my site that rank #3 has been unranked and nowhere. But As you sad I cheched and realized that google has been indexed all my unindexed pages. Strange, but it seems new algoritma changed.

[Player777]

Originally Posted by tanero

3 days ago one of my site that rank #3 has been unranked and nowhere. But As you sad I cheched and realized that google has been indexed all my unindexed pages. Strange, but it seems new algoritma changed.

Have you made any changes lately to your page or xsitemap?
Or did you build alot of links just prior ?
I wonder whats causing all these ranking drops

[Latsyrc]

I am having the same problem. I have started various posts about it on several boards. My most profitable site plus 2 others have disappeared. They were in positions 1-4 and now they are in the 600's for the main keyword. It has been this way for about 2 months.

[deaddogdesign]

You check your webmaster tools? I had errors, like crazy! I think I am going to have it fixed in no time at all!

[Player777]

Whats the best way to check for errors on your site?
I had alot of errors in my cpanel error log. I fixed them all and now its not showing any errors. Is that enough or more needs to be checked?

[rohnsmith]

it is google's new update in 2011. I had PR 3 before and now I have 0 pr for my site. well my site rank has not got down but I think it will get affected quick as well...

[deaddogdesign]

Originally Posted by Player777

Whats the best way to check for errors on your site?
I had alot of errors in my cpanel error log. I fixed them all and now its not showing any errors. Is that enough or more needs to be checked?

In your webmasters tools.

[linklover]

10 year old site. 100 subpages pages
tracking 9 heavily
3 days ago 1 dropped from P2 to 400
and one dropped off the map.
just came back today for 2 out of 4 KW
hitting it hard

[Player777]

When you say webmaster tools do you mean google analytics? as i do not have them installed

[txhepoker]

Originally Posted by Player777

When you say webmaster tools do you mean google analytics? as i do not have them installed

Go into webmaster tools and click on the domain that you are inquiring about.

Then in the upper left corner, you will see diagnostics in your dashboard.

Hope this helps...

Have a good day.

[deaddogdesign]

error monitoring is the best thing you can track. Almost positive it was my reason for rankings dropping. Seriously, hope it helps Peter!

Garen

[deaddogdesign]

Oh, just incase anyone is wondering how long does it usually take for your rankings to go back up in Google once you fix 404 errors. I have heard that it usually takes 7-14 days and once it does you seem to get rewarded with a little hirer rankings in Google.

Any thoughts on this?

[aisha123]

The Google Slap is a term used unaffectionately by mainly small businesses that rely on AdWords accounts through Google to drum up business for their sites. AdWords for Google allows people to have their advertisements for their own businesses on pages with keywords or subjects that relate to their products.

[blogdecor]

It may be because somebody has worked more around that keywords than you did.

[erikoro]

I had this same problem I was using my article network and linkvana and I started getting high rankings then out of nowhere it was just gone I then stoped getting backlinks so I read making to much backlinks to your website google gives your site a penalty so wait about a week if your site doesnt go back up then someone out rank you but 10,000 backlinks in three months is alot.

[Daveyz]

Originally Posted by deaddogdesign

I have a site that has been on the first page of Google for 4 months now. Usually 1-4 and for a lot of pretty tough keywords. Today is the first day I noticed for my main keywords it is not on there anymore. Nowhere to be found! Not sure what happen. Lot of other keywords went down a lot. My traffic value went up from 6k to 28K and I had a record high day in traffic yesterday. However, today not ranked.

Please don't anyone say the Google dance, because I have been up there for four months jump around a bit. Not sure what to think. I haven't done any BlueFart seo or anything unethical. Really kind of worried about it!

Ive read somewhere that Google now uses personal search as default option on their search engine. So all searches will be skewed to the searcher's preference. Could this be a cause?

[seach4s]

dam that google slap had me a few time last year but wont be beaten this year

[AnneE]

DeadDogDesign and Others Who Were Affected -- have your rankings returned? My primary site seemed to have dropped completely off Google's radar in early January. It's a Wordpress site with an sitemap XML plugin, but I didn't set it up -- so if there is a fix there, I'd appreciate the details on how to fix it.

When my site dropped, I figured it would come back up in a couple weeks... but the only way it has come back up, is that I just found one page of it listed for one term at position 195.

Help -- this is a long painful snub by Google. I'm working on other aspects of my business... but wondering when Google will acknowledge my existance again.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Anne