Top 3 in Google for over a month, slapped to page 34 overnight

[2stroke]

Brand new site about 5 weeks ago, for the last month I have been in the top 3 Google search for my keyword. I went from there to page 34 overnight. I thought it was a fluke so I have just been patient the last few days, adding content and links, waiting to see if I spring back up, but no dice.

It was my best traffic site, I wish Google would at least let a person know what the problem was so I don't make the same mistake again.

Anybody else have this happen recently? Was something new implemented in Google?

Thanks

[John Romaine]

Hi Jim,
Ive seen this a lot and it's quite "normal".

My advice would be DONT DO ANYTHING and give it at least 2-3 weeks before you start trying to "fix" anything.

It may be a simple case of a reshuffle.

I wrote about this just recently on one of my blogs.

The Ups and Downs of Google Rankings and Highly Emotional Panicky Clients.
start an seo business

[Ernie Lonardo]

Did this happen on June 6th or 7th?

My sites google traffic has dropped off since then too

So depressing, going to add some backlinks not going down without a fight!

[Amitywill]

Have you been building lots of backlinks to it?

It could be that Google is re-evaluating your position due to new
backlinks.

If I were you I would leave the site to settle for a week to see
where it ends up and then you'll have a better view of where you're
at.

You could come back even stronger or on the other hand you
may have some more work to do.

Will

[ayma]

you just need to be patient. It is not abnormal but happens to a lot of sites. Make sure you are updating the site as you should and build links at a steady pace. Don't go made and get 5k links in a day.

[2stroke]

Originally Posted by Ernie Lonardo

Did this happen on June 6th or 7th?

My sites google traffic has dropped off since then too

So depressing, going to add some backlinks not going down without a fight!

Yes it did happen on June 6th or 7th.

[BXPS]

My site which was ranking 1 in google is no where to be seen as well.

[coronaborcalis]

Me as well have the same situation. From top 3 to no where and it happened on 7 June. that day was very unlucky day for me

[Mike Hlatky]

Same like happened to me last week - I lost my best Amazon site.

Now I noticed 2 of my other sites have dropped out........

[HN]

I wonder what are the chances they have a new algo to punish over optimized sites and sites that have too many affiliate links? I recently launched an amazon affiliate site and after June 6 - like some have pointed out - it didn't even rank #1 if searched for exact domain name. It's books.cat

[razorhound]

Your honeymoon period ended, pretty normal for a new site imo.

[digitalproductreporter]

first, why not post this in the seo and rankings in the seo forum?

Adsense / PPC / SEO Discussion Forum

google has to rank some new stuff high and then drop it, that's how they keep results relevant

without new things at the top of the search they would quickly become irrelevant, like when a hurricane katrina came around you expect some current pages at the top, not katrina pages from 10 years ago

then they drop it to where they think it goes based on click data etc.

that's how it works from my experience, doesn't always happen that a new site gets high, but if they think it's new and relevant to the top 10 it goes and then fades away

[John Romaine]

Originally Posted by cosmokid

Build a site; wait three months

Wait for what??? Are your competitors going to "wait" too???

Originally Posted by cosmokid

...then do the majority of building content and backlinks from the third to sixth month of the site being up

Start building backlinks immediately! That is unless of course you want your site to be listed back on page 58.

Originally Posted by cosmokid

Remember, Google hates new sites

Google doesnt hate new sites unless you give them REASON to.

Originally Posted by cosmokid

....and it will punish your site in the beginning and pretty much assume you're a spammer if you have affiliate links or thin content.

I dont recall 2stroke suggesting having spammed anyone or published "thin content". Ive got dozens of affiliates promoting my site, all within a matter of days. Hasnt affected my rankings....

Originally Posted by cosmokid

So "play nice" for that first three months...

Define play nice. What exactly do you suggest he does for 12 weeks - nothing????

Originally Posted by cosmokid

If you build too many links in that first three months sometimes that gets you sandboxed

I personally think this is rubbish. Out of interest, how many links is too many? And even if there was a threshold, how would you determine too many bad links as opposed to too many good links?

I just had a press release submitted and in 10 days Ive acquired 3,120 backlinks from that alone. I dont see my site being penalised.

.....

[untreatableonline]

That is a little weird as one of my sites was dropped on the before mentioned dates as well. Been here before so I just keep doing the same thing and eventually Google brings it back to where I want it to be

[mbarty2010]

Originally Posted by Ernie Lonardo

Did this happen on June 6th or 7th?

My sites google traffic has dropped off since then too

So depressing, going to add some backlinks not going down without a fight!

Google released Panda update 2.2 I think which might be one of the causes. Though I am just guessing...

[Nadim Hussain]

I started getting into SEO a few months ago and have purchased a few very good WSO's on the subject. I'm inclined to think that as long as you are offering real value to your readers, choose your keywords/domains carefully, have very good on-page SEO, and keep your backlinking campaigns as varied and natural-looking as possible then over time you will get those top rankings and stay there. Just be prepared for a few Google-slaps along the way.

I know its frustrating to get slapped without knowing why but I firmly believe that if your site building plan includes the above techniques (and a few more) and you stick to it, then you will succeed eventually.

[indie08]

That's odd..I have 4 amazon sites and they keep gaining more sales. June is going to be my best month yet! I just focus on steady high quality backlinks and updated content. Seems to do the trick!

[Chrishurcombe]

Same here with my sites, i have about 15 and the first 3 - 4 have dropped out. If you put this into the google search box site:www.yoursitename.com then you can see if google has sandboxed it or not, if it brings back results then you are doing the Google dance if not then it has.

Its been 3 days now, and i am hoping my sites will spring back to life, as they were starting to get some good traffic.

I have read a few times that when it does come back, it normally comes back stronger! so fingers crossed it might be a good thing!

[webguru3287]

Is it because of the Panda rollouts ?

[gbarrows31]

its call the "Google Dance" Hope you like to dance.. :O)

[InTheMaking]

I wish google didn't love new websites so much and we wouldn't have this problem.

What your seeing is the honeymoon effect. What this means is if you make a new site and your on-page SEO is done fairly well and you start backlinking a little bit your site is going to jump either to the first page or near the first page.

People see this and assume this is your position. Definitely wrong. How could a new site with no indexed backlinks be beating out PR3 sites with 1,000+ backlinks that have years of age to them.

Your site will get re adjusted where it should be. Work your way up. With low comp keywords its just a matter of time really than how many backlinks your throwing at your website.

[Chucky]

Happened to me too on the 7th of June! Two of my best sites, going to shave off $2K/month!

The only difference from your scenario is that one of them is over 3 years old and the other was about 2 years I think. One was ranked #2 and the other #5 and receiving about 300 visitors/day in total before June 7th. One had about 10 posts/pages and the other had about 40 posts. The latter had at least 10 #1 positions for low volume long tail kw and page 1 rankings for high volume kw. Both from the same niche.

I lost some EzineArticles and an ArticlesBase article on March 24th (Panda 1.0) but that didn't hurt me a lot. But these two were like my babies and I can cry if I wanted to Seriously, no kidding!

I don't like to call it the dance because these sites were much more mature than the typical site that dances. One had about 4K links on YSE and the other about 1K.

Praying Google god day and night asking my sins to be pardoned. But as 2Stroke says, I don't know what these sins are!

I wrote more in detail about it in this post if anybody's interested http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-...ml#post4028535

[LaunchBrain.com]

Hey Jim,

Couple of quick questions;

What type of site is it? Niche/ sniper site or "authority" site?

What have you done differently recently that may have caused this?

I've noticed this happen half a dozen times, I expect your site will pop back up within no time, just patience and keep doing what your doing (or your activities could look suspicious)

Please keep us updated on the movements of your rankings.

For more information, check out Adam Short from NPC he talks about this a LOT.

Hope this helps!

Thanks,
Glenn

[LaunchBrain.com]

Originally Posted by Chucky

Happened to me too on the 7th of June! Two of my best sites, going to shave off $2K/month!

The only difference from your scenario is that one of them is over 3 years old and the other was about 2 years I think. One was ranked #2 and the other #5 and receiving about 300 visitors/day in total before June 7th. One had about 10 posts/pages and the other had about 40 posts. The latter had at least 10 #1 positions for low volume long tail kw and page 1 rankings for high volume kw. Both from the same niche.

I lost some EzineArticles and an ArticlesBase article on March 24th (Panda 1.0) but that didn't hurt me a lot. But these two were like my babies and I can cry if I wanted to Seriously, no kidding!

I don't like to call it the dance because these sites were much more mature than the typical site that dances. One had about 4K links on YSE and the other about 1K.

Praying Google god day and night asking my sins to be pardoned. But as 2Stroke says, I don't know what these sins are!

I wrote more in detail about it in this post if anybody's interested http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-...ml#post4028535

Yeah it's widely accepted that Ezine articles were hurting after Panda update.

[cbpayne]

Originally Posted by razorhound

Your honeymoon period ended, pretty normal for a new site imo.

Exactly. Do a search for google honeymoon period .

Your site now ranks where it ranks naturally. Tends to happen to most new sites.

[LaunchBrain.com]

Originally Posted by cbpayne

Exactly. Do a search for google honeymoon period .

Your site now ranks where it ranks naturally. Tends to happen to most new sites.

This is also true; now it's time for the steep climb to the top.

[rahmanpaidar]

Originally Posted by Ernie Lonardo

Did this happen on June 6th or 7th?

My sites google traffic has dropped off since then too

So depressing, going to add some backlinks not going down without a fight!

Ernie exactly at the same time that also happened to me. I kicked off to 9 spot back without reason. I lost so many potential customers. After 3 days I got a bit higher by 3 spots and today 1 spot more.

[LaunchBrain.com]

Hey rahmanpaidar,

What software/ applications do you recommend for checking all this information, I have varying thoughts on most them. Would LOVE to hear your thoughts on this...

Glenn

[rahmanpaidar]

Originally Posted by LaunchBrain.com

Hey rahmanpaidar,

What software/ applications do you recommend for checking all this information, I have varying thoughts on most them. Would LOVE to hear your thoughts on this...

Glenn

I am not a fan of softwares for SEO works. But I use seo administrator at occasion.
You can get a free version here:
Seo Administrator
It checks all seo items. and compare it with your competitors.

[LaunchBrain.com]

Thanks rahmanpaidar

I agee r.e. software, need to be careful which I why I use my own backlinking package;

You Do NOT Want Your Competition To Get This!MORE Rankings, MORE Traffic & MORE Money In Your Niche

Cheers for the reply...

[JackRT]

34th for a new site is still good... just keep working on it... it's not like there's anything you can do unless you're married to Matt Cuff's sister.

[LaunchBrain.com]

Originally Posted by JackRT

34th for a new site is still good... just keep working on it... it's not like there's anything you can do unless you're married to Matt Cuff's sister.

Don't you mean Matt Cutts? ;-)

[Jeremy Banks]

Google does crazy stuff all the time, just keep adding content and building links. Try to get links from relevant sites and soon you will get more traffic from referring sites then google (unless your content sucks, then just keep building links any way you can)

[LaunchBrain.com]

Right on Jeremy Banks

Which is why article marketing and content syndication is so important.

- Glenn

[IMKid]

Actually the opposite happened to me. Two sites that had been in the google dance for months made a comeback somewhere around those dates for me. So I guess I'm in the honeymoon period now?

[LaunchBrain.com]

IMKid

I don't always think it's a honeymoon, I think it's a dance, swings up and down. I've mentioned here before, but I recommend Adam Short's NPC 3.0 he explains this really well in his course.

Glenn

[poolhall]

June 7 was a bad day for me as well. And it hasn't gotten any better.

Two sites went from first pages to last pages. The big site dropped from 1400 visits per day to 40 from G. The other went from 300 to 10 from G. Penalty seems to be site wide. Both sites are well aged. The big site is a PR5 with lots of links and 1,000s of pages. This drop is costing me about $500 per day, which really hurts.

The only thing I can think of is Panda 2.2 stepped on my sites and they got sent to the Google dungeons.

[Heavenstorm]

Originally Posted by poolhall

June 7 was a bad day for me as well. And it hasn't gotten any better.

Two sites went from first pages to last pages. The big site dropped from 1400 visits per day to 40 from G. The other went from 300 to 10 from G. Penalty seems to be site wide. Both sites are well aged. The big site is a PR5 with lots of links and 1,000s of pages. This drop is costing me about $500 per day, which really hurts.

The only thing I can think of is Panda 2.2 stepped on my sites and they got sent to the Google dungeons.

are the 1000s pages original unique content?

[riyadsouza]

my situation was also the same 3 months ago !!!

[WealthWithin]

Seems the new Panda release went out around June 6-8th.


This is not the regular Google dance. Seems it's a penalty based on what's on your site. From what I've observed, I don't think this is not dependent on links at all.

[Fred Young]

Back in March my first niche site made it to page one of google, #8 spot.It was 4 months old at that point. It was there for 1 week and disappeared. It just came back to the front page #9 spot this past Tuesday, June 7. It took a little over 10 weeks I think.

I fixed some on page seo problems and kept slowly and consistently building backlinks. Basically, just kept working on it as I normally did before.

I'm sure this probably isn't what you wanted to hear, but that's just what happened to me. Maybe you'll bounce back a lot quicker.

[markowe]

Let's hang on in there people - obviously there is some weird stuff going on, we just have to ride through it, I bet there is a good chance things bounce back. Actually, I haven't really seen any changes, except that I have noticed sites bouncing from their highest position, to the sin-bin (oblivion) and then back to a position from, say, a month ago - that last one is weird, has anyone noticed that, like maybe rankings are getting rolled back? Having said that, the sites I mention seem to have returned to their highest position - *shrug*, weird stuff...

[Mike Hlatky]

I was looking up some ways to try to figure out how to get my sites back into the rankings. I stumbled upon this video below and it looks like you need to manually change your site so that it becomes acceptable for the new algorithm.

YouTube - ‪When are penalties...

[adlol]

Just me 2c but i had a site that went totally gone 2months ago after Panda update, it came back June the 7th when are alot of other peoples did and then went out of all SERPS again a day later.

I figured it was getting penalised and a I probably knew why, I got rid of all dupe content and keyword stuffing and a day later it came back and been strong ever since.

[strategic seo services]

Originally Posted by 2stroke

Brand new site about 5 weeks ago, for the last month I have been in the top 3 Google search for my keyword. I went from there to page 34 overnight. I thought it was a fluke so I have just been patient the last few days, adding content and links, waiting to see if I spring back up, but no dice.

It was my best traffic site, I wish Google would at least let a person know what the problem was so I don't make the same mistake again.

Anybody else have this happen recently? Was something new implemented in Google?

Thanks

This is normal, and very common, especially with newer websites. It's referred to as the Google dance. Just keep on building high quality backlinks, using your keywords as anchor text, and your site will eventually rise again (& even higher than before). Check out my sig for more info.

[IM Ash]

Originally Posted by strategic seo services

This is normal, and very common, especially with newer websites. It's referred to as the Google dance. Just keep on building high quality backlinks, using your keywords as anchor text, and your site will eventually rise again (& even higher than before). Check out my sig for more info.

You obviously not in tune with what has been happening in the SEO world in the last week. You offering an SEO service, I think you should at least keep track of the latest trends and shifts that are taking place.

[WealthWithin]

Originally Posted by Mike Hlatky

I was looking up some ways to try to figure out how to get my sites back into the rankings. I stumbled upon this video below and it looks like you need to manually change your site so that it becomes acceptable for the new algorithm.

Yeah, but the problem is Panda is manually executed by Google (it's not a part of their built-in algorithm).

So if you've been affected by Panda, even after you clean the site, you need to wait till they run the algorithm again.


More info: Coming Soon: Google Panda Update 2.2

[MichaelG469]

I've also seen a HUGE drop as of June 9th-10th. I was ranking fairly well for about 8 keywords and then I checked them on market samurai and my best ranking one was on page 6 and half the others weren't even on the top 50 pages. Started to have a small freak out. I just recently changed my home page to be a static "pre-sell" page instead of a dynamic post page. Thought that might be the case, but I'm not sure at all now....

SOO frustrating!!!

[2stroke]

Thanks everyone for all the responses and information.

I think the general consensus is, ride the storm out, and in the meantime consistently add quality content and backlinks, and that is what I am going to do.

It's done and it's Google, so to coin a Tony Soprano phrase, "whataya gonna do about it, huh?"

[John Romaine]

Originally Posted by 2stroke

Thanks everyone for all the responses and information.

I think the general consensus is, ride the storm out, and in the meantime consistently add quality content and backlinks, and that is what I am going to do.

It's done and it's Google, so to coin a Tony Soprano phrase, "whataya gonna do about it, huh?"

I think thats a wise decision.

If of course it doesnt "right" itself within say, 2 to 3 weeks, then you'll most likely have to make some changes.

Hope it works out dude, keep us updated.