Dropped off google but only for one keyword

inserate · 07-24-2011, 06:09 AM

Hi all,

I have a strange problem for which I have not found an answer yet.
My site was ranking on number three for a particular niche keyword for the past month. As of a few days ago, my site does not rank at all anymore that that particular keyword, but is still listed on google when I search for site:[mysite.com]. or for the direct URL.

I thought that my site was blocked or sandboxed for whatever reason google determined. BTW, I have not done any spammy link building activity or excessive keyword stuffing, I had just employed a normal linkwheel strategy with an anchor layer of about 5 pages and articles and about 100 backlinks to those anchor layer sites.

I have since written a request to google from the webmaster tools site for reconsideration of my page, and they promptly answered me that no manual anti-spam actions had been taken for my site and it should show up normally in google.

Has anyone had the same problem, and how have you solved it?

Many thanks for any hints!!

IM Ash · 07-24-2011, 06:25 AM

One of my sites also experienced something similar about a month and a half ago. Two of my inner pages just disappeared from the SERPs and they both were ranking on the 1st page. I couldn't figure out why because the content was unique and of high quality (in my opinion).

I didn't do anything drastic, I just left it as is - I didn't even backlink those pages! A week ago after been in the abyss for over a month, both pages returned to the 1st page and they are now ranked even higher than they were before.

Keep in mind that these pages have PR, so they were not new or anything. I still haven't figured out why this occured, so, I guess it will remain a mystery.

Just wait it out and see what happens! Concentrate on another project to take your mind of it - that's what I did!

inserate · 07-24-2011, 07:24 AM

Thanks for this, I hope you are right and it will be the same here. What a shock... Luckily, I am still #1 on yahoo and bing. Do you have any explanation for what happened, i.e., could it have to do something with your content?

playa4thee · 07-24-2011, 07:29 AM

If I do a search for one of my site's webpages I see it coming out on the 1st page about 4th or 5th. But when I check the page in a rank checking site it says that it is not yet ranked. What gives? Any Ideas? Thanks

inserate · 07-24-2011, 07:31 AM

That is a different problem... Luckily you are to be found on search engines. These ranking pages are not accurate from my experience.

IM Ash · 07-24-2011, 08:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by inserate

Thanks for this, I hope you are right and it will be the same here. What a shock... Luckily, I am still #1 on yahoo and bing. Do you have any explanation for what happened, i.e., could it have to do something with your content?

No explanation - just an unsolved mystery

I compared those 2 pages with my other pages and I could not find any anomalies. One page has over 1000 words and the other is close to 800 words of unique content. I didn't over optimize those pages either!

The only aspect that might have been a problem is the anchor text. I didn't vary my anchors when I built links to those pages.

Strange to say the least, but I am just glad those pages came back with a vengeance.

inserate · 07-24-2011, 08:27 AM

That is interesting. I do not vary the anchors at all when I build links. I thought this is how you build links that respond to keywords in the first place! Am I doing something wrong here?

IM Ash · 07-24-2011, 08:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by inserate

That is interesting. I do not vary the anchors at all when I build links. I thought this is how you build links that respond to keywords in the first place! Am I doing something wrong here?

Some people believe varying the anchors is a way to allow your link building to appear more natural to Google. Others care less! I vary my anchors now days just for the sake of it.

There are way too many variables to isolate one specific element that may or may not have caused your webpage to dissappear.

If it is a new page it could just be a typical Google dance! I guess you just have to wait this one out.

inserate · 07-24-2011, 09:09 AM

Thanks, I will try varying anchor text from now on forth. I just started with this page about a month ago, and the 30 or so anchorlinks may not have been an issue so far. I went ahead and optimized site titles, meta descriptions and meta tags to make sure they are all different for starters. If there is anything broken with my page at this point, it will not be that tough to fix, but I do hope it will come back up on the radar.

whawk57 · 07-24-2011, 10:20 AM

Just a google dance. Just leave it and don't worry and create new posts.Wait it out, usually between 2 weeks to one month.

Davioli · 07-24-2011, 10:23 AM

I had the exact same problem a few months ago. After doing a ton of experiments I found that the following was causing it:

- I was linking to the page with the same anchor text from two places on my blog. So basically, In the top navbar as well as the widget navbar, I was using the same anchor text to link to the page. All pages on my blog thus had two links going to this page .. both with the same anchor text.

- I changed one of the anchor text's to something else and after three days the page was ranking again.

inserate · 07-24-2011, 10:50 AM

Interesting, thanks for this insight.

So you are saying that there can be several links from page linking back to the main page, but they should have different anchor text?

Was your blog on a different URL than your page? And did you link to yourpage.com/ or a page within that, e.g., yourpage.com/site.html?

One issue I have with this though is that I use two navigations on my page, one on the top and one in the footer bar, on case the top nav does not load due to whaetver browser incompatibility reasons. So each page links to all other pages with two links, with the same anchor text.

Davioli · 07-24-2011, 10:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by inserate

Interesting, thanks for this insight.

So you are saying that there can be several links from page linking back to the main page, but they should have different anchor text?

One issue I have with this though is that I use two navigations on my page, one on the top and one in the footer bar, on case the top nav does not load due to whaetver browser incompatibility reasons. So each page links to all other pages with two links, with the same anchor text.

I'm not sure for small websites, but in my case it was for a 400 page website with all 400 pages linking twice to this page with the same anchor texts. Change one of them and see what happens.

inserate · 07-24-2011, 02:19 PM

That makes a lot of sense, thanks for this input.

I updated all articles in the anchor layer and external blog posts so there is different anchor text and only 1-2 links. Let us see what happens!

sunnyday123 · 07-24-2011, 02:24 PM

May be Google find you spamming for that keyword. This is new algorithm of Google.

FtlLuke · 07-24-2011, 02:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by whawk57

Just a google dance. Just leave it and don't worry and create new posts.Wait it out, usually between 2 weeks to one month.

I agree...I see this all the time. My site will drop significantly in rank for a particular keyword or vanish all together only to return in a higher position than it was before. Sometimes this happens in a matter of days and others it is 2-4 weeks. Don't stress about it and focus on your other activities. It's likely just the Google Dance.

inserate · 07-24-2011, 02:54 PM

Thanks. I hope this is the case

What worries me is that it returns no results for my main keyword at the moment, per google.com/webmasters. I agree that google thinks I am spamming, but I wonder what triggered that. The hint with duplicate links per site definitely was helpful.

anistars · 08-01-2011, 09:24 AM

Hey guys, do you think that spamming method can be really punished by the G? - If so, anybody would can do that with competitors' websites... But there's mo many factors involved, man!

It's strange but 3 keywords disappeared at all but other ones stayed the same - and it's all for one single page!

I guess I'll wait, will let you know then...

JamesGw · 08-01-2011, 09:29 AM

Too much anchor text with that one keyword. Mix it up a little bit and your site will recover. Try busting out like 50 links with "click here" and "mydomain.com" for the anchor text.

Gdetonator · 08-01-2011, 09:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by inserate

Hi all,

I have a strange problem for which I have not found an answer yet.
My site was ranking on number three for a particular niche keyword for the past month. As of a few days ago, my site does not rank at all anymore that that particular keyword, but is still listed on google when I search for site:[mysite.com]. or for the direct URL.

I thought that my site was blocked or sandboxed for whatever reason google determined. BTW, I have not done any spammy link building activity or excessive keyword stuffing, I had just employed a normal linkwheel strategy with an anchor layer of about 5 pages and articles and about 100 backlinks to those anchor layer sites.

I have since written a request to google from the webmaster tools site for reconsideration of my page, and they promptly answered me that no manual anti-spam actions had been taken for my site and it should show up normally in google.

Has anyone had the same problem, and how have you solved it?

Many thanks for any hints!!

I had same proble with one of my site couple of months back, the site has ranked #1 for that keyword since 2010 and just in one single day last 2 months, the site just disappeared for all keywords though it wasn't deindexed and when I contacted, they explained to me that nothing was wrong with the site and worst yet, I couldn't wrap my head around the cause cos I didn't do anything new on the site or at least not in the last 6 months... haha.

After waiting endlessly for it to come back with no results, I wrote one new post and made a video and added to the site and it came back to the first though it's no longer the #1 but I thinks first page still rocks.

Maybe you can try this but I'm not saying it's a cure for the problem but it may just help you.

Cheers

anistars · 08-01-2011, 11:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JamesGw

Too much anchor text with that one keyword. Mix it up a little bit and your site will recover. Try busting out like 50 links with "click here" and "mydomain.com" for the anchor text.

This is a great idea!!!

inserate · 08-03-2011, 11:33 AM

Thanks for your suggestion. I pretty much removed all links back to my site, just to get it back into google. Out of the box it ranked number 6 or so, as the domain name is the keyword. Not to rank at all for that keyword is totally strange. I will try making new links with click here, per your suggestion.

inserate · 08-04-2011, 05:35 AM

Could it be a problem with google that I have the same blogs like the domain linking back to it? I.e., my domain is domain.com and I have domain.wordpress.com, domain.blogspot.com, domain.blog.com, hubpages.com/domain, and domain.weebly.com linking back to that site (with different anchor text each).
I use these blogs for my article marketing campagins.

inserate · 08-05-2011, 09:39 AM

Thank goodness, as of today I am ranking again. I believe it also had to do something with my error pages, which had two links back to the page (one on the logo and one with "click here". Anyway, I will definitely be more careful in the future with:

- Several links on the same page going back to the main page
- Anchor text (especially profiles on blogs etc that have all the same anchor to the homepage)
- Meta descriptions
- Meta tags
- Title tags

Thanks for all your help and input!!

07-24-2011, 06:25 AM	#2
IM Ash SEO Extraordinaire War Room Member Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: South Africa Posts: 503 Thanks: 158 Thanked 183 Times in 88 Posts	Re: Dropped off google but only for one keyword One of my sites also experienced something similar about a month and a half ago. Two of my inner pages just disappeared from the SERPs and they both were ranking on the 1st page. I couldn't figure out why because the content was unique and of high quality (in my opinion). I didn't do anything drastic, I just left it as is - I didn't even backlink those pages! A week ago after been in the abyss for over a month, both pages returned to the 1st page and they are now ranked even higher than they were before. Keep in mind that these pages have PR, so they were not new or anything. I still haven't figured out why this occured, so, I guess it will remain a mystery. Just wait it out and see what happens! Concentrate on another project to take your mind of it - that's what I did!

07-24-2011, 07:24 AM	#3
inserate Alex Join Date: Jun 2011 Posts: 20 Thanks: 22 Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post	Re: Dropped off google but only for one keyword Thanks for this, I hope you are right and it will be the same here. What a shock... Luckily, I am still #1 on yahoo and bing. Do you have any explanation for what happened, i.e., could it have to do something with your content?

07-24-2011, 07:29 AM	#4
playa4thee The Tipster Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Here! Posts: 63 Thanks: 11 Thanked 5 Times in 5 Posts	Re: Dropped off google but only for one keyword If I do a search for one of my site's webpages I see it coming out on the 1st page about 4th or 5th. But when I check the page in a rank checking site it says that it is not yet ranked. What gives? Any Ideas? Thanks
	The Best Place for Tips \| Top Ten Celebrity Camel Toes Funny Pictures of the Day! Top Facebook Status

07-24-2011, 07:31 AM	#5
inserate Alex Join Date: Jun 2011 Posts: 20 Thanks: 22 Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post	Re: Dropped off google but only for one keyword That is a different problem... Luckily you are to be found on search engines. These ranking pages are not accurate from my experience.

07-24-2011, 08:27 AM	#7
inserate Alex Join Date: Jun 2011 Posts: 20 Thanks: 22 Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post	Re: Dropped off google but only for one keyword That is interesting. I do not vary the anchors at all when I build links. I thought this is how you build links that respond to keywords in the first place! Am I doing something wrong here?
	---

07-24-2011, 06:09 AM	#1
inserate Alex Join Date: Jun 2011 Posts: 20 Thanks: 22 Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post	Dropped off google but only for one keyword Hi all, I have a strange problem for which I have not found an answer yet. My site was ranking on number three for a particular niche keyword for the past month. As of a few days ago, my site does not rank at all anymore that that particular keyword, but is still listed on google when I search for site:[mysite.com]. or for the direct URL. I thought that my site was blocked or sandboxed for whatever reason google determined. BTW, I have not done any spammy link building activity or excessive keyword stuffing, I had just employed a normal linkwheel strategy with an anchor layer of about 5 pages and articles and about 100 backlinks to those anchor layer sites. I have since written a request to google from the webmaster tools site for reconsideration of my page, and they promptly answered me that no manual anti-spam actions had been taken for my site and it should show up normally in google. Has anyone had the same problem, and how have you solved it? Many thanks for any hints!!

07-24-2011, 09:09 AM	#9
inserate Alex Join Date: Jun 2011 Posts: 20 Thanks: 22 Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post	Re: Dropped off google but only for one keyword Thanks, I will try varying anchor text from now on forth. I just started with this page about a month ago, and the 30 or so anchorlinks may not have been an issue so far. I went ahead and optimized site titles, meta descriptions and meta tags to make sure they are all different for starters. If there is anything broken with my page at this point, it will not be that tough to fix, but I do hope it will come back up on the radar.
	---

07-24-2011, 10:20 AM	#10
whawk57 DJ White Hawk War Room Member Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Red Sea Posts: 74 Thanks: 58 Thanked 5 Times in 4 Posts	Re: Dropped off google but only for one keyword Just a google dance. Just leave it and don't worry and create new posts.Wait it out, usually between 2 weeks to one month.
	DJ White Hawk

07-24-2011, 10:23 AM	#11
Davioli HyperActive Warrior Join Date: Nov 2009 Posts: 400 Thanks: 157 Thanked 48 Times in 36 Posts	Re: Dropped off google but only for one keyword I had the exact same problem a few months ago. After doing a ton of experiments I found that the following was causing it: - I was linking to the page with the same anchor text from two places on my blog. So basically, In the top navbar as well as the widget navbar, I was using the same anchor text to link to the page. All pages on my blog thus had two links going to this page .. both with the same anchor text. - I changed one of the anchor text's to something else and after three days the page was ranking again.

07-24-2011, 10:50 AM	#12
inserate Alex Join Date: Jun 2011 Posts: 20 Thanks: 22 Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post	Re: Dropped off google but only for one keyword Interesting, thanks for this insight. So you are saying that there can be several links from page linking back to the main page, but they should have different anchor text? Was your blog on a different URL than your page? And did you link to yourpage.com/ or a page within that, e.g., yourpage.com/site.html? One issue I have with this though is that I use two navigations on my page, one on the top and one in the footer bar, on case the top nav does not load due to whaetver browser incompatibility reasons. So each page links to all other pages with two links, with the same anchor text.
	---

07-24-2011, 02:19 PM	#14
inserate Alex Join Date: Jun 2011 Posts: 20 Thanks: 22 Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post	Re: Dropped off google but only for one keyword That makes a lot of sense, thanks for this input. I updated all articles in the anchor layer and external blog posts so there is different anchor text and only 1-2 links. Let us see what happens!
	---

07-24-2011, 02:24 PM	#15
sunnyday123 Warrior Member Join Date: Jul 2011 Posts: 4 Thanks: 0 Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post	Re: Dropped off google but only for one keyword May be Google find you spamming for that keyword. This is new algorithm of Google.

07-24-2011, 02:54 PM	#17
inserate Alex Join Date: Jun 2011 Posts: 20 Thanks: 22 Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post	Re: Dropped off google but only for one keyword Thanks. I hope this is the case What worries me is that it returns no results for my main keyword at the moment, per google.com/webmasters. I agree that google thinks I am spamming, but I wonder what triggered that. The hint with duplicate links per site definitely was helpful.
	---

08-01-2011, 09:24 AM	#18
anistars HyperActive Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Apr 2011 Location: NYC Posts: 108 Thanks: 2 Thanked 11 Times in 10 Posts	Re: Dropped off google but only for one keyword Hey guys, do you think that spamming method can be really punished by the G? - If so, anybody would can do that with competitors' websites... But there's mo many factors involved, man! It's strange but 3 keywords disappeared at all but other ones stayed the same - and it's all for one single page! I guess I'll wait, will let you know then...

08-01-2011, 09:29 AM	#19
JamesGw Senior Warrior Member Join Date: Apr 2011 Posts: 1,337 Thanks: 73 Thanked 132 Times in 121 Posts	Re: Dropped off google but only for one keyword Too much anchor text with that one keyword. Mix it up a little bit and your site will recover. Try busting out like 50 links with "click here" and "mydomain.com" for the anchor text.
	Adult Wholesale Direct \| Adult Home Party Kits

08-03-2011, 11:33 AM	#22
inserate Alex Join Date: Jun 2011 Posts: 20 Thanks: 22 Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post	Re: Dropped off google but only for one keyword Thanks for your suggestion. I pretty much removed all links back to my site, just to get it back into google. Out of the box it ranked number 6 or so, as the domain name is the keyword. Not to rank at all for that keyword is totally strange. I will try making new links with click here, per your suggestion.
	---

08-04-2011, 05:35 AM	#23
inserate Alex Join Date: Jun 2011 Posts: 20 Thanks: 22 Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post	Re: Dropped off google but only for one keyword Could it be a problem with google that I have the same blogs like the domain linking back to it? I.e., my domain is domain.com and I have domain.wordpress.com, domain.blogspot.com, domain.blog.com, hubpages.com/domain, and domain.weebly.com linking back to that site (with different anchor text each). I use these blogs for my article marketing campagins.
	---

08-05-2011, 09:39 AM	#24
inserate Alex Join Date: Jun 2011 Posts: 20 Thanks: 22 Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post	Re: Dropped off google but only for one keyword Thank goodness, as of today I am ranking again. I believe it also had to do something with my error pages, which had two links back to the page (one on the logo and one with "click here". Anyway, I will definitely be more careful in the future with: - Several links on the same page going back to the main page - Anchor text (especially profiles on blogs etc that have all the same anchor to the homepage) - Meta descriptions - Meta tags - Title tags Thanks for all your help and input!!
	---