Help - My Site Fell from #2 to #164 this Morn on Google.

Google changing their algorithms again.

AM not an expert in this field, but have read things today that would lead me to believe that you may have to compete differently going forward.

Oh great! I just checked and my site is gone altogether from every one of my first page SERPs I've been holding more than a year!!!

It's not time to panic yet... I've seen this happen before and I was able to recover in a short time. But it is not good news!

If your site has merit the shake-up is probably
temporary and you'll see your site on page 2 at
least again soon. If you got ranked just by shear
luck or maybe some "blackhat" things you did maybe
you won't get ranked well again.

If your site is flash-heavy that could count against
you too. Google now likes quick-loading sites.

Put out some press releases and submit the press
releases to Google... which should spider the links
on the releases and give you a little credit for
active promotion.

I am sorry to hear that David. Has anyone else noticed this?

Google is constantly changing things around over there, I guess that is one of the reasons they are on top, always changing and expanding, now please excuse me while I check where my sites are indexed today.

malibumentor - my site was RANKED #2 and is now #163

But thanks for the promising words.

I too have seen sites bounce, but never lik ethis after I've been steady for that long.

And no its not blackhat or anything.. but I have been doing a lot of article marketing in attempt to bring it up to #1.

JT Jackson --- what do I do to my site? Just change it up or do a different angle?

All my sites have fallen.

This truly sucks.

My site is completely white hat. Some of my "back pages" are showing up in the Page 3 or 4 area so I know it's not a blacklisting. But my front page is gone.

Even SERPS for fairly uncompetitive longtail keywords are gone.

I haven't been doing a lot of active promotion recently but I update my content regularly.

Quite funny actually - I was listening to "Blink182 - Dammit" when I read this post & discovered the drops....

Oh well, life goes on!

This is weird. I know what Google shows you depends partly on your location, even if you're using google.com

I'm in Spain and my SERPs have disappeared from google.com. I know this as I check my major positions almost daily.

I just decided to search again through a proxy in the U.S. and this time I still have my usual positions, more or less.

But there's definitely something going on because normally my positions show with and without the proxy.

It's going to take a while for this all to settle down and find out where we stand.

Me too. Weird changes for the phrases I'm monitoring daily.
For example: 5->96 in a day (today)

richpeck
I am so sorry to hear that man. hopefully its just a bit of a dance.

I too have seen my site dance around the top ten but never this dramatic of a jump.

I do, however, have friends who can see m site in the top ten.

I've done google datacenter searches and have NOT seen it in the top ten.

I hope this comes back.

Sounds like Google did a shakeup on link value from certain sources.

My rankings always fluctuate, but my authority sites are steady, while the mini-sites, well, I don't even keep track anymore :-)

There's really no point since you just can't control it.

-Chris

Wel what is bizarre is that my site has great backlinks, and the top guy has stayed stable throughout everything in the past year. He is only a FEW backlinks of weak value.

My niche is so small that it seems backlinks dont really matter.

Hi Oilman. Few questions.

How old is your site?
How can you be sure that your back links are great?
What kind of link building strategies you did on your site?

Yes to all of those things.

And it seems that the top sites in my niche really have not done anything as far as link building.

Maybe my site will come back and come in ranking higher than ever.

I hear a google update is going on. Most people say I will probably return in my rankings. I sure hope so.

I also heard that they are changing the bidding process. Anyone know if that is true.

I wouldn't stress toooo much ... although still relatively new i quite often have my pages disappear from search results for a day and then bounce back up ... just seems to be random ....

so i say one day is not so bad, it's whether it bounces back up in a few days that matters more ..

My sites have all gone up today.


Two of my competitors rely mostly on mass article distribution for ranking and they have fallen. I wonder if smaller article directories took a hit.

I also noticed some authority listings been pulled back to a standard listing.

Make sure you build your site up with unique quality content and real links that are not all EXACTLY the same anchor text.

This is probably a silly question, but.
Why does Google mix things up so much?
Is it to create a more equal playing field so that everyone has a chance of ranking high on Google?
Or is it simply an ongoing process to improve how pages rank?
Are other search engines as "volatile" as Google?

Uh oh. Am off to check how my clients sites fared.

Make sure the paid links sites are not advertising that they sell links. Google is cracking down on paid links big time. If they catch you out, those links will have a big negative effect on your site.

Even if they dont advertise that they sell links, if the sites have high pr and are off topic, it isnt hard for google to work out that something dodgy is goin on.

They ask themselfs, why does this high pr website send a one way link to this un related site and a bunch of other random sites with out a backlink in return? uh ha, those sites must be paying for those links.

The trick to buying links is to buy them from related, on topic sites and have them place your link in an article of related content. Google cant detect this.

If the other 8 sites that ranked in the top 10 are still there then is definitely something you have done. Dont freak out yet though, my sites randomly jump from position 1 to not even in the top 1000 then by the next day they are back to where they were. Little glitches Google has. If your not back by this time tomorrow then youl have to look into it more.

Their algorithm is getting smarter by the day, and its devaluing anything that doesnt look natural. SEO is definitely not as easy as it used to be. Much more slow painfull work involved.

My site was hovering around 13-15 for a long time (months)... today it was nowhere to be found.

Did nothing, waited a few hours and now is on the first page (position 10).

Google baffles me...

-G

There are a number of data centers that rotate so when you check your rankings you may be looking at a different one than before. They are always changing.

My site ended up returning to the top 10. Sadly, I am not quite where I was.. but.. I am glad the storm is over.

I get the same problem some time, but I normally check few things:

1. Is my back links broken because I rename my page?
2. Did I change my main page a lot and link to bad site?
3. Did I try to link back to my articles that create reciprocal link? This will alert Google to ground you for days to weeks!

If everything goes well, I just continue to build more back links - Slowly. My site will be back to normal very soon!