Google Algorithm Change on Sunday?

by brchap

Posted: 17 years ago 15 replies

I've seen this happen from time to time, and I always wonder what the hell just happened?

For some reason today (Sunday here in the U.S.), my page dropped in the SERPs. I'm not talking just a space or two... I'm talking like 10 to 20 spots for most of my keywords.

I have about 20 or so keyword phrases that I check religiously from my iPhone (I'm pretty obsessed, I must admit). So, today when I checked, everything was in RED... meaning there there was a drop in position. But it wasn't just one phrase that dropped... it was almost every one of them!

I have nothing fishy going on, at least not intentionally... I'm posting maybe an article a week with a link back to my site. I'm trying to update my blog once per week. I've got some backlinks, but nothing crazy. I'm not in a competitive niche. I'm just doing basic computer repair and IT services in a small city in Colorado!

The only thing that I can think of that changed on my end was my inclusion into the Clush.com web directory, which I had to pay for (I think that it was about $20 or $30 to have my site reviewed). On Saturday, I was notified that my website "thumbnail" had been updated.

In other words, there hasn't been a dramatic change on my site. I wasn't messing with meta tags or keyword density or title tags. But, my website took a big digger (especially for my small little local niche).

Has anyone else noticed this? Did Google change the secret sauce once again? I'd like to hear what other have noticed.

#algorithm #change #google #serps #sunday

nettech 17 years ago

Give it a week, it shoudl be back to normal!

BTW, how old is your site? If its been around for a while then it should hopefully jump straight back up again. I used to see this for one of my sites that gets a lot of traffic. It drops for a few days and then goes back up to normal.

Hope it all works out mate!
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jasonmorgan 17 years ago

THE RED/DROPS GET IN THE FOOD GUYS WAY

food guy says no more caps.
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TheCrabb Banned 17 years ago

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- HCLee 17 years ago
  
  I have not noticed any changes on my SERP for the keyword phrases that I usually monitor. I am sure yours will revert back to the old positions soon.
  
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  brchap 17 years ago
  
  I appreciate the advice, gang. This is probably the universe trying to teach me to not be so obsessed with daily SERP position. I should probably focus more on the long term success of the site, rather than whether I rank 8th or slipped down to 9th in the SERPs for my particular keyword phrases.
  
  I've heard stuff before (and on this forum) about "Google Slap". I never really thought that something like that would happen to someone who is just implementing a few very basic SEO strategies.
  
  The pathetic thing here is that I really don't go overboard with SEO. When I started thinking about SEO for my site, I only did a few things:
  
  I rewrote it a little to boost my keyword density for a few of my targeted phrases.
  
  I went to my existing social networking sites and changed my anchor text for my site
  
  I wrote a few articles and posted on HubPages, Squidoo, EZA, and GoArticles, the article marketing took me over a month to do because of free-time limitations
  
  To NetTech, my domain is 4 years old... so it's not a new site, and I don't get a lot of traffic. Maybe only 25 to 35 visitors per day. My Google page rank is only a 1/10. It's just a local site that targets people in need of computer repair and computer services.
  
  The only thing that might be considered "grey hat" on my site, is that I do have some affiliate links on some of my pages for products that I review and recommend. The links on the page point to a "blank" page on the server that redirects to the affiliate link via PHP. I've heard that Google doesn't like redirects, so I'm curious whether or not that has some effect on my trustworthiness status with Google.
  
  What do you think about redirecting affiliate links? Will that affect anything?
  
  Thanks
  
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brchap 17 years ago

Congrats, Mark.
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I'm currently taking MASSIVE action...
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Lou Macdonald 17 years ago

Yep I got hit yesterday, one site went from number 3 to nowhere, as its new I am assuming it's been sandboxed. On the other hand another site went from 47 to 9 so can't complain on that one.

Does anyone know how I can find out if my site has been sandboxed? Do I really have to wait months for it to come back, if it ever does?
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Lou Macdonald
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jollyjcb 17 years ago

I have lost around 500 posts as google droped the pages and position came down from the first page. I got advise from an SEO to do the following

1. Too many posts daily not good.Mimimize it to one or two
2. Concentrate on link building
3.Remove th duplicate contents
4.and just wait it will be back in position after few days
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Lou Macdonald 17 years ago

Thanks Jollyjcb, I was only posting once a day, and link building (withn social marker) but I did get to page 1 in 10 days (possition 3 in U.S. possition 1 in the U.K.) so maybe they thought it was too quick. I'll just carry on and hope it comes back soon.
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Lou Macdonald
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Fernando Veloso 17 years ago

October last year Google made a huge update. Maybe - just maybe - same thing happens this year?
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KristofferW 17 years ago

I've gone from #2 on the first page to #10 now... the really bad thing about being number ten in my niche is that, instead of Google showing my site, it skips it completely and shows Video results instead!
So I'm not visible at all on any page, except on those odd times when no video results show up. Hopefully I'll be back up soon though. I'm not too worried right now.
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SurviveUnemployment

17 years ago

Paid directory links definitely hurt you unless it's something big like Yahoo! Business directory or a premium spot on Best of the Web. I've tested this, and I am confident that paid directory listings are a total and complete waste of money.

That being said, something definitely happened last week. One of my sites had several pages that were ranking for good keywords just drop off the map completely. I hate it when that happens.

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Smokey_Joe

17 years ago

Originally Posted by SurviveUnemployment

"Paid review" theoretically should not causes, but I'm uncertain how is "paid review" vs "paid inclusion" distinguished. A waste of money anyway, I quite agree.

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flobaby 17 years ago

I think so, some of mine got rearranged this weekend too. It might be them implementing Google Caffeine into the mix, that's my suspicion anyway.
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itcoll 17 years ago

i am not sure about 10 or 20 spots penalty - but recently i have seen two of my competitors drop by 50 positions.That is surely a penalty.Wonder the reason for that?i figured it out.pretty simple - same anchor text.less variations.
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Amenda Jessera 17 years ago

I think there is not a major change in google's algorithm. However, it is just dance of google. You will be back sooner. If you want to back faster, get some backlinks from authority sites. That helps.
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Google Algorithm Change on Sunday?

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