The Google Dance Thread

by 47 replies
53
Every single day of the week there are threads here and on the main internet marketing section about our sites suddenly disappearing down the pages of Google and the other search engines. I thought it might be useful to have one thread where we could all share in our sweating and squirming over our sites ever important positions :p Basically, no naming of keywords or site urls are needed - just explain where your site is, where it was and how long it has been dancing. We can also post about our relief when our sites come back to the front page, stronger than ever This will hopefully put everyone else at ease who is currently experiencing the Google(or other search engines) dance for their site(s)

My first site is a new one - 4-5 weeks old. It was steadily on page 1 of Google for it's main keyword term, fluctuating between positions 8-10. 8 or 9 days ago, it disappeared from the front page and hasn't been back since. I don't know exactly where it is now, but my guess is it is back on page 10-20 or so. Interestingly, it appeared in Bing at the weekend, in the number 1 spot. It's disappeared from there too. I've been doing everything right in terms of backlinking and SEO so hopefully it'll be back soon.

My second site is almost 3 months old, and has been moving upwards in the SERPS quite rapidly in the last month, from position 420, to a high of 17 this morning. This is for a pretty competitive term too, with a strong top 10. Hours after I saw the 17th position, it disappeared The sooner it comes back, the better - if I could just get on the front page I'd be confident of getting some very good organic traffic. I'll keep this thread updated with any changes

(Just to point out in case anyone asks - both sites are still indexed by Google with the site: command, I've never had a site sandboxed )

OK, over to you Feel free to share your misery, worries and hopes for the future of your dancing sites
#search engine optimization #dance #google #thread
  • In 2008 Google made 450 tweeks to their ranking algorithm. That's a whole lot of "dancing" to keep track of... so what's the point?

    Might as well watch the Dow Jones go up and down. Not a good use of time either.
    • [1] reply
    • I figured it'd be better than having 5 threads on the same topic every day, and we can share our experiences in a light hearted kind of way
      • [1] reply
  • One of my sites seems to be having the last dance right now. It was in position 3 for weeks, then suddenly dipped onto the bottom of page two, and now today, bang suddenly back on page one.

    All I did as just keep building steady, varied links, a blog post per day and a content page twice a week in the hope that it would come back as strong, and it seems to have done so.
    • [1] reply
    • That's similar to my strategy - new content every few weeks, varied backlinks etc. When my sites dance they don't just drop down a page like yours though - I'm kinda jealous :p
      • [1] reply
  • Actually i am one of the guys that opened up a thread on this one. My site was a month or 2 months old and is in Google page 1 position 6 then just this month it suddenly disappeared too. I have experienced this with another site of mine too but my recent site hurt me the most since that site is converting...
  • Few things to consider:

    1. Is your site new?
    2. Do you have duplicate posts or articles on your website?
    3. How many articles did you post when your site is new?
    4. Do you have many high PR authority links?

    If your site is only posting 2 or 3 articles / day, and no duplicate content, you should be concentrate to build authority back links.

    Building high PR backlinks is critical at initial stage, what you need is not just link juice, but "trust" rank from Google. That's why many new sites are not showing or staying on their ranking, because they lack of "trust"!

    Just keep building a lot of good links, high PR and if possible, related content links. These would help your site to gain "trust" fast and unlock the link power from other sites. Without the "trust", all link juice are ignored!

    - Kok Choon
  • My site has plenty of backlinks and i really dont know why it dispappeared... how many articles should we post in order to gain trust from google?
    • [1] reply
    • What people call a google dance is just normal, everyday, search engine fluctuations.
      I do not believe there is a google dance, no more than a bing dance.
      On any given day, your competition may outrank you.
      On any given day, you may slack off, someone else picks up the pace.
      Google (and I suppose bing now) prides themselves on giving the most
      relevant, up to date, fresh, bold, fantastic, websites in the results. So why would
      you think for even one minute that your site is going to stay put?

      With millions of websites created each day, it is no wonder why some people
      go up and down. Seems rather normal to me.

      I think people are crazy when they think google does something nefarious with
      their website SERPs. Same is true for a sandbox, slap, etc.

      Did you ever think that it is actually your competition that is sandboxing,
      slapping, and making your site dance?

      If a doctor tells you to take this pill. You don't. And you die. Does that mean
      the doctor killed you? Is the NFL sandboxing the Detroit Lions? Or is it their
      competition? Or maybe even their own lack of skilled players? You signup for
      the Boston Marathon. You train hard. Unfortunately, your comp trained twice
      as hard. You finish in the back. Who sandboxed you? The Boston Marathon?
      Your competition? Or you?

      Put google in perspective.

      Paul
      • [1] reply
  • "So Google, save the last dance for me"
  • When I build sites, I give it 3-4 possibly even 5 months for it to settle. You'll know whether your you've done a good backlink campaign.
    • [1] reply
    • But what will you "know" after 5 months?

      You'll know where you are after 5 months. That's it.
      You won't know where you will be the next day.
      Then you'll come back and talk about the google dance.
      Oh don't get me wrong. Some of you will! But those who
      know will not be worried about any google dance.

      And we just go around and around.

      Ask yourself this: Why are the Dodgers not in the world series?
      Because MLB sandboxed them? Or maybe, just maybe, they just
      were not good enough? They are now back to square one.
      They need to improve during the offseason. They need to work harder.
      They need to scrap to get back up. MLB did not do any dance.
      Whoever wins the world series, they are #1. For a while. But if they
      don't keep up, keep improving, keep the same players, get other ones,
      they will not be #1 this time next year. And they cannot blame that on
      any MLB dance. And the Dodgers cannot cry foul over some MLB slap.

      But we continue to ignore the fact that people are working harder, or
      as hard as us. So when we lose out to better websites, we cry google
      slap, google dance, etc.

      So when google slaps you, sandboxes you, dances with you, you have
      nobody to blame but yourself. Google did absolutely nothing to you.

      How crazy would we be thinking of the Dodgers if they said, "We did
      not make the world series bacause of a MLB penalty."

      Paul
  • good to note at least something is happening. I too have been adding lots of content and continue building backlinks but my site is still in the doldrums...Hope I will have good news soon. I am planning on a major backlinking building campaign this month and just trying to see how best to do it and also try and outsorce some of it...

    regarding you first site which is new...it can be a battle to come back in the serps. With the site I am working on...I did lot of backlinking when it was new then a month later, it disappeared and must I say ignored it and it just reappeared after about 3months and now its disappeared off again but this time I am gonna see it through
    • [1] reply
    • I think one of the keys(as others have mentioned) is to keep link building and adding content consistent. The very best of luck with your campaign and keep us updated

      In terms of the first site I mentioned, it's really frustrating because it's a seasonal(Christmas actually) site - it was getting 20-30 hits per day organically in early October when it was at position 10 for it's keyword. Right now, it could be getting double that and in December possibly in the hundreds if it was in the top 3. It's very frustrating, but all we can do is keep at it
  • Did you try building links more consistently? Try to build the same or similar amount of links everyday for the next 7 days, should minimize the dropping effect?
    • [2] replies
    • Before it was dancing, I was building links pretty consistently, each and every day via profile links, blog commenting, RSS, Directory Submissions etc. Admittedly, since it's been dancing I haven't been as consistent, but I'm getting back to it now
      • [1] reply
    • This could be a good approach. My niche site was on no. 1 in Google and I was doing lots of backlinking for a sub-page and that triggered the Google dance. I could not find the SERP anywhere although it's still indexed and not sandboxed. It came back only after 3 long weeks. That's a long wait and wasn't even sure it would come back. I encountered Google dance before but never this long.

  • I think you need to check webmaster tools if your site encounter such problems...

    For articles, I think more backlinks to it will push it up again, just don't do any on page stuff or it might take longer to get back.
  • Great news Liam, its really encouraging. Just hope it sticks this time

    Well I havent checked my rankings but I am still somewhere in google doldrums and dont even fancy checking where I am right now. My site comes first when I type the unusual site name when all is good with google, now the site for its site name is not even in the top 50 so its still all loose for me here and the traffic keeps getting down daily. Google seem to only send me traffic on just one keyword and its variation. Getting a bit more love from yahoo.

    I have continued with the buidling backlinks, need I say I have been doing it aggressively, just getting a little let down by some freelancers. I have also continued adding fresh content on the site at the minimum 5 a week and my pages get indexed pretty much in minutes since the site has loads other backlinks...

    Hope to be have Champaigne soon when we finally reach the top Liam. I have stopped being angry and annoyed about google and realised I just have to work my way to the top. SEO is no different from building a business, it doesnt happen overnight...who knows it could be weeks or months but I bet thou shall reach the top
    • [1] reply
    • You've got more willpower than me in terms of checking your rankings :p It sounds like you're doing all the right things - I'm sure your work is going to pay off in the coming days and weeks

      There'll certainly be champagne if I reach the top for my main site(pretty big niche with pretty big search volume - not weight loss, dog training or dating though), but I'll feel like celebrating even if I can break into the top 10. My other sites are more mini sites, but if they were in the top 10(top 3 especially) for their keywords I think each of them could bring in sales each and every day.

      You're totally right to think of it like building a business and to not get angry - unfortunately we can't control the search engines, we can only leverage the odds in our favour
      • [1] reply
  • Tell me about it.

    One of my sites I've been aggressively building links for is going through the same thing... dropped down to the 200's for my primary keyword. Long-tails are all good so traffic isn't dead.

    It'll come back, I just hate the wait.

    And yeah, from what I've experienced in the past, the site will drop for the keywords I'm pushing and then a couple of weeks later will come back at a higher ranking.
    • [1] reply
    • Same experience here, sometime I just don't like to wait, shoot bunch of links to the articles, one by one and let it rank in 3 weeks.

      If I can build the links more consistently over time, the chances of Google dancing would be minimize, sometime I just don't care, as the article have yet rank, I got nothing to lose !
      • [1] reply
  • And once you get some consistent money coming in...

    You start outsourcing... bit-by-bit...

    And then the promotion starts working on autopilot... and you get another project going... and...

    The sky is your limit after that :-)
    • [1] reply
    • I use outsource all the time! Love the simplicity of getting work done. Just the writing spec for outsource may take a bit more time, you should keep all outsourcing tools ready, save a lot of time!
  • Liam you know I am a stoker of your progress and I am really happy for you. After all the hard work, the only way is up and keep going for it. Congrats and here's me wishing you some great rewards from that term you have worked hard for...So encouraging and just gives me a glimmer of hope too...

    Keep going for that top position now. Just being curious how is the competition like ie how many site are you competing with in "quotes" an without coz I too have some super competitive terms I am going for even though the bulk are more medium competetive terms
    • [1] reply
    • Hi Liam,

      I thought I'd report my experience with a site losing it's Google ranking. It happened a week ago today. The domain is 2 months old. The site is an xFactor Adsense one page of content site (along with privacy policy, about us, contact us and site map pages). It was ranking #4 in Google for my primary keyword and a steady earner. About 80 backlinks reported by Yahoo, mostly Angela's, Backlink Goldmine 6 and a few Ezinearticles and GoArticles links.

      All of a sudden last Monday, it's Adsense earnings was $0.00. Then I saw it wasn't ranking. It was indexed because it ranked #1 when keyword searched with quotes. I considered adding a page or two of content and changing the page title slighty. But then I decided to ride it out and do nothing to see what would happen.

      Lo and behold, it came back today, one week later at #3 and ahead of "Shopping results for". Not really enough information to draw definite conclusions, but it looks like if your SEO (including content) and backlinks are in order, sites stand a good chance of coming back on their own.

      Phil
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    The Google Dance Thread

    Every single day of the week there are threads here and on the main internet marketing section about our sites suddenly disappearing down the pages of Google and the other search engines. I thought it might be useful to have one thread where we could all share in our sweating and squirming over our sites ever important positions :p Basically, no naming of keywords or site urls are needed - just explain where your site is, where it was and how long it has been dancing. We can also post about our relief when our sites come back to the front page, stronger than ever This will hopefully put everyone else at ease who is currently experiencing the Google(or other search engines) dance for their site(s) My first site is a new one - 4-5 weeks old. It was steadily on page 1 of Google for it's main keyword term, fluctuating between positions 8-10. 8 or 9 days ago, it disappeared from the front page and hasn't been back since. I don't know exactly where it is now, but my guess is it is back on page 10-20 or so. Interestingly, it appeared in Bing at the weekend, in the number 1 spot. It's disappeared from there too. I've been doing everything right in terms of backlinking and SEO so hopefully it'll be back soon.