Page rank went from 10 to practically unranked in Google

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This is an odd one. I started a new stock discussion forum 6 months ago and one of my forums is for Blackberry. According to Google Webmaster, it was ranking on average at 10th position for the search term "bbry forum" for roughly all of March (BBRY is the stock ticker for Blackberry). Before March, the forum would rank at the 4th position on average for the search term "rimm forum" (RIM or Research in Motion changed its company name to Blackberry about two months ago).

However, approximately 2 weeks ago, my Blackberry forum falls out of the Google rankings hard. "bbry forum" no longer brings up my forum page. Even more puzzling, when I type in the search term "bbry forum alphabanter", I would expect my Blackberry forum to rank high since that is a very specific search term that should match highly with my forum. Instead, this ranks around 20th!

I am at a loss here. The only thing I can think of is that I had a poor click through rate (CTR) for this forum in Google Webmaster. But it's almost like my page is being penalized by Google now - "bbry forum alphabanter" should rank top 5 because it is very specific to my page, IMO.

Any ideas on what happened? I have few backlinks to my Blackberry forum but I don't expect it to go from 10 to practically unranked overnight.
#search engine optimization #google #page #practically #rank #seo #unranked
  • Have you been pointing any links at it? If so, it's not rare to see a site drop a ton, but come back stronger.

    And if you haven't been doing any link building, you may want to start.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • You are page 1 for "bbry forum" in Google UK for me.

    And page 1 for "bbry forum" through my US proxy on Google USA.

    Your rankings are fine.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [1] reply
    • Thanks, I just tested it after your post. For some reason, I got my ranking back for "bbry forum" after not being ranked last week (stopped looking after the 8th page for this search term last week).

      Having said this, I used to rank for "bbry message board". Just tested this now and I don't rank for this anymore (Google Webmaster also shows I no longer rank for this search term).

      I am considering changing the title of my forum from "Blackberry (BBRY) Stock Discussion Forum" to "Blackberry (BBRY) Stock Discussion Forum and Message Board". If I do this, is this considered keyword stuffing by Google?

      I don't know what the effect is if I use a synonym (message board) to widen my keyword results.
  • Calm down and wait few days , keywords occasionally vanish to no where few days and come back stronger than before when you build links on it.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [1] reply
    • Thanks. I was not aware that in the Google dance, your ranking can disappear altogether for a few days!
  • That's just the Google dance baby, learn to tango
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Well, on the bright side, you are not losing anything. "bbry forum" gets searched less than 10 times a month. Unless this is one of those rare occasions where the GAKT is way off, there really is not any traffic for that term.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • So it was the google dance(?)!
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    Page rank went from 10 to practically unranked in Google

    This is an odd one. I started a new stock discussion forum 6 months ago and one of my forums is for Blackberry. According to Google Webmaster, it was ranking on average at 10th position for the search term "bbry forum" for roughly all of March (BBRY is the stock ticker for Blackberry). Before March, the forum would rank at the 4th position on average for the search term "rimm forum" (RIM or Research in Motion changed its company name to Blackberry about two months ago). However, approximately 2 weeks ago, my Blackberry forum falls out of the Google rankings hard. "bbry forum" no longer brings up my forum page. Even more puzzling, when I type in the search term "bbry forum alphabanter", I would expect my Blackberry forum to rank high since that is a very specific search term that should match highly with my forum. Instead, this ranks around 20th!