For the last month or so my site has been steadily climbing the SERPs in google.
Today, i went to check my keywords and rankings.
Nowhere!
Was ranked 2nd, now nothing.
Is google playing with something at the moment?

Don't see anything unusual on my end.

I would worry about it if it stays like that for more than a few days.

Best time to check things out seems to be on mondays. Don't know if it's true or not, but it seems like there's a small flux over the weekend, then everything settles on mon.

MrStitch wrote:

I would worry about it if it stays like that for more than a few days.

if(!$gooserps){

 $worry = true;

}

If you're down on traffic the worry will be in the here and now, you can't just not worry about it for a few days.

griffinsbridge, is it all search terms you're down on or just the core money terms?

i've seen us drop out of the top ten for ringtones one day yet still keep the longtail traffic coming in, next day it's back again.

I've also seen the longtail drop and our core ringtones term rise for a day or two before going back to how it was.

Could this be everflux or are you suspecting something more drastic than that?

I take it you've queried to see if your site is still in there at all? How many pages does it return for site:url

Index stats: 2,100

No main keywords, and all longtails have dropped about 8 pages.

Ive just made a few changes to my robots.txt to disallow a certain file from indexing. In the 2 days since I did this, they have removed all indexes of it (dynamic file, over 700 poss urls)
Which is good, i didnt want it in there, its no use to the relevancy of results.

But didnt expect to lose serps in the process

Im clutching at straws here, but do google penalise ALL your sites listed in webmaster tools, if they drop your adsense account? Had it dropped recently due to some idiot users not being able to tell the difference between a google ad (with green background) and an affiliate link (on a white background). Cost me thousands. hope it hasn't seen my sites penalised too.

i can't see why they would penalise all the sites listed if only one has done something someone considers wrong.

the file you don't want indexing..... could this be set to 301 redirect through to pages you do want indexing or do you need to keep the content and only disallow it?

i know how it feels, i wish there was more i could to to help.

Nah, i just want it out.
Basically, this site has lots of aff links. the links themselves point to this file&retailer=RETAILER

That file checks to make sure the user is logged in, tests for any cookies being blocked and a couple of other things, then it header redirects to the retailer.

Obviously, google was never logged in!! so it die()'d the message was always the same (you are not logged in) and there was absolutely no point in it being in the index. So I dropped it using robots.txt

wierd how quickly it was all dropped when its taken 6 months to get a full site out of the index before using robots.txt (different site, different circumstances).

Hello
Ive found us in the serps!

409th!!
last week we were 2nd. what the hell??

I cant think of anything we have done that could have caused this dramatic slump. anyone got any ideas?
Please??
pretty please??

MC has been talking about some up and coming data pushes for the end of jan.

could be (real) PR, index, algo twaek, or any combination of factors

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/infrastru … uary-2007/

Thanks for the link nortie. Dont think theres anything in there that explains it though. unless we've just been victim to the data shift.

The main keyword Im worried about is our Site and Business name.
lately ive:
Re installed all files _ (should be up or no change)
Added TM to all instances of my site name (™)_ (dunno if this has affected anything)

We have had alot of links added recently. Many are just text links from sites who like us, but there have been alot of referral links added on some pay to surf sites by our members. (bad neighbourhood perhaps?) Theyve been doing this for a while with banners, but ive just found quite alot of text links lately.

These referal links have a strng &ref=MEMBERNAME, this activates some SQL then does a php 301 redirect to our homepage. Dont know if thats even relevant, but might be. Im just trying to give everyone as much info as i can incase they have any suggestions.

Another thread i started about reciprocal links may have affected it (the subject of the thread, not the thread itself)
http://forums.site-reference.com/viewtopic.php?id=4729

Im thinking that big G might have indexed those pages before i set up the redirects, but i cant find them with the cache: operator.

If anyones interested and would like to see if theres any onpage factors that could have screwed me over, its the second link in my siggy.

*edit*
somethings just occured to me.
SR has had trouble lately right? Could the fact that those troubles are over and all my links in my siggy are now getting indexed be a problem? afterall, if G suddenly finds 400+ links on one site in one day, couldnt this affect it? Clutching at straws I know.

griffinsbridge wrote:

We have had alot of links added recently. Many are just text links from sites who like us, but there have been alot of referral links added on some pay to surf sites by our members. (bad neighbourhood perhaps?) Theyve been doing this for a while with banners, but ive just found quite alot of text links lately.

As I am sure you have heard of the infamous "Sandbox" (debated by many of its existence), regardless of whether or not you feel it exist or not, many sites have seen a drop in search rankings (if not a drop from the SE's completely, although I am not sure how many people would in fact go all the way to result #409) when they experience a very large increase in back links over a relatively short period of time. In these cases most sites are on the newer side but this is not always the case. From what I have read and experienced this is something that can last up to a few months although I doubt this to be the case now with Google have little data pushes often (possible as much as once a week).

Although this is something I rarely hear of unless the increase in back links was drastic. Otherwise after looking at your other post regarding back links my only other thought would be that the new code you added to deal with "no follow" could be the problem. If this is something that was added since your drop and all other things the same chances are this probably is the case. REMEMBER SE's care about the end-user first and then about search engine friendliness. Build a site for the user with no "tricks" and it is very difficult to end up being penalized in any of the Big 3 especially G.

Other than that the only other reason I could possibly think of would be that you mention placing "no follow" on many of your links, especially in the case of sites requesting a back link, is it possible one of these sites noticed your "no follow", was not happy and potentially reported you to Google? If you are adding "no follow"'s where they are not agreed to be the potential for this to happen is there (not big but still present). With that being said, many of these sites that request a back link to their domain are known by the search engines and therefore even adding a "no follow" attribute (assuming that it is formatted correctly, and all that good stuff) may do little as the SE will not give much credence to this back link.

Well I am sure some (if not most) of this is unrelated to your issue but I hope something above helps or at least gets the mind rolling for a potential solution and let me know if you have any questions that I can assist you with.

- D

#420 now!!

What i can't understand is that many of the pages ranked on page 1 link to us.
Oh, I think Im gonna cry

Maybe they´ve got more relevant content?

Clutching at straws now.
Just had a quick count up of site name keywords on my homepage.

Keyword: Quids In UK (11+2 in ALT)
Keyword: Quids In (16 +3 ALT)
Keyword: Quids (27 + 3 ALT)


Been hammering Web CEO to try and figure this slump out. Maybe the page is in its rightful place? Maybe I need to re-optimize it alittle?

I have 2 forms on that page, one to login one to register.
Oh that reminds me, a recent change was the inclusion of a captch image on both forms.

Anyhoo, web CEO doesnt like the controls in these forms. Maybe iframe them in instead?

Another thing, I have a H1 thats only shown when a user isnt logged in. Ive stuck this H1 at the top of the page, above the logo. maybe move it below the logo?

just found this warning too: Your keyword too often appears in the ALT / TITLE attributes of text and graphical links on this page!

oops!!

best get on with it then

You've just answered your own question

Been hammering Web CEO to try and figure this slump out.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh sh*t

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if webCEO left a big fat footprint in the google access logs with your site written all over it!

Ah, I dont use it to check rankings, what with that being against the T+C!! Didnt start until after i noticed the slump anyway.
Just use it for page analysis really, all its good for tbh

griffinsbridge wrote:

Another thing, I have a H1 thats only shown when a user isnt logged in. Ive stuck this H1 at the top of the page, above the logo. maybe move it below the logo?

just found this warning too: Your keyword too often appears in the ALT / TITLE attributes of text and graphical links on this page!

Are your H1 tags the same across all pages? You do not want to have a site where all pages contain the same text at the top of the page contained w/n H1 tags as this could potentially hurt your SEO and SE rankings. SE spiders look at the top of the page to determine the most relevant content as they do with H1 tags so having the same keywords or verbiage at the top of the page w/n H1 tags is really hurting your site as its making most pages appear the same across the board. If a SE spider can not distinguish b/w the different pages of your domain your site's rankings will suffer especially the inner pages.

In most, if not all, cases it does not matter if your member-only pages contain unique keyword-rich content, title tags, and all that SEO jazz b/c the pages will not be index by SE's. When a SE determines a page or section of a domain is not open to the general public then it will not index the page for it's SERPs.

After reading your last comments my guess is your site was penalized from G for "spamming" purposes. Not to say you necessarily did anything wrong but I think you would admit that many of the SEO practices being used are somewhat Grey to say the least. That being said there is definitely a good chance that your site did one single thing incorrect but maybe a few questionable things instead. In previous posts you mention your "no follow" script that allows you to manipulate reciprocal links to make them one-way incoming links, this coupled with the excessive keywords may have done the trick in the eyes of Google. One may have brought attention to your site with second tipping the scale unfortunately not in your favor.

You mention that your site generated a warning about using a keyword too many times on a single page, was this a one time thing? or was it throughout the entire site? If this is the case for multiple keywords across many pages of your domain than I would say this is the reason your site is no where to be found in the SERPs. If this is the case I am surprised your site lasted this long with such techniques as SE's are typically fast to pick this up. A general rule of thumb is having a keyword density b/w 3-6% (and some say 6% is pushing it), anything over this will usually set off alarms to SE's.

Now if this is a one time instance on a page with high traffic there is still a good chance that your site may have been penalized by the SE's but the remedy here is not as difficult. If this is the case I would first correct the content of the page ASAP so that keyword levels are b/w the 3-6% and then I would send an email to G (this can be found in their webmaster section) for re-inclusion (now I know your domain is not banned as you are ranked #420 but most people  do not search that far so just say that you are under the impression......) and explain your situation to them. If you did now know what you were doing was wrong tell them that, be honest, let them know you immediately made corrections, and in most cases G is actually quite forgiving (just make sure not to get back on their bad side).

Other cases I have seen (although not confirmed by Google) is that a site which has been previously ban or penalized by G appears to then be on a sort of a watch list as they will quickly be noted and penalized for any black hat practices.

The only other thing I can think of would be if your domain is hosted on a server that shares IP's and one of the other domains was penalized for spamming which in turn would hurt your site's reputation and its rankings. Visit a site like whois.sc to see if this is the case.

Other than that if you want to provide me with more info I would be happy to take a look.

Best of luck!

- D

griffinsbridge wrote:

#420 now!!

What i can't understand is that many of the pages ranked on page 1 link to us.
Oh, I think Im gonna cry

With you having said this then chances are the back links are not the issue (assuming they were not all received in a short period of time) and therefore i would go with the "no follow" script as a potential red flag but really focus on your keyword density as there seems little to no need for a site's content to actually NEED to use a given keyword 30 times on one page.

Keyword: Quids In UK (11+2 in ALT)
Keyword: Quids In (16 +3 ALT)
Keyword: Quids (27 + 3 ALT)

REMEMBER - design for the end-user first then the SE's, would a end-user really need to see your keyword 27 times on one page, wouldn't they be well known of your site's content/purpose/mission/etc. with far less instances of the same word. If your page has 27 instances of a keyword then it would need a total of 450-900 words on the page in order for the keyword density to not be considered "SPAMMY" in the eyes of most SE's (3% Keyword Density would require 900 words on the page - although ideally want to have b/w 200-500 words on a single web page OR 6% Keyword Density would require 450 words on the page). This number does not even count the text contained within your ALT tags.

Hope this helps, good luck!!!!!!

Hi,
I´ve got a site with links into a for each product and
I use following text instead of a button: buy xy-dvds

My keyword-density is higher than 6% (up to 12%).
I´m not sure to correct it by now.
How do you know the keyword-density thing?

Hey guys! Thanks for the input.
Im listening, I really am!

firstly, down to #432 so not getting any better right now.

Ive been through every page and noted what the dynamic <h1> was showing. I did find that I had alot of pages showing the same heading. This wasnt the intention, just badly thought out i suppose. Ive now got the <h1> on every article page showing the article title, on each products page it shows the product/shop title, on my homepage its just a little intro.
My legal pages (about us, discalaimer, t+c etc), well, that whole section of the site was sharing the same heading, so Ive changed that. Everywhere else, Ive taken the heading tag out, cos those pages im not too bothered about getting in the serps, but I dont want them to hurt the rest.

Ive cut down on the use of my sitename on the homepage, which really hurts tbh.
They were all there for the users AND the SEs really. taking them out has changed the flow of the whole page.
There's like a dictionary definition of my keywords bottom right, which I REALLY dont want to let go of, but in the space of 120 words there are 12 of the "quid"'s. I love that bit though!!! blah! should it go? Dont answer unless youve been to the site and seen how it fits.

Our Logo had the same ALT right across the site, now it's either descriptive of empty.

God, I hope all this works
*edit*
just noticed an extra 10 pages in the index! go figure..............

dnyren wrote:

griffinsbridge wrote:

Another thing, I have a H1 thats only shown when a user isnt logged in. Ive stuck this H1 at the top of the page, above the logo. maybe move it below the logo?

just found this warning too: Your keyword too often appears in the ALT / TITLE attributes of text and graphical links on this page!

Are your H1 tags the same across all pages? You do not want to have a site where all pages contain the same text at the top of the page contained w/n H1 tags as this could potentially hurt your SEO and SE rankings. SE spiders look at the top of the page to determine the most relevant content as they do with H1 tags so having the same keywords or verbiage at the top of the page w/n H1 tags is really hurting your site as its making most pages appear the same across the board. If a SE spider can not distinguish b/w the different pages of your domain your site's rankings will suffer especially the inner pages.

In most, if not all, cases it does not matter if your member-only pages contain unique keyword-rich content, title tags, and all that SEO jazz b/c the pages will not be index by SE's. When a SE determines a page or section of a domain is not open to the general public then it will not index the page for it's SERPs.

After reading your last comments my guess is your site was penalized from G for "spamming" purposes. Not to say you necessarily did anything wrong but I think you would admit that many of the SEO practices being used are somewhat Grey to say the least. That being said there is definitely a good chance that your site did one single thing incorrect but maybe a few questionable things instead. In previous posts you mention your "no follow" script that allows you to manipulate reciprocal links to make them one-way incoming links, this coupled with the excessive keywords may have done the trick in the eyes of Google. One may have brought attention to your site with second tipping the scale unfortunately not in your favor.

You mention that your site generated a warning about using a keyword too many times on a single page, was this a one time thing? or was it throughout the entire site? If this is the case for multiple keywords across many pages of your domain than I would say this is the reason your site is no where to be found in the SERPs. If this is the case I am surprised your site lasted this long with such techniques as SE's are typically fast to pick this up.

A general rule of thumb is having a keyword density b/w 3-6% (and some say 6% is pushing it), anything over this will usually set off alarms to SE's.

Now if this is a one time instance on a page with high traffic there is still a good chance that your site may have been penalized by the SE's but the remedy here is not as difficult. If this is the case I would first correct the content of the page ASAP so that keyword levels are b/w the 3-6% and then I would send an email to G (this can be found in their webmaster section) for re-inclusion (now I know your domain is not banned as you are ranked #420 but most people  do not search that far so just say that you are under the impression......) and explain your situation to them. If you did now know what you were doing was wrong tell them that, be honest, let them know you immediately made corrections, and in most cases G is actually quite forgiving (just make sure not to get back on their bad side).

Other cases I have seen (although not confirmed by Google) is that a site which has been previously ban or penalized by G appears to then be on a sort of a watch list as they will quickly be noted and penalized for any black hat practices.

The only other thing I can think of would be if your domain is hosted on a server that shares IP's and one of the other domains was penalized for spamming which in turn would hurt your site's reputation and its rankings. Visit a site like whois.sc to see if this is the case.

Other than that if you want to provide me with more info I would be happy to take a look.

Best of luck!

- D

I am going to disagree because the importance of KW density is so downgraded that I doubt KW density counts very much, if at all. Now don’t confuse that with repeating KWs and such and to get slapped for repeating KWs it has to be super excessive and you would probably need lots of people reporting you.

I would recommend not using tools like Web CEO and focusing what looks natural to the visitor; it will add personality to the website. Fine tune your campaigns and work on getting links with on-topic anchor text. My prediction is that you will see a lot more to do with matching up themes in the future.

With more frequent DC refreshes you can expect to see SERPS looking like Mexican jumping beans for quite a while. Maybe look into some SEM to boost profits closer to the level you have enjoyed in the past.

Oh and just write short concise descriptions in your alt attributes, as long as it matches what’s behind the link it really don’t matter much if the KW is in 15 links/images or 4 in your alt attributes. The key is that the spider see it when they arrive at that page, bait and switch is a bad practice.