Site dropped from Google

grumble...

[4string]

I'm really restraining the expletives here. I had a good ranking site for my keyword. In the top 4 on G. This was a very simple site (about 5 pages) with just a little info on it. I decided to create a killer site with tons of high quality relevant content. I registered a new URL with keywords in it. It's not at all spammy. I set up a 301 redirect from my old page and now Google has dropped me completely out of the index. Had I just submitted my new site as a second site, I probably would've been fine. But THAT would be spamming. So somehow I am being penalized for doing the right thing. I assume the 301 is the cause. I had read here that that's what you should do and it would be reindexed soon with the new URL. Is my site banned forever?

[pete_m]

So you've got a 301 redirect from your old site to your new one?

Well I'm guessing that Google has noticed the 301 from your old site (and dropped it from the index), but then hasn't got round to indexing the new site. There is a delay between Google spidering a site, and then having that site appear in the listings.

If this all just happened a couple of days ago, then it's probably just a temporary thing.

[ciml]

I agree with Pete, and you might also want to consider the 'Google Sandbox' as we tend to call it:
[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]
[google.com...]

[4string]

Thanks for the replies. It's been all month now. Though I just submitted the new URL because it doesn't seem like anything has happened. Oddly a new site I still have under development got spidered by googlebot and the only link to it is from the new site that got dropped. The dropped site doesn't look to have been spidered.

I learned my lesson. I shouldn't have made changes to the website even two months before my busiest time. I get a lot of clients around back-to-school time. So I screwed myself. It could be worse than it is.

Should I try to put the old site back up or just wait? I still have lots of links to the old domain. What effect do old links that are 301'd have on PR? I don't know if I could get them updated.

It could be the sandboxing. The previous site had been up for about 5 years with little change. The new site has no links to it yet.

[bts111]

put the old one back up.

[4string]

Will that disrupt the process of getting the new URL indexed? Should I put the old page up with a link to the new site?

Thanks.

[walkman]

"Will that disrupt the process of getting the new URL indexed? Should I put the old page up with a link to the new site"

I would leave both sites up and let Google sort it out.

[Vicente Duque]

I have many websites erased by Google in the last 6 or 7 days ( July 24 to 31 of 2004 )

Some Home Pages were left ( not all of them . They erased mostly the pages of year 2004. There is no pattern in the deletion.

Google erased two of my Original Content Websites. Worked and crafted very carefully and with lots of labor during the past 4 moths.

That Content is purely original. There are no copies from anybody, but my own invention. There are no advertisements or links to Amazon or to other eTailers. There are no tricks or spams.

There are hundreds of pages that I erased long ago and they are appearing in Google as current. They are 404s. There is no quality in that Google's Information.

If Google is erasing original content with no commercial links. Then what is safe?

Has anybody suffered from this recently?

Could it be an accident inside Google?

What can be done to repair the damage?

Thanks for Help!

Vicente

[4string]

I finally got googlebot to visit one page of my new site. We'll see what happens.

It sucks we all need to rely on just a few sources to get our products/services seen.

[Vicente Duque]

Google Tornado
Helter Skelter Destruction :

I apologize if I am a nuissance and a bumper of threads but my case is the gravest thing imaginable and I am bound for the MADHOUSE.

Google always registered my 21 websites with great speed ( sometimes in two days --- All the pages without any exception )

Now Google began playing with my websites, erasing from the present slowly towards the past. The Pages appear and disappear with the hours like ebb and tide.

Better than the sea, this is a tornado with bathtubes and cows spinning over the roofs.

There is a tendency to leave the Home Pages, but some of them disappeared and now have reappeared again.

There are two homepages lost by now. But the appearing and disappearing continues ( of many interior pages )

There is no pattern and 5 Original Content Websites have been heavily punished. They have no ads, no links to etailers, no sales of merchandise, no advertising, no spams, no redirects, no tricks. They are super original with reporting to many local people. It is not copies from other sites.

Is this the pattern of a damage in Google's Hard Disk?

Is this punishment without crime?

What are my Sins or Sacrileges for this behaviour of Google?

If I am banned, why is it that my websites still exist in Home Page Form ( except two )?

Thanks for any help in this tornado destroying everything!

Vicente

[metatarsal]

I've got a very well established site, high PR, high content - but it's not been crawled for past week - and now permanently overtaken by 'freshes.'

And since Joe Public seems so set on clicking No 1, now that it's at No 4 there's very little revenue.

I think maybe it's time to get out of this business - but then I've been thinking this since Nov 2003 when it really went pear shaped, and Google showed that any attempt to make a genuine online business is really jsut a house of cards.

[Vicente Duque]

Metatarsal :

You said :
" ...... and Google showed that any attempt to make a genuine online business is really just a house of cards."

You are right. Unfortunately we are not devoting our time to do beautiful websites with wonderful content and great use for visitors. We have forgotten Art, Science and Enthusiasm.

We are devoting our time to satisfy requirements for Search Engines like Google. Then we become marketers and the publisher dies, the writer dies, the artist or scientist in us dies.

We no longer work for the good of the visitor but to satisfy the requirement to acquire foolish links with foolish publishers.

Let's be optimistic.

Perhaps one day we find Search Engines where there are other criteria different from that of Google. Where you are really judged by the content, by your keywords or topics and by the uncommon terms of search.

For example if someone writes a valuable page about a scientific topic, and it is the only paper on that research. Then Google is not going to register it because it doesn't have 100 backlinks.

That is totally absurd. The same for literary works, like fiction and poetry, where people use strange phrases, sentences, words, etc .... of art and creation.

Vicente

[jmccormac]

We are devoting our time to satisfy requirements for Search Engines like Google. Then we become marketers and the publisher dies, the writer dies, the artist or scientist in us dies.

Any real publisher will tell you that the bottom line is about getting paid. Paraphrasing Johnson, only a fool writes for free. Any writer will tell you horror stories of trying to get paid for his work. An artist has to have an audience and a market for his work. The scientist has to fund his research. All these professions need marketing if they are to survive. Search engines allow the work of all to be found easily. Far from killing off these professions or instincts in people, the search engine market encourages and inspires the development of their skills and the acquisition of skill in marketing. The publisher, the writer, the scientist and the marketer in us is born.

Regards...jmcc

[metatarsal]

Agreed - we all have to market and compromise to some extent to succeed.

But I think the Internet is unique in being totally unreliable.

These are virtual shopfronts to whatever you are providing (whether goods, knowledge, expertise, service etc.)

But the uncomfortable fact is that you can invest thousands of hours, and tens of thousands of pounds in your virtual 'shopfront' - but unlike a real shopfront on the high street - it can effectively disappear at the wink of an eye.

So for this reason I'm out of it...

(and I suggest we all do ;-)

[1milehgh80210]

But I think the Internet is unique in being totally unreliable."

I would advise people to sit tight before throwing in the towel. My PR7 site virtually dissapeared from G about 2 months ago and is just now becoming re-indexed. Everyday, site:www.mysite.com shows different results? -lol- even though I have made no changes in this period.

Maybe Google is becoming a victim of its own success?
Everyday hundreds/thousands of people are making websites with thousands of spam pages designed to make money from adsense or affiliate merchants. Quite a bit of &h&t for them to look through. )

[Vicente Duque]

1 Mile Hgh :

Good Post. You said :

"I would advise people to sit tight before throwing in the towel"

................. And you added :

"Everyday hundreds/thousands of people are making websites with thousands of spam pages designed to make money from adsense or affiliate merchants."

I agree 100% .... I see Google completely filled with Spam for the topics that I search.

My websites of Original Content ( Medicine, Psychology, etc ... ) have been erased. ( No copies, no Spam, no Advertising, no Tricks )

However Google is showing Old Pages of Mine that no longer exist because I changed Domain Names several months ago. ( Hundreds of these 404s of mine )

Is that Google Quality?

My sites are appearing in Yahoo and MSN. But Google has decided to erase them ( Only the Home Pages are left ).

I hope that this is not definitive. There are no other websites with the same topics as one of my Original Content Websites ( Biology and Evolution of Certain Organs ) and Google erased it.

Vicente

[outland88]

I have to agree with metatarsal. I’ve been doing this close to ten years and it’s really becoming very difficult to make a living online. I’m spending massive amounts of time trying to offset what Google and Yahoo have done since November and are doing daily. At one time people purchased from upwards thirty search engines now its down to a couple. You can’t compete against companies whose primary business is generating a 1000 pages of content a week.

I wouldn't downgrade my aspirations based upon a few keywords though. I've always done amazingly well just ranked in the top twenty. It's when the nature of what the search engines want you to see shifts is when you may need to close shop.

[1milehgh80210]

When any business opportunity is new, lots of people jump in (and lots of them make money). Then sadly, when the business climate matures, the little guys are squeezed out.

I remember reading that there used to be over 200 auto manufacturers in the U.S in the early 1900's. before shrinking to 3)

[WebFusion]

And since Joe Public seems so set on clicking No 1, now that it's at No 4 there's very little revenue.

If that's the case, I think it is your business model that's the problem, not your lack of being #1.

I have a relatively old product/site in a VERY competiive niche that's not ranked higher than 10-12 in the serps for over 8 months now, yet pulls in sales each and every day.

Perhaps if people would focus more on developing a user-friendly, sales generating site, as opposed to the "brute force" method of simply doing whatever it takes to get to #1, they would have alot less sleepless nights.

A well designed site that sells will sell no matter what the traffic source (including PPC). If you absolutely cannot make a profit without being in the top 10 int he serps....it's your site that's the problem.