Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
A business stratergy based on hope is a bad one. Google likes to fix these things with thier algo. Cross your fingers and you will be back soon. This will make you stonger for next time.
Actually We all can do a lot more than just sit and complain, we can notify G that something has gone awry.
If it was just my site, sure, sit and wait, but this is much bigger and much different and Should be addressed.
I have written, and if my site does recover I'll know why.
Will you take the chance and do nothing?
btw: I have been an Adwords Advertiser since inception.
It is time for Google to learn what Yahoo learned years ago. Web designers/developers/marketers are the ones that people listen to. We made Google what it is, not the other way around. Google says, "Hey, we're a free listing, so we'll do what we want." I say that is a big mistake. No Google doesn't owe me anything, but that is a two way street.
I have never, EVER tried to take advantage of SEO techniques to get my sites on the first SERP. I played by the rules, optimized for legitimate content. I have tried to do the same for my clients. My phone has been ringing off the hook. What do I tell my clients? "Well, Google is trying something new..."
This is absolutely absurd. I have had enough. Boycott Google and sell your clients Google's competition.
This is what I can see:
First of all, my biggest site which averages about 5000 uniques a day and has several Google #1 results has been pasted. Oh well.
Some secondary sites of mine competing in the same sector are waaay up.
However, I look after a whole host of ancillary sites for customers and myself which aren't showing a Title/Description in Google, or indeed aren't showing up at all. The problem sites are all hosted in the UK in the 81.21.x.x range if that's any help. Some of these have been wiped out of the SERPs even for domain name, and yet these are pretty run of the mill sites listed in places like DMOZ. Oddly, one of the sites that has benefited the most from the change is also hosted on the same servers as the one that has vanished.
There seem to be a couple of things going on - firstly, there's some sort of algo tweak that's impacting on long-established sites.. this is a bummer if, like me, you've been screwed but hey that's Google.
Secondly, and more importantly, there seems to be a definite bug where sites aren't ranking and aren't displaying their titles and snippets correctly even though they are perfectly ordinary sites with no SEO that target specific niches. I'd call this a bug - and hopefully a bug that Google will fix quickly.
twebdonny, I am an old timer as far as these events are concerned. I have had sites wiped out before, written to google, even used my google rep. You will just get back the standard mail. You can run around the room with your hands on your head as much as you like but you are going to have to deal with reality here. They are not going to listen the voices of even a 1000 webmasters. You been punk'd and Ashton Kutcher is not going to come round the corner with his crew and slap you on the back ( for those of you who watch mtv)
Tomorrow is another day, use it wisely instead of venting anger.
[edited by: Crush at 9:41 pm (utc) on Feb. 3, 2005]
This update makes total sense.
[edited by: twebdonny at 9:42 pm (utc) on Feb. 3, 2005]