Back from Bourbon

[history]

For those of you who have given up on the damage done by the Bourbon update… there still might be hope. My site (400+ page history site), which was badly hit by Google’s May update, just came back late last night to its original standing in Google. I was originally on page one of Google with most of my keywords and keyword phrases for years. After May, the site was still page one with Yahoo and Msn; still indexed with Google, but in “no man’s land” in Google searches. I had about five duplicate content pages left over from a recent renovation; also 4 or 5 pages with the ‘http://www.mysite.com/’ and the ‘http://mysite.com’ problem. I contacted Google and was told about 3 weeks later that there was no penalty, but I still lost 95% of Google traffic. The only repairs I made were to eliminate the duplicate pages, but these pages really weren’t an issue in the loss of traffic. I now have 9 pages with the ‘http://www.mysite.com/’ and the ‘http://mysite.com’ problem. Other than that everything is back to normal.

[dazzlindonna]

All those that went to the G webmaster conference in New Orleans are keeping all the details to themselves....apparently too stingy to share what was discussed.

I went to the conference, and while I picked up some decent little tips, none of it was earth-shattering, or likely to help Bourbon-ites. Everything I did pick up that I thought was at all useful, I put on my blog. Several other bloggers also blogged almost word for word what they heard in the sessions. Now, it's possible that a few people had private conversations that netted them some good info, but from what I saw in the sessions I attended, there's nothing that would have been "magic" information for any of your sites affected by Bourbon. Just wanted to clear that up.

[Dayo_UK]

Thanks dazzlindonna

Yep, your blog entries have been excellent :)

Was anything mentioned about the purpose of Mozilla Googlebot do you know?

Also Canonical URL problems - I know MC indicated that Google has fixed the problems - but evidence in the serps point to it still being widespread. Any indication that although it is felt that G has fixed it - there will be a delay while recrawling etc to sort out the problems is likely?

My posts were made while in an annoyed frame of mind :)

[berto]

Seems that Bourbon feedback has LEFT the building... Just tried sending an e-mail and can no longer send anything to the Googleguy posted e-mail, so I guess we're totally SOL and on our own as usual

Two days ago, I sent an e-mail describing my situation and asking for assistance to

[e-mail]

No bounceback, so I assume the message was delivered. No response yet, but it being a holiday weekend here in the U.S., I wouldn't expect any yet.

So, you might want to try resending.

[jcmiras]

"jcmiras, see my msg# 84 above. "

But mine is different case. Those pages that they cached DOES NOT EXIST anymore so i cant add those codes on my pages.

[HarryM]

jcmiras,

See my message #92

[Clint]

Two days ago, I sent an e-mail describing my situation and asking for assistance to

[e-mail]

No bounceback, so I assume the message was delivered. No response yet, but it being a holiday weekend here in the U.S., I wouldn't expect any yet.

So, you might want to try resending.

You won't get any email replies set to that address, it's just for receiving.

[berto]

You won't get any email replies set to that address, it's just for receiving.

I've sent a message to the jun05feedback email address, also used the regular Google Contact Us page (I have a case #). Is there anywhere else I should try?

[DaveN]

I heard that bourbon should be comming to an end very soon, and most sites should be back by now (4th).. if you still having problems look at the common area ;) where we know there have been problems.. get in or stay out

DaveN

[HarryM]

common area where we know there have been problems

What is that supposed to mean?

[Dayo_UK]

Yes DaveN

Any timescales on this common area?

Er - might be thinking in the wrong area though.
Riddle me this, riddle me that

[dazzlindonna]

Dayo_UK,

Was anything mentioned about the purpose of Mozilla Googlebot do you know?

Not in any of the sessions or conversations I was involved in.

Also Canonical URL problems - I know MC indicated that Google has fixed the problems - but evidence in the serps point to it still being widespread. Any indication that although it is felt that G has fixed it - there will be a delay while recrawling etc to sort out the problems is likely?

I really wish I had gotten a good answer for this, but alas, not in any of the sessions or conversations I had.

Other than the few things I blogged about, the information was much more of a general nature rather than specific answers to burning questions. If you knew nothing about seo, then you would have gained tons of information. But for those of us who live and breathe this stuff, much of it was stuff we are already quite familiar with. And I don't want to make it sound like it wasn't good to be there - it was! Just networking with those of like-mind is a great thing. But in general - the previous unknowns - are still unknowns.

[Dayo_UK]

Thanks Dazzlindonna.

If I could have gone I would really have pestered for an answer on canonical url problems. :)

[peter andreas]

I am sorry this is probaly a stupid question to most of you but what are catonical URL's and what is this common area? previously I would have done asearch but search hasn't worked for a while on the site so aploogies in advance. I'm at a very basic level compared to most of you here I know. I have just concentrated on content and not bothered to be too tricky.

[eyeonbooks]

I hope to be back soon -- my whitehat site took a big hit May 20, with no recovery yet on keywords for which I used to be in the first 10 results. I still rank fairly high for a handful of obscure search terms, but for almost any term directly related to my site's core mission .. I'm still deep, deep in the hot dry desert.

[MikeNoLastName]

Just tried the june05feedback address again and getting the same response which I posted a few pages back. Now it says: "You do not have permission to post to group jun05feedback. You may need to join the group before being allowed to post, or this group may not be open to posting."
If you log in through Google there are supposedly still 9 members enrolled in the Group, but you have to apply to become one. Apparently they CLOSED DOWN the group/e-mail address Saturday or Sunday. Either that or they're rejecting my e-mail specifically 'cause they're sick of me :). Whatever.

Really, wanted to go to the conference, love New Orleans, but I just heard about it in early June right after our site tanking in G and with the uncertain financial future from Adsense and our other clients, the boss nixed all unnecessary expenditures until future notice. Kind of a catch-22 situation. Hey, but if we're still in biz by Nov, I think I can make it to LV :).

The good news is, I think I might have found a solution for the double "?" indexing problem I posted a few pages back. Someone directed me to a thread that shows how to trap QUERY-STRINGS through the .htaccess, which sorta works, so I redirected the bogus URL back to Google's home page to let them deal with it! There's another recent thread in this forum all about it. Maybe they'll eventually fix it if it affects them or someone big enough.

[shri]

>> I heard that bourbon should be comming to an end very soon, and most sites should be back by now (4th)

I can sort of validate this. Stuff we'd lost for a while saw an uptick around 16-18 of June and some more gains over the last couple of days.

Couple of curious comments from Google engineers when I mentioned the positive changes in the serps for me, for the first time in 6-7 weeks....

-- "You'll be ok..." (with the usual 23 disclaimers)
-- "Hmm... I'm surprised this affected people around here" (No Dave, you were not in the vicinity at that time.. ;) )

[webbyfro]

Hey guys I didn't want to start another thread because of the whole pre-mod thing, so I hope no one minds if I just ask this here:

Now that Bourbon is over, does anyone have a clue when the next update is coming? What is the average for Google between updates? I got into the dmoz last week and I'm still waiting for Google to update their indexes/backlinks, etc. Thanks.

[DaveN]

webbyfro : who said it was over ;)

DaveN

[stu2]

OK. I never got a reply to the message posted on Page #4 of this thread. I guess it must have got lost in the flood of messages which appeared to get posted after it.

"Has something significant happened since end of June? The search for my keywords looks awfully like they did pre-bourbon? Have they brought back an old index or something?"

I read somewhere that G tweaked the algo on 30th June. Is that correct? Well, see my comment above. That tweak makes my keyword search look almost identical to what it did pre-bourbon (which wasn't good) :(

"I used Google Sitemaps a few days after it was 1st introduced (about 3 weeks ago). All my pages got indexed correctly and I was pleased with my SERPS rankings. The last time I checked them was in the last few days of June and everything was still ok.

Now, doing a search on my keywords, the SERPS give me deja vue. Look awfully familar to pre-bourbon days. When I do a site:www.mydomain.com there are a significant number (maybe 15-20%) of my pages have lost their titles and caches and only now show the url. What causes that?"

Well it's now up to about 50% of my pages with no titles or cache and only showing the url. And I'm still wondering how that happens. Any ideas?

One last thing... how do you guys get to post quotes in rectangular boxes?

[HarryM]

Hi DaveN

Glad to see you are still here. So how about answering my question in Msg#100?

[Venix]

So sites are coming back? I must say I am very happy for all of you who are getting your traffic back. My best site went from 5000 G referals a day to about 100 , and so far nothing of it has returned. The site is 5 years old and 99% original content. So are most of you guys back or does it just feel like I am the only site left behind?

[HarryM]

Venix,

You are not alone! My Google traffic is practically zilch.

This is the second time I have been hit this year. I recovered from the first, but got hit again 16 June. I have run out of ideas as to what to do.

[kwngian]

Same situation as you, Venix but I did notice a 10% increase today after dropping off 80% of traffic.

It is situation like this that makes you realize how expensive it is to pay to get the same no of visitors. So for Adsense publishers, the more you should filter out those 3c ads.

[wiseapple]

Still out in the cold... Since Feb. 2nd. Lost about 15,000 - 20,000 ref from Google. Down to a couple hundred. We were so respected by Google, we were selected as beta tester on Adsense functionality. All original content - no seo techniques... Just a very respectable site. Only saving grace is Yahoo and MSN still supply traffic.

[HarryM]

I took some action by simplifying all my pages just in case something was triggering a filter. The new versions of some of the pages started appearing as caches dated 2 July, but today they have all rolled back to the old versions. I assume the update is still in progress.

[soapystar]

seeing flip flop indexes on .co.uk and .com....the newer index seems to be correcting my observation of sites having lower relevance pages selected for keywords where they previously ranked higher with more relevant pages.....

[Clint]

I heard that bourbon should be comming to an end very soon, and most sites should be back by now (4th).. if you still having problems look at the common area where we know there have been problems.. get in or stay out

So....Dave? ;) "look at the common area where we know there have been problems"? I too would like to what this "common area" is.
Thanks.

[Clint]

I've sent a message to the jun05feedback email address, also used the regular Google Contact Us page (I have a case #). Is there anywhere else I should try?

Pray? Burn incense and speak chants of some Native American Indians? Who knows. I'm not trying to be funny Berto, I'm serious. None of us know what to try or do. Except for maybe like I've been saying; go blackhat since that apparently is what G now likes, OR, get those that went to the webmaster conference to explain what they mean by "learned everything I needed to know" and the like. If I knew your domain I could take a look and see if I see something obvious, but I doubt I would. Has your site been up for more than a year?

[Clint]

I am sorry this is probaly a stupid question to most of you but what are catonical URL's and what is this common area? previously I would have done asearch but search hasn't worked for a while on the site so aploogies in advance. I'm at a very basic level compared to most of you here I know. I have just concentrated on content and not bothered to be too tricky.

That's "canonical", if you're looking for it then you'd want to spell it correctly. ;) As I understand it, it's G possibly invoking a dupe content penalty for the non-www version and www version of the same webpage. If your domain can ONLY be accessed by one version, then you need not worry about it. If it CAN be accessed both ways, then it MIGHT be something to consider changing via your .htaccess file.

Yeah, I don't know what the problem is with this site's Search, it never works. Something as vital as that you'd think would be working. Since it does not, it forces hundreds, perhaps thousands of duplicate posts and threads. Doing it at G I think only finds the older posts that G has indexed:

On the "Advanced" G search page:

"Domain............. [Only] return results from the site or domain: [www.webmasterworld.com]"

[ciml]

It would be very confusing to confuse canonicalisation in Google with penalties.