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My site has been First Now vanished from Google

My site has been the first of its kind, I drop off Google

         

sabine7777

6:35 am on Sep 20, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



For the past year I have experienced periodically being completely dropped off Google. My site has been the FIRST of its kind and is in all the natural search results on the first spot. I'm just a small business, but since spet of 2004 I have been vanishing off of Google every 6 weeks or so--recently it has been more often and for longer periods. Does Google discriminate against Older sites? Are they doing it so that we will advertise with them? Any help, advice, comment from a desperate single mother of 4!

linkjack

4:40 pm on Oct 1, 2005 (gmt 0)



europeforvisitors is that your picture at the top of your site?

np2003

4:41 pm on Oct 1, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Google to be renamed to Altavista:dead soon.

POp Quiz: Why did Larry Page, one of the Google founders filed to sell 1million GOOGLE shares this week?

Answer: He knows whats coming: a broken engine.

np2003

4:48 pm on Oct 1, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I see that a lot of sites being dropped recently are long established "authority" sites.

Mine was the same, its been up for 5yrs on Google, top in its terms for virtually all its keywords and note: Our site is entirely free with no adsense ads.

[edited by: np2003 at 4:49 pm (utc) on Oct. 1, 2005]

linkjack

4:49 pm on Oct 1, 2005 (gmt 0)



POp Quiz: Why did Larry Page, one of the Google founders filed to sell 1million GOOGLE shares this week?

Because he needed cash to pay for his brand new collection of Ferrari F50's

I bet you many of the bigmouths who helped googleguy enrich larry page are now frying hamburgers at burger king.

zafile

4:59 pm on Oct 1, 2005 (gmt 0)



"Google to be renamed to Altavista: dead soon."

I doubt it.

By looking at the performance of the new infrastructure announced by GoogleGuy a few weeks/months ago at [webmasterworld.com...] and [webmasterworld.com...] , I think Google is getting farther away from Altavista's death path.

It's too bad some Webmasters didn't clean up their act during Summer 2005.

It's to bad they waited until Matt Cutts "officially" announced at [mattcutts.com...] Google's approach to spam.

It's too bad they're still waiting for a miracle to happen.

[edited by: zafile at 5:07 pm (utc) on Oct. 1, 2005]

Janiss

5:02 pm on Oct 1, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I just want to mention (remind people) that whatever is affecting some webmasters here is affecting a lot of searches too. I've had to stop using Google to search for things because it's not coming up with relevant results for the topics I search for. I'm primarily using Yahoo, and have been getting much better results. In fact, it's gotten to the point where if my site drops in the Google serps, I use that as a gauge of Google's relevancy in my searches in general and act accordingly.

Dayo_UK

5:02 pm on Oct 1, 2005 (gmt 0)



Grrrr - zafile

Why do people even defend Google - there is a bug.

Fine if your site is doing well at the moment - it might not in the future when it is hit by this bug or another bug that is in the Google system.

When I rank well I never post saying - ohh webmasters should not complain because I know that it can turn around and haunt me.

It is a bug - end of.

Read SEO boards - not just this one and understand what the bug is. It does not effect everyone but be careful when you post things like that.

Sorry - just - please read and research the bug - anyone who has would never comment like that.

Best

Dayo

linkjack

5:05 pm on Oct 1, 2005 (gmt 0)



zafile thanks for those links!

Matt Cutts is now officially telling everyone what they should or should not publish on their sites! Google is even running a spam campaign to alert webmasters that they will be banned if they don't abide by what Google's algorithm is capable of understanding!

Isn't that exciting!

Google is not adapting to the web anymore, the web must adapt to Google!

Which means? Altavista, here comes Google!

Too bad Google didn't clean up their act in the summer of 2003.

europeforvisitors

5:08 pm on Oct 1, 2005 (gmt 0)



Matt Cutts is now officially telling everyone what they should or should not publish on their sites!

Nope, Google is merely telling people what they need to fix if they want free traffic from Google. That's perfectly legitimate. Google gets to decide what it considers to be worthy of links, just as you do.

FattyB

5:20 pm on Oct 1, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Yip, well nothing wrong with guidelines.

What gets me regards the current 'non-update' is that we appear to have been shafted for following them. Content, organic incoming links etc.

Search traffic still in freefall from what I can see, despite a rally earlier in week...though I think that was from external site links and not search now that I look at it.

Lowest traffic level since May at the moment and going lower. Even Alexa shows us in freefall from top 2000 out of top 10K....looks like a ski-slope /-: Worst ever listing on that since about 6 months after launched the site.

[edited by: FattyB at 5:22 pm (utc) on Oct. 1, 2005]

linkjack

5:22 pm on Oct 1, 2005 (gmt 0)



europeforvisitors, thanks for clarifying that.

you did not see my previous question: is that a picture of you on top of your site?

chopin2256

5:23 pm on Oct 1, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Just did a Google site search restricted to my own domain for a unique/technical word that appears on 52 pages... fifty two pages according to Google. There is one page dedicated to the technical word itself, and almost all instances of the word on the other pages link to my page about the word... so clearly that is the page to rank first.

Instead, Google ranks first:
a supplemental result...

I have been dealing with this for the past 4 months, with my newer 1 year old site. In fact, I pasted a whole unique paragraph into Google search, and a site linking to me (that is supplemental and a scraper) is outranking me for the whole paragraph! And since I am so small to matter, Google disregards things like this. Thats the way it is I guess, until more competition becomes available.

Why do people even defend Google - there is a bug.

No kidding. For those of you defending Google, you just don't realize how unpredictable Google is. They have some evident problems, and they don't seem to fix the problems according to smaller and newer sites.

europeforvisitors

5:47 pm on Oct 1, 2005 (gmt 0)



you did not see my previous question: is that a picture of you on top of your site?

Yes (not that it has anything to with Google Search News!).

linkjack

5:52 pm on Oct 1, 2005 (gmt 0)



Yes (not that it has anything to with Google Search News!).

Cool. Yeah, nothing to do with search, sorry for going a bit offtopic. Anyway a discussion that stays 100% on topic cannot go anywhere since the whole spice of forums is in having an eclectic selection of views that boil down to the entropy of a more important message that, in turn, may be on topic.

linkjack

5:56 pm on Oct 1, 2005 (gmt 0)



europe : i disagree a bit with your view though.

we all give Google free content. Google produces zero original content. natural that they give back some free traffic.

but i know hwere you're coming from, people abuse this...so we reach a point where it's become natural to punish sites.

but i disagree nonetheless. if google paid to spider my content i'd abide by their guidelines.

what they're doing now is blackmail, their algo is broken and they're going for the emotional threats, email threats, imposing, etc....

google is definitely gone. i'm waiting for the next great idea already.

Tinus

6:01 pm on Oct 1, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I think we are too much busy telling each other Google didn't improve lately. Nearly all of us agree. We all want our free traffic back and since Filter Rita didn't bring improvement to the SERPS we all feel it is unfair we lost our traffic.

I have the impression the problem is growing and more and more sites are hit by the filter. The filter must be dealing with several aspects but I am convinced my site is getting penalty points with searchword combinations.
With or without &filter=0 searches show large differences for some search word combinations or small differences with others. A page can still be shown with some search word combination but not with another. Strange..

Is the problem growing? I had the impression in the first days that not so many sites where affected by the filter but now the problem seems to grow and so is the amount of people on this threat. Anybody's problem started only a few days ago?

pescatore

6:21 pm on Oct 1, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



is that guy europeforvisitors a representative of Google?

theBear

6:26 pm on Oct 1, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



pescatore,

EFV isn't a Google rep, he is a good chap.

You have to learn to look beyond the induced emotional trauma that comes with changes that impact you.

There are many things that are going on and not all will stand.

Google changes that take days or weeks to propagate cause all sorts of distress. Those that are affected now may not be the next go around.

EFV got hit earlier this year.

mcavill

6:35 pm on Oct 1, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



In fact, I pasted a whole unique paragraph into Google search, and a site linking to me (that is supplemental and a scraper) is outranking me for the whole paragraph!

I think that's a common issue with people who's sites have disappeared - In almost all cases it seems to be sites that ranked well in fairly competitive terms, either high search volume or some reasonable $$ value.

Clearly Google have either tweaked an existing/added a new dup content filter, or applied some sort of site wide "original ness" score.

I don't think it's to do with adsense, aff links, navigation structure etc - but I'm just guessing, as we all are :)

I think, whatever the change is, they are either incorrectly flagging the original site as the duplicate, which in fairness, is bound to happen occasionally, or finding the duplicated content on various sites and applying a dampening factor to each of those sites, rather than just the copiers. If it’s the dampening factor it might explain why for some of the more competitive terms my site has dropped 100's of places, whilst on less competitive terms it only drops a few </my opinion / best guess / 2 cents / etc>

and I’m 99.99% sure EFV isn’t a google rep....although now you mention it :P

Tinus

6:46 pm on Oct 1, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



<If it’s the dampening factor it might explain why for some of the more competitive terms my site has dropped 100's of places, whilst on less competitive terms it only drops a few>

That is exactly what happens with a site of mine. Like for the more competitive search term combination every site got some kind of filter value. To give every site so many filter values must be a huge operation. There must be an algo behind it. I am not convinced it is a duplication filter since search terms are filtered, not pages.

steveb

6:47 pm on Oct 1, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Google isn't threatening anyone. That is crazy talk. Google is screwing up. That happens to be something everyone can do with their business.

Forget the tin hat conspiracy theories. In terms of this thread, Google has made a massive error, and very poor choice (the Supplemental index itself). Neither of those things amkes them any different than anyone else here.

reseller

6:59 pm on Oct 1, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



theBear

>>EFV got hit earlier this year. <<

Yes I recall that too.

Here is a post where EFV tells what happened to his site on a sunny Midwest (USA) day, March 23 2005 ;-)

msg #:514
[webmasterworld.com...]

Don´t think that he has yet recovered totally from that hit. Right EFV?

mcavill

7:02 pm on Oct 1, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



since search terms are filtered, not pages.

That's what I was trying to say, in a round about way - if your site is flagged with some sort of "this site is just a dup -10 ranking points across the site" type of thing, that may hurt you more when it's a more competitive term rather than a less competitive term, which would make it appear to be search term related - maybe that's a too simplistic view, or maybe over complicating it...just a guess based what I'm seeing one of my sites that's been affected by whatever was implemented around the 22nd of Sept.

outland88

7:02 pm on Oct 1, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Something that shocked me Wednesday is about eight competitor sites that normally rank +/- 10 near me suddenly dropped into the 500’s and 600’s. Overall they seem to be clean sites that had ranked well for at least two years. Hadn’t seen anything on them, which I would think, could trip any type filter. Again the top sites sit untouched, as they have for years, but the penalized sites are of the same vein. Their replacements seem to be mainly article sites where 99% of the site has nothing to do with the category.

Sometimes I wonder if it is a filter or is Google just churning the results. The exception would be the ordained sites that never get touched.

Tinus

7:14 pm on Oct 1, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



<that may hurt you more when it's a more competitive term rather than a less competitive term, which would make it appear to be search term related >

Good point and it fits nearly with what I see.
However: there are some highly competitive search terms I still have a good ranking. With filter=0 position in the SERPS is dropped only one or two places. But when I change the search term slightly, page is dropped 80 positions. When the site has only one filter value for all search terms no competitive search term with good ranking should be left.

BillyS

7:18 pm on Oct 1, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I find it interesting that Brett has completely ignored one of the most active threads on this forum. Tells me he is not willing to lend credibility to a potential update.

Given that, I'm surprised he hasn’t put this one out of its misery.

BillyS

7:19 pm on Oct 1, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Cool - I had lucky message number 777!

soapystar

7:24 pm on Oct 1, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



intersting outland88 ..i was just musing the very same thing....it almost looks as though google is grouping similar sites together and picking a page from one and dropping the others....if in deed thats happening its relative to the relevance of the other sites in that serps..meaning you could see one page of a site drop totally if other reults are strong..or drop just a few spots....

it could be that to rank means being very different from your competiots rather than having just better or more original content...

on the other hand ive seen the most replavnt page filtered and less relevnat pages included from the same site instead...

maybe steveb is on the mark by just going with the 'screwed up' thoery...

europeforvisitors

7:30 pm on Oct 1, 2005 (gmt 0)



Don´t think that he has yet recovered totally from that hit. Right EFV?

I did recover completely (except for four or five pages out of 5,000 or so pages that are still MIA) with Bourbon.

A number of people here have mentioned losing their Google referrals for two months after Google updates or changes, and that was my experience: my Google referrals were down substantially (though not completely) for almost two months to the day.

chopin2256

7:33 pm on Oct 1, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



since search terms are filtered, not pages.

It could be true that search terms are filtered, but it also appears that whole domains are filtered as well.

This 1014 message thread spans 34 pages: 1014