Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
I had asked G to slow their Mozilla-bot down [webmasterworld.com] back in June (they switched it off) and at first assumed that that was the reason. It is a relief to know that there is probably no connection (relief?).
sabine7777:
For the past year I have experienced periodically being completely dropped off Google
It seems that this must now be considered to be "normal" behaviour for the Google Search Engine.
As Webmasters, we either allow the G-bots on to our sites, or ban them; the latter option is a no-no for most of us, but not all [webmasterworld.com].
As regards to the frustration, fear and worry that G's actions cause, I honestly believe that it is, in the end, a waste of time (and I have had a fair bit of all 3 myself in the last 9 months). Google is, by their own declaration, an inhuman company (a bit like the Borg?). They rely on technological fixes, and are distrustful of human-mediated actions. They are blinded by the bright-lights of their achievements to date (those achievements are undeniable), and unlikely to respond to the nervous quiverings of any individual webmaster. If that is an accurate statement of reality, then it is best to face up to it, and get on with life.
>>Why is it that nobody knows what is going on?<<
Let me guess ;-)
During the current part of the update, the folks at Google are testing new algos, aiming mostly at removing as many spam sites (and sites which are not in accordance with Google´s quality guidelines) as possible.
Once they decide on which algos to proceed with, we shall have a weather report either on this forum from GoogleGuy or from Matt on his blog.
TIA
You just need to add it into the head section or body onload attribute, so it's executed as your page is loaded, and it'll break you out of the frame - hope that makes sense.
Personally I don't think that's at all related to the current changes some are seeing....
'frame breaking code on every page'
how does one ad this to the webpage...Dreamweaver 3
(to flesh out mcavill's reply):
Whilst I cannot answer for specifics on Dreamweaver (have never used it) here is general info which is accurate for HTML (I have just implemented one of them, and it works fine--essential code, since there are so many sites that will try to frame your pages):
This is the one I've used; place between the <head>...</head> sections on each page, usually below the last <meta> statement:
<html>
<head>
...
<!-- start Frame-busting code -->
<script language='javascript' type='text/javascript'><!--
if(parent.frames.length>0){
parent.location.href=self.document.location
}
// --></script>
<!-- end Frame-busting code -->
...
</head>
The next option will also require a <meta> statement in the HEAD section:
<html>
<head>
...
<meta http-equiv='Content-Script-Type' content='text/javascript' />
...
</head>
<body onload='if(self!= top) top.location=self.location;'>
...
</body>
</html>
Obviously, I believe this is an update.
Unless you click "repeat the search with the omitted results included", in which case "trust" seems to miraculously return.
"I seriously doubt Google's intention is to kill informative sites like mine, but that is exactly what this algo change is doing."
It's only an algo change in the sense of misreading their own data, so there is no usefulness in calling it that. What we have is Google improperly ranking sites because it confuses itself, with many of the most authoritative domains in a niche being the ones hit because they are the ones most likely to be copied.
Sites that "copied themselves" via non-www and www duplicate content have been hit for a long time, but the key difference now is a webmaster can do nothing about this, since it is entirely out of control who steals or copies your content... plus the Supplemental index keeps these copies in its database (for all intents) permanently, meaning you can't even demand the stolen copies are removed since Google will remember them forever.
The bottom line is, unless Google completely abandons what they have done this week, very clearly any competitor with enough time on their hands can (some percentage of the time) destroy any domain they target.
that is the classic dupe symptom. Sadly it tages ages (at least it did) for 301-ed sites to come back. At least one major update cycle
>>reseller:
this time it really hurts hard. Even after allegra my site hasn't been wiped like this. I've lost all of my motivation to work on that site. Unfortunately I do not have any motivation to work at all today.<<
But we are only at the begining of the update. Things use to change during an update especially during the last part of it.
>>I think I should take a break until monday...<<
Very wise decision. Have a great weekend ;-)
Doing a bit of poking around I have located at least 3 sites using IP delivery methods to mirror other sites or pages from other sites.
One of these sites is also using a known IE exploit to deliver a virus as well as deliver a duplicate copy of a site.
This situation has been reported to Google.
You should be aware that one of these sites is using a DMOZ dump to provide listings of sites. If you are listed in DMOZ you may already be affected, it depends on how far along Google got with its indexing of the site doing IP delivery.
You should do a search for a fairly unique text string from your home page.
The bottom line is, unless Google completely abandons what they have done this week, very clearly any competitor with enough time on their hands can (some percentage of the time) destroy any domain they target.
Yes!
I have several authoritative sites that regularly pick up one way inbounds without my asking for them. The content is outstanding, written by industry experts with whom I share a percentage of revenue.
One of them dropped dramatically from it's rankings. Traffic disappeared to it. I think it may have been flagged for adding too much content too fast, because I added a site map that brought a lot of forum posts out of supplemental. It may have statistically fallen out of the norm for what occurs within this quiet niche that is not known for seo spam.
It may be that what happened is a set of considerations were implemented, including what steveb is advocating. In any case I agree with steve that this has got to be dialed back because there seems to be heavy collateral damage.
This seems to be exactly what has happened to our site. We added a whole library (scientific) which the sci guys had been thinking about doing for a long time. Oops. The whole site suffers as a consequence.
Sheer madness.
The main guy here has today emailed the other institutions in our niche to tell them about it and to warn them. The concensus is that they will be fine if they block Google from crawling the new stuff.
That sounds entirely logical, and that is now how some of the others will proceed. It's too late for us though :-(
I took a whole paragraph from my index page and the results suprised the "·$% out of me.
First I see another 250 other sites using my script.
Then when I do the repeat search with omitted results
I see the same results but with mine at the top!
Help!
Update - most of those other sites are just using a snipit from my index page with a link, and a good many of them are out of date and give 404's when clicked on.
This looks like a holy mess to me. I too am going to check back in a few days. This is the crazyiest index I think I have ever seen.
One directory of my site was penalized for two weeks, but quickly back doing very well after clean-up with removal tool some similar old stuff, maybe whitelisted after manual check, I dont know exactly
I think my stats proggie has a problem ;-)
9/20/2005 Tuesday 16,369
9/21/2005 Wednesday 16,418
9/22/2005 Thursday 6,922
9/23/2005 Friday 3,959
An interior page ranked #5 for a competitive term three days ago.
I just checked and that page now ranks #487...
... AND #550...
... AND #615.
Apparently I've just traded Brett Farve to three players to be named later.
(It is still at #5 if you click the more results thingee on the last result page... twenty million results returned for this search btw.)
>>An interior page ranked #5 for a competitive term three days ago.
I just checked and that page now ranks #487...<<
Any affiliate referral links or PPC spots on that particular page?
Thanks.
Yep, the ole duplicate content filter.
I'm more than ready to spew out some domain names but Brett would probably revoke my ability to post or exchange sticky mails.
On the Sept 21st 17 of 25 were google.com /.co.uk /.ca etc.
3 were google fed SEs.
1 yahoo.
1 MSN
3 other sites
On Sept 23rd 8 of 25 were google.com /.co.uk /.ca etc.
2 google fed SEs
1 yahoo
2 MSN
1 altavista
11 other sites
When I see altavista in my top 25 referrers I know im in the s$*t.
Joking aside, I have always had a lot of local google referrals, has anyone else noticed this?
My site is in a very competitive category (online casinos) but is - IMHO - a genuine diamond in a sea of useless junk, consisting largely of (expensive) paid for articles.
Where does it rank now? Nowhere. You can search for it by site title and sites that mention mine are found - mine is somewhere on page 4 zillion.
I feel bad for those whose sites are having problems now - that's what happened to me before. But I sure am relieved to have one site back anyway!
Hmmm... we removed a bad robots.txt which had caused a few hundred pages to get de-indexed. I'd guess it is a statistical abnormality, but I'm not sure if thats the reason the site's been knocked down.
Steveb, Well spotted. We're back on the front page with the filter=0 param. This might indicate that its not a temporary glitch. Also, What do you think it causing it?
adding &filter=0:
[google.com...]
Just paste &filter=0 after a google search page URL
I didn't actually see any difference in the SERPs in my category when I added it.
My site is all original content which is virtually unchanged over the last year and the site has been in existance for 4 years.
In addition it has had virtually the same placement with minimal fluctuations over the past 2 years for the search terms in question.
