Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
I have noticed this for a while and was wondering if anyone else saw this and had any thoughts or solutions.
We have been using Google Sitemaps since Feb or March 05. During that time, our primary keywords have been lost in the Google results. Not lost the whole time but a good chunk of it. Every once in a while they show back up. (During flushes, refreshes, dumps, bathroom breaks, or whatever they want to call them. We sometimes briefly show back up.) Plus, if you use quotes or allin info, we ALWAYS show up. We have been staying afloat with other keywords but those particular keywords are where we were for 5 years before craziness started in Feb 05 and got most our major traffic from.
Now, with Google Sitemaps, under the "Statistics", that particular keyword (3 words) shows up in the "Top search queries" (position 7) and "Top search query clicks" (position 6). Whether we are there or not in the actual Google results, we are ALWAYS there in the Google Sitemaps. Yet, if you click on them to see the position, again, we are not there.
Those keywords have never vanished from those two lists during the 15 - 16 months and yet we have only seen our site with those keywords a tiny fraction of the time. Other keywords have come and gone in those lists so we know it is being updated. It has been downloading successfuly and we see no unusual errors.
It seems strange that our primary keywords have vanished yet the sitemaps continually says we are there. Like it is a particular target.
Has anyone seen anything like this and if so, any solutions? I have been tempted to delete the sitemap altogether and see if maybe we then just bounce back. Possibly something about the sitemaps and that keyword phrase that is hurting us. Then naturally I get nervous if I delete it, will we vanish from the keyword phrases that are keeping us afloat? It would be nice to get those main keywords back.
Any thoughts are appreciated. Sorry for the long babbling post. Wanted to be as clear as possible here.
Cheers,
Berry
P.S. Our site had never gone through fluctuations before Feb 05. We started sitemaps because we thought it might help sort out whatever was happening that started then. So the sitemaps didn't start the issue, but I have not seen that they are helping either. Just thought I would add that so no one thinks it's been only because of the sitemaps. Craziness first, signed up for sitemaps soon after, craziness continues to this day since Feb 05.
I have that same problem with the website I'm talking about here [webmasterworld.com ]! If you use quotes our website shows up as it was in the past (in my case this means "above all the spam and irrelevant sites"), if you don't use quotes and we have luck you'll find us somewhere in the bottom of the top 100 or below that in the top 1000.
It seems that we are being penalized by something and Google support tells us we are not. :(
This subject is being somewhat discussed also in this topic [webmasterworld.com ].
[edited by: Vampster at 3:57 pm (utc) on Aug. 9, 2006]
Thanks for the reply... But are you seeing this happen with those particular keywords with Sitemaps still showing them? That is what I am curious about. The correlation between sitemaps and this issue. Why would sitemaps consitently report those keywords as being clicked, etc, when they aren't even there? That's what I am finding so confusing. Would make sense if my sitemap wasn't being updated, but it is. Yet still no change on those keywords.
*scratches head*
Berry
[edited by: Vampster at 4:31 pm (utc) on Aug. 9, 2006]
Have you tried getting rid of the sitemaps to see if it releases you from some strange wrath against those keywords?
Thanks for the reply! :)
Cheers,
Berry
Have you tried getting rid of the sitemaps to see if it releases you from some strange wrath against those keywords?
No, but I'm considering that specially after reading this topic [webmasterworld.com ]. Googlers also say Sitemaps isn't used for penalizations however we are always seeing weird things happening in Google...
[edited by: Vampster at 5:13 pm (utc) on Aug. 9, 2006]
Thank you for that link. I might have to consider removing the sitemap for a while and seeing if anything changes. It certainly hasn't improved how many pages it has of our site either so I don't think it's working how they plan.
Cheers,
Berry
I added a sitemap for a site AFTER it lost its keyword rankings in Google and the sitemap keywords shows the good rankings even though it wasn't in place when those keywords were active. I wonder why?
Thank you for sharing that. I'm just that much more baffled now.
