Very Odd - Big Drops in SERPS Today April 26, 06

Big SERP Drops - Odd Fresh Dates

[Hollywood]

Very Odd - Big Drops in SERPS Today April 26, 06

A site we have has seen decent results for over 2 years, all of a sudden today all SERPS have dropped for us by about 4-10 pages lower all at once.

This is very odd, we have worked very hard to put out decent content and relevant content.

Any reasons for this, is their some sort of weird dance taking place?

We adjusted the page two days ago to make it better for the reader and seems we got slammed very badly for this.

Google fresh date (on serps) shows a date April 24, 06 but when clicking on the "Cached" link on the results page it shows a date of April 18, 06

Curious to what the webmasters think of this out there.

[reseller]

Hollywood

First off, I suggest you check your site on the Google datacenters we know and see whether its a general drop on all the DCs or just on some of them.

At present almost all Google's datacenters are in everflux and serps are changing all the time.

Having said that, of course we should expect an algo update sooner or later.

[Hollywood]

Hey reseller long time no chat

Issue should be all datacenters as if it were just one then the site traffic would not have dropped today about 70%.

What is odd is all competitor sites are the same, this has happened before and took it a month to get back, it is just odd though why this happens to this site and not the others in my sector... and it is not the first time, just weird.

I'll check the dc's and report back

[outland88]

>We adjusted the page two days ago to make it better for the reader and seems we got slammed very badly for this.<

I can make all the adjustments I want on some sites with no problems. Since Jagger though some sites get hit very hard for minute changes especially to the index pages. I only touch inner pages now. I tested this over a two months and ran one site right out of Google. Most of my testing was done in November- December. The site did reappear but not quickly.

Reseller is right though in his assessment.

[Silent_Bob]

Exactly the same thing has happened to my site (and a number of similar rival sites) today. Its like a completely new set of serps for all the keyphrases I watch. I dont like to use the 'u' word but I'm amazed its not an update as I havent seen a shift this big in the serps I check for months and months.

I'm hoping its just flux and we'll bounce back up - its happened before - so I'm not gonna douse my drawers just yet, but it seems a bizarre change. As well as our site, the most famous and reputable website worldwide in our industry (not just UK based like we are) has been knocked for six too, so I cant think its any kind of penalty.

[Hollywood]

I am talking about it to many webmasters/seo's, most say "did you hear of the big Daddy Update".

But this is weird, yes I only adjusted the homepage, this also did happen before and took a while to fix after a homepage change.

But dropping about 3-7 whole pages as i tried to better my homepage seems like a bad move for SERPS on any search engine. Why be punished for a month tomake a change for the better, and booble wants us to do whats good for the user? Come on!

I swear I still think they keep pushing the buttons of the webmasters by offering such help all the time, it's for thier oen good never for ours.

Why after a change do I never by accident move up 4 pages all of a sudden, it never happens.

I would love more input from other webmasters/seo's, cause this is a major update for me that is for sure.

Yahoo and MSN both gave me very respectable moves higher for the changes that "Were good for the users", so I'm lost once again.

PS - All competitors are in the same positions on my view, and my view is good. (Dropped about 2-6 pages on all DC's, I am testing 10 of them)

I made a decent change to my homepage, adjusted the keywords and content and title. But nothing in terms of SEO tweaks, it was all for the user I swear to the man upstairs!

Hmmm I'm a bit lost, time for another Polish beer at 10% all-night.

[Silent_Bob]

To be honest, I doubt that its anything to do with altering your homepage as ours has not changed at all and yet still suffered the same fate. I'm quite hopeful at this stage for a rebound though.

Its quite funny as yesterday we'd been bumped up a few places on most terms, so I was wary that this could be followed by a big fall and sadly I was right.

Google loves to keep us guessing... they lift ya up just to knock ya back down again..

[BillyS]

I noticed quite of bit of movement myself. Something might be stirring.

[Hollywood]

So do we have something or was I the one targeted today and a few others?

[Bluepark]

I've noticed substantial drops since (I believe) yesterday, so you're not alone.

[Hollywood]

It is werid as it seems to be hitting hard on only a few of the sites we manage. Out of ten sites seems 1 is hit hard. Others no changes.

There is a specific change here that seems obvious soon, as I have not figured it out yet, but, there is something logical to this SERP adjustment... but no facts yet, anyone see anthing intersting?

[draxofavalon]

I have the exact same problem since March 30... 80% of traffic lost :(

[F_Rose]

I see every few hours different results on our main keywords, Google is very not stable. They have removed most of our rankings on three letter keywords. Has anyone noticed the same thing?

[drall]

We have had a 30% drop in G traffic to our largest property over the past 10 days or so, my best bet is the season for our summer slowdown is starting mixed with a mild change in G's algos.

[F_Rose]

A lot of sites are suffering now in major SERP drops. Does anyone have any information of whats going on? Is it the BidDaddy, is it temporary, is thier something to worry about?

[reseller]

F_Rose

"I see every few hours different results on our main keywords, Google is very not stable. "

Maybe you find explanation here:

Matt Cutts Confirms Random Google's Serps... Google's Democracy!

msg #:26
[webmasterworld.com...]

Enjoy ;-)

[Hollywood]

For the first time ever running some tests I am seeing Google place our results on two separate positions, both the supplemental and regular results.

So I see us on two different pages at the same time with both the supplementals and the regular positions. This after the big drop of most keywords, avg. drops are about 35 positions per each keyword. (Most of them)

We had many position two and three's, now all at about position 39, weird and consistent. (drops lower)

Weird....?

[F_Rose]

Hollywood,
Have you tried [64.233.167.99...] datacenter. I see a great increase in our rankings on the above datacenter. Just wondering if anyones sees a major difference in results on this datacenter.

[Kangol]

I do see a major improvement on 64.233.167.99. I have no idea what is with this DC or why the results are so different.

[insight]

I see some drops for my site as well. One thing that makes me think it will improve is that there are two top authority sites dropping as well, while various shopping sites are gaining listings. In my experience this situation usually reverses itself after an update is finished rolling out. Obviously the "update" model is likely outdated but the results should improve as they have in the past.

Also I have no indexed page problems - site: counts are right where they should be.

[Hollywood]

F_Rose

I see minor minor improvements on that dc, very very small.

Not much happening on my end as far as visitors, down about 60% or more.

-Hollyweird

[Murdoch]

Are all your sites focused around a similar topic?

Not that I'm touting the duplicate content filter or anything I just know that different sectors can feel the effect of an update at different times, so one out of ten sites you manage may just be the start if you can't find anything different in the way they are constructed otherwise.

[Hollywood]

Murdoch

All sites are 100% different

One is music related, the other data, the other is marketing, the other IT headhunting.

I keep good records in chart form of all top 15 sites and thier positions over the past 2 years. None of them ever have huge drops in serps and then slow increses back up like my site. I watch all the competition and positions they have in serps and have the data stored on my chart over time.

I wil never understand why this only happens to my site and why it drops so big and then comes back usually again slowly.

Just damn weird!

We have mentions (and links out to us directly) on sites such as c¦net, popular mechanics and other larger sites, these links mention our link/site by the url even.

[konrad]

OK, so are there any thoeries?

[forgive my my English btw]

I've been watching this topic since yestarday, when all my sites dropped from positions #1 #2 etc. to #100 #101 etc...

And it doesn't look like anything I've seen up to now.

I'm afraid G gave me some minus points for something, I just don't know what it is. I don't use any black or even gray hat methods (at leas knowingly). Actually I don't use (almost) _any_ methods at all , and I've never cared about any SEO previously - except for a few links exchanged.

Hours are passing, and nothing changes. Various "listing" and "links" pages have a better position that me.... :( unfair.

I really didn't do anything wrong :(

[BillyS]

Too early to tell, but we've been moving up over the last two days.

[Powdork]

[forgive my my English btw]

Your English is perfect, but you misspelled 'yesterday' and I cannot forgive that.;)

I have seen weird things with caches. I used a search to bring up a site I have been following that uses hidden text. The search that brought up the site was based on hidden text he had previously on the site. He has changed the site recently into a copy of a local candidate's site in order to manipulate the rankings prior to the election. Anyway, the hidden text is no longer on the site (there is still hidden text, just not these words) and the hidden text is also not present in Google's cache, yet it appears in the snippet when it is returned in the results.

Also weird - When I use my back button to go from the cache back to the results, and then use my forward button to go forward to the cache, i get a different cache, but still without the words used in the original search.

[anthoduff]

Same thing that you Konrad for my major french site since the 27th March. On #1 or #2 page for more than 3 years on many keywords and now on #100 - #120 just for major keywords.

The site: command return an another page that the home page for me, what's going on for you?

For the second time that i've been hit by penality (first time the 22nd september 05 for duplicate content i think return after 301 redirect) i see that my home page is not in the first result with the command site.

I think this is a clue for know if your site is under penality or not.

80% less for the trafic from google.

[konrad]

Your English is perfect, but you misspelled 'yesterday' and I cannot forgive that

Thanks! OK I'll try to not make any more mistakes like that :)

The site: command return an another page that the home page for me, what's going on for you?

The same! Also when I search for "mywebsite.com" I'm not on the first place...

I think this is a clue for know if your site is under penality or not

cache:mywebsite.com shows that G has a cache of my site so it's not under penalty I think.

It's something different IMHO.

Hey - just a small question - when I look at my website in G's cache and I click "Click here for the cached text only" there is a lot of dark - blue colored text on blue background which might be considered as hidden text - which is not, because I use css which makes the text white. But maybe Google doesn't care about css? And it thinks I'm trying to hide something? Does someone know anything about how Google handles css?

[Hollywood]

Our site does not even come close for duplicate content. The drop of 80% and the return back every few months is really getting to me, we are the only ones getting this out of all out competitors, makes no sense. I changed my homepage a bit but why get punished for it?

Seems they punish those who adjust the homepage when my reason was to make it better for the user.

Hint number 1) If you make your site better and more useful Google will knock ya down 75% for trying, thus dont make it better and dont ever listen to what the Google people tell ya.

Hollywood

[g1smd]

I see that [64.233.167.99...] now has the experimental results that have previously been on [72.14.207.99...] and on [72.14.207.104...] for the last few weeks (but are not at those two now).