Indexing Drops After Site Map Submission

[aj113]

I have a small 23-page website, all 23 pages were indexed in Google. I wrote and published another 10 pages, created a new sitemap and re-submitted it.

The next day Googlebot had visited my site, and when I checked the indexed pages, there were only 14.

Does anyone know what is happening?

I know that this effect is quite common in the case of new sites but my site is about 10 months old. Does the same effect come into play when you re-submit a sitemap?

[ecmedia]

I think it is just normal turbulence as Google tries to reindex your website. Wait for a week or two and hopefully all will be normal.

[aj113]

Yes, I thought this was the most logical answer too, but I am currently trying to follow Brett_Tabke's famous Google advice, and it occurs to me that if Google is going to do this evry time I re-submit my site map then my site will never attain its full earnings potential.

Perhaps it would be better to forget about the sitemap, or perhaps re-submit only on a yearly or bi-annual basis?

[tedster]

The normal fluctuations that you see at Google are impacting you harder because your site is relatively small. You mentioned following Brett's advice [webmasterworld.com] - let's take a look at some key points:

A) Prep work and begin building content. Long before the domain name is settled on, start putting together notes to build at least a 100 page site. That's just for openers...

Z) Build one page of quality content per day.
Starting to see a theme here? Google loves content, lots of quality content. Broad based over a wide range of keywords. At the end of a years time, you should have around 400 pages of content.

You said your site is 10 months old. Following the above points to the letter would mean you have over 400 pages online by now.

By creating 10 new pages, you've done a good thing. Just keep turning out new, quality content, and very soon a shift of 19 pages up or down will barely draw any notice from you.

[aj113]

Heh, I guess you have me there Tedster. No, I'm not following Brett's advice to the letter because when I first published the site it was something quite different and I hadn't even read Brett's post at that time. Neverthless I have 'converted' my site to follow the advice as close as possible.

The daily page writing has only begun this year and so far I'm just about on target. Whether I can maintain the required rate remains to be seen but even at this early stage I can say that I have seen enough to be convinced that this is the right way to go.

Again, you are right, a shift of 19 pages either way will not - ultimately - be a concern to me, but right now that 19-page shift represents over half of my site disappearing off Google's index. This leaves me wondering whther it is the 19-page shift or the 50% of site loss that will continue in the future.