Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
The page lists tournamnents and events for a specific sporting industry. It had ranked #1 for a specific phrase for the past 2 years. That phrase being very location specific... such as... mystate mysport tournaments. Two weeks ago I noticed that the page started to drop. It went from #1 to #9 and then disappeared alltogether when searching for that phrase. Now when searching mystate tournaments, the page pops up at #2, but mystate mysport tournaments is gone. There is a return for my homepage at #9, but the page is gone. Very strange.
Now, when I am logged into my Google account, when searching for mystate mysport tournaments, the page is popping up at #4. I log out of the account, the page is gone. It has been this way for over a week now.
I decided to check some DCs and when searching for mystate mysport tournaments, it pops up #1 on every DC that I can find. I am at my wits end because the 3 word phrase brings in many more results then the 2 word phrase.
Anyone else seeing such differences or being dropped when logging out of your Google account? I just don't get it. I checked with site:, the page is there. I picked out a unique phrase, the page is there. Just gone with this 3 word phrase.
I am seeing something similar in only a couple of DCs but not at all in the rest.
If it has ;icked up a ;phrase-related -950 penalty, then it's interesting to note that personal search results (logged in) can override this penalty. I also wonder about overriding other penalties and filters.
I find that odd.
It had ranked #1 for a specific phrase for the past 2 years. That phrase being very location specific... such as... mystate mysport tournaments. Two weeks ago I noticed that the page started to drop. It went from #1 to #9 and then disappeared alltogether when searching for that phrase. Now when searching mystate tournaments, the page pops up at #2, but mystate mysport tournaments is gone. There is a return for my homepage at #9, but the page is gone.
webdude - I've observed a similar pattern on a page I've been having trouble with... that the two word phrase continues to show but the three word phrase drops. It's counter-intuitive, particularly because, on the way up, the three-word phrase ranked well before the (presumably more competitive) two-word phrase did.
I've theorized on the -950 thread (and I want to re-emphasize that word "theorized") that this might be due to overoptimization both on page and in onsite nav links for the three-word phrase.
In your case, dropping "mysport" from some of your nav links or some of the page content might be helpful. It may simply be unnatural for a three word phrase to have as many repetitions as you might have on the page. Haven't seen the page, so I don't know that for sure. Ditto with regard to repetitions in the onsite nav and in-content links. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, though, if you do decide to de-optimize. You may well need external inbounds instead.
Take a look at the page and see if this might be a factor. I'm curious what you see. I'm still running tests, and my sample size is too small in any case for these to suggest anything conclusive.
[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 11:11 pm (utc) on May 27, 2008]
Yesterday I took the mystate and mysport part of the phrase in off in the navigation and now the page is back to #1. This seemed to of happened so fast, I am not sure if it was the change or just in the cards that the page would pop back in. The navigation link is site wide and the change affected about 15,000 pages. The old link was mystate mysport tournaments. Now it is just tournaments and events.
Either that was the fastest result from a tweak I have ever seen or it was on the edge of reverting anyway... Mmmmmm.... Logged in to tools or not, the page is back to #1.
[edited by: webdude at 1:57 pm (utc) on May 28, 2008]
I hope you'll let us know if there are any further disappearing acts..
Things are changing very fast! I posted this topic earlier today... Google Image Bot with an Empty User Agent (http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/3661791.htm) and it is already in the search results. In fact, it was there about 15 minutes after I posted it. I was searching...
site:webmasterworld.com 74.125.16.67
looking for that IP address on my second post in that thread and the original post was already there... that is fast! I post and it is in the results less then 15 minutes later... WOW!
Yesterday I took the mystate and mysport part of the phrase in off in the navigation and now the page is back to #1. This seemed to of happened so fast, I am not sure if it was the change or just in the cards that the page would pop back in. The navigation link is site wide and the change affected about 15,000 pages. The old link was mystate mysport tournaments. Now it is just tournaments and events.
webdude - From the standpoint of observing cause and effect, if it had taken a week or two or three I'd be much more trusting that the change fixed the problem than I am from what you reported... but I'm glad that you're back at #1.
Please keep an eye on this and report back. I'm curious whether this new ranking holds. There are many variables, so we'd be guessing no matter what. If you can avoid making sitewide changes for a while, that would be helpful.
The 3 word phrase is still holding the #1 spot and the indented homepage is now back as of today. No other changes have been made as of yet.
Mmmmmm....
