Home page dropped from the Google Results

[affiliation]

I have a co.uk site in which the home page seems to have been dropped for my main keyword. Searches across most pages are down, although some internal pages still rank #1 for certain keywords. From Monday for my main search term it does not appear anywhere. An internal page, my sitemap is listed in the results at around #305.

In the new Google search, prefilling the results on the Google home page, my site appears to prefill when you begin typing my-site-, it is prefilled to click onto my-site-name.co.uk. My site name is a very popular search term / keyword. For my main keyword (which is the name of the site) I am #1 in many foreign google results and in google.de for my main keyword I am #1 with a list of 8 internal page links below.

If I do a search for my-site-name.co.uk I am #1 with a list of 8 internal page links below. If my search is done as my domain name with spaces eg. my site name .co.uk, I am #4 with a list across the page of 4 internal pages. If I do a serch for my-site-name with no co.uk I am not in the first 100 and the first site that appears is an AboutUs Wiki Page. My home page still apears #1 in the results if you search keyword 2009, and a list of other phrases.

If I do a related search for my home page it comes back as no results, although on the internal pages I still get a list of related sites.

I have had no page rank reduction, site is updated with around 9 new pages weekly.

[tedster]

Does your home page show in a site:example search - and is it shown at #1 as just the domain root, not with anything like /index.php included?

[affiliation]

Thanks tedster,
1. At site:example it shows my entire site with my home page at #1
2. It is shown at #1 on domain root only, I have an internal page at #50 when I search domain root /index.shtml

[g1smd]

Has Google indexed multiple URLs for your root index page.. perhaps both the named file and '/', and/or, www and non-www URLs?

If so (and you're using Apache) you need the code in [webmasterworld.com...] to redirect to one canonical form, and you need to link to '/' from within your site.

[affiliation]

Site has been for 4 years directed within .htacess 301-canonical-www-to-non-www. Home page is internally and externally linked to '/' and again with a search for siteurl /index.shtml there are no results and Google does not have a cache of siteurl /index.shtml.

There have been nothing new out of the normal carried out on home page. The drop in position coincided with the new automatic complete on the Google search.

[g1smd]

If requesting index.shtml returns '200 OK' then it can be indexed.

If it returns '301' and removes the filename in the redirect, then you're safe.

[foolsgold]

We too have seen a home page disappear form rankings but ok on 'site' commands. Most internal page ok, just seems to be the home page bar one or two.

Again its an old site, nothing untowards reported in WMT, just small on site changes as usual.

[affiliation]

Everythig seems in place and if a search is done with site: site-name/index.shtml there are no results, were if it is done without the /index.shtml everything is fine and I am shown a list of indexed pages.

An update of positioning:

My URL is written as mysite-name, (the same words as a very populr keyword) although the keyword is spaced "my site name". A limited number of searches is carried out as "mysite name" in wich I was also #1. Yesterday I was nowhere to be seen for spelling this way, today I am #9 with 4 mini links below. For the correct spelling I am not in the results today.

[Marcia]

I've just seen the homepage of a site drop out of the index for the main keyword phrase after having a first page listing for it for around 8-9 years. Yet it's on page 3 for a similar phrase (a synonym).

It did recently yo-yo back and forth from first to 3rd or 4th page, but now is out altogether. Some interior pages rank in the hundreds for main-phrase, but the homepage is totally gone for it.

I'm wondering whether it's an automated or hand applied penalty for the phrase.

[CainIV]

Marcia, was it was appears to be a -50 penalty? I have seen alot of those handed down in the last week to some pretty large websites in some genres.

[Marcia]

Cain, it's been worse than a -50. First it yo-yo'd and then dropped to the 80's and now is out altogether, looking at the SERPs up to #809. If you then click on "click here for omitted similar results" - then it's way down in the 600's - as an indented result under several other site pages.

It seems to be a penalty for that specific phrase, which is what it's always ranked the best for.

tedster closed the -50 thread to continue the discussion in this thread:

[webmasterworld.com...]

And yes, a few points are made in that discussion that definitely apply to this site which could be the cause of the penalty. I'm just wondering (unless it's a fluke) whether it would be a manual or automated penalty.