Page Used to be #1, now Missing from the SERPs

[Captaffy]

I do some specialized app development, and for one of my apps when you searched for the name, my site (specifically the page the app is on) would be the number one result. Now however it appears to have been completely removed from the index.

(One tends to let this type of app go viral, so they appear on many different sites, with many of the same key phrases.)

If I search for 'app-name site-url', I find the app on many other pages in the form of "app-name, the new app from site-url", etc., but my page does not appear in the SERPs.

It is also the first page the app ever appeared on online, so it is quite frustating to know that traffic is now not being sent to my site.

It has been this way for 2+ weeks, and I assume it is some sort of penalty (though the PR of the page is still 4), but I don't know what's going on. I would like to understand, so that this doesn't happen for my apps in the future.

There are some good incoming links to this page from major sites as well.

[edited by: tedster at 4:33 am (utc) on April 20, 2009]

[Captaffy]

I forgot to mention that the page appears in the following search -

site:example.com app-name

[Timetraveler]

Hey Cap, did you mean to say it "doesn't" show when you do a site:domain.com keyword search? If not at least it's still in the index...

[ogletree]

Do a re-inclusion request at Google webmaster central. I have done this in the past and they sent me an email telling me what the problem was. My site had been hacked and lots of hidden links were added to bad sites. I fixed the problem did another re-inclusion request and they brought it back up. It did not take more than a month.

[Slinger]

I've seen this happen another way and by reading this you may see how simple it was bumped from the serps. Sometimes I write articles and but a backlink to my website. Sometimes I would name the article title the same keywords as my webpage. Then, bingo, the article is sitting on Page 1 of google and my link to my site is either 20 pages down or gone. I then go in and delete the article from teh internet and a week or so later, my webpage link is back on page 1 of google instead of my article.

[Captaffy]

Update: It's back at #1 in the results - the problem resolved itself.

Hopefully it was just a bug with the recent update.

[edited by: Captaffy at 7:18 pm (utc) on April 30, 2009]