Pages That Were Strong - Completely Dropped from Google's Index

[Timetraveler]

I've had problems with the "end of results" phenom but never a problem with a 3/4 year old site having powerful pages being completely dropped from the index.

What is strange is that while the pages has a PR 4, 3's (not grey barred) they are completely gone from the SERPS when searching for the URL.

It's only a handful of URLS but they were my "go to" pages that never had problems, with 1-2 rankings with quality links pointing to them. One page even has an article that points to my de-indexed page ranking for 2nd for said keyword. :0

I should note I experienced the #6 penalty, a link buying penalty (although I don't think this was on purpose as the site couldn't be found via a domain search, I think we somehow got penalized because G's algorithim picked us up as "sellers" for some reason) and about a month ago my homepage was grey barred for a few days.

All pages in general are now ranking really bad with about half my pages going grey barred, but at least still in the index.

Anyone have the same experiences or thoughts?

[tedster]

This is a pretty uncommon experience. Google has the ability to penalize just one page, or one page for just one particluar query term -- and they do sometimes for over-optimization or for suspicion of link selling and buying.

When I've had this come up, it's usually been a temporary thing - possibly a data bug at Google. Only one case seemed to be over optimization, and we backed off on some internal anchor text and footer links. That page came back about a week later.

[Timetraveler]

Thanks Ted, I think I'm going to wait it out for a little bit. One page could be over optimization but on the other hand, two other pages were strong rankers with almost no optimization.

I've had it happen for 1 other page for 302 redirecting domains to that page when I thought it was 301's. The page never recooped so Im hoping these pages don't suffer the same fate, despite being what one would assume being a different problem.

[Captaffy]

I've had the exact same problem with one page (that I've noticed) since the end of March/beginning of April.

[webmasterworld.com...]

[AnkitMaheshwari]

I think you should wait and watch for a week or so. Most of the times this is temporary

[Timetraveler]

This is now becoming even stranger. Random pages (linked from the homepage) with inlinks from other sites continue to be dropped. There is no apparent reason for the dropping of these particular pages as no blackhat techniques are being used.

Pages continue to get grey barred as they get de-indexed. Freakin A. I feel like doing a re-inclusion request but have no idea what to say I did wrong. Plus it's like a "half-reinclusion request". Errrr

[doughayman]

I think there is a problem with Google in general from this weekend. If you look at any long-tailed keyword term (pick your favorite), then you will see "Results 1-10 of #*$!" returned where "#*$!" is some big #. However, if you expand your page display to 100 records, and go beyond page 7 or 8 or so, you will see that no further records are displayed.

I have also had random pages dropped from SERPs, but they are still recognized as indexed when using the "site:" command.

There seems to be a huge problem with Google today, unless I'm totally missing something here.

[tedster]

it's like a "half-reinclusion request"

Note that it's now called a "reconsideration request" - your site doesn't need to be completely out of the index to file one, just challenged in some way. However, it is best to have identified and "fixed" some issue that you can include in the request.

[Timetraveler]

That's kind of what scares me sometimes about Google. It's hard to identify the problem because they are always making changes and sometimes they are not your fault (ie #6 penalty etc). I've even had my whole site dropped from Google for months because of an error on their part, I'm assure it was their mistake because of a friend I was talking to whom worked with Google.

The only thing I can remotely think of, and is something that I've never seen cause any sort of problem was my website couldn't handle a server upgrade and partially went down for a few days. Shortly after the pages were fine, but maybe a couple weeks later some started to get dropped. I guess I'll mention that in the reconsideration request as it's all I can think of. :(

[tedster]

Some people find help identifying issues through the Google Webmaster Help forums - warning! they require you post your domain for everyone to check out.

[Timetraveler]

Yea, I think I'll probably do that. I've done it before during the accidental G mistakes and don't have anything to hide so maybe it will help.

[Seb7]

Have you checked with G's webmaster tools to see if Google has given you any warnings? Also, I would check the back links on these pages.

[Timetraveler]

No luck with any messages, but I might be sending my girl at G a message to see if she can help me out and see what's going on, come last resort.

The backlink profiles of the pages haven't changed ie: I dont see a correlation between the de-indexed sites and indexed one. Now down to about 1/3 of the original page count...Uhhh

I could see supps disappearing, or pages deeply indexed but not pages with good interlinking and sitewide linked, since inception. Just strange, very strange.

[Timetraveler]

Just an FYI in case any one else is experiencing same problems. The pages have begun to re-appear. They show #1 rankings for the most part but are still grey barred. I really haven't done anything out of the ordinary except for changing the anchor on a few links.