Pleasing Google and pleasing your visitors: is it possible?

[JackR]

Hey everyone,

I need to ask for some help.

Following some kind advice from a helpful senior member here on WebmasterWorld, my web guy and I spent about 100 hours last week on an autumn clean on my 400-page, 6-year-old site. Quite literally URL by URL.

We started by moving from a dedicated host in the US to a dedicated host in the UK. The site jumped a few places in the SERPs here and there following the move. With the help of WebmasterWorld users, a clean .htaccess was added and I also uploaded fresh sitemaps: XML, HTML and URLlist.txt were added and linked to from the home page.

A robots.txt was also added using the tool in Webmaster Tools:

User-agent: *
Allow: /

There are no canonicalization issues thanks to the new .htaccess and all headers have been checked and respond accordingly. Several old gallery pages have been removed and a number of internal pages have been permanently redirected to new URLs. All done carefully and thoroughly checked step by step.

Over the weekend my web guy added an integrated Google Map to a brand new page on the site which we’ve been working on for a few days. There are no links to this new ‘map page’ anywhere onsite as the idea was to complete all the category location pins before changing the internal linking to include links to the map from most main pages.

Now disaster appears to have struck: today the site has vanished from the SERPs for EVERY keyword search! I do mean vanished: not in the top 1,000 for anything. Site: returns 400 indexed pages, including the homepage.

There are no error messages in Webmaster Tools, nor can I see any reason other than the new Google Map for this to happen.

Perhaps I have missed something or there is an error somewhere on the site that Google appears to have taken issue with. We have checked the site URL by URL and cannot see a single problem.

What could I have missed?

[JackR]

Everything indeed points to a filter, I agree wheel.

It's been moving around on Google primarily due to the comings and goings of other sites. As you might imagine, in my industry there are plenty who take a risk to get their site noticed by Google. For some it works, but for most it does not. I've been by the book 110% since 2008 so there is NO way whatsoever anything onsite is a major problem.

That said, I wrote out a detailed report of what has happened and submitted a Reconsideration Request last night. The way I see it is this: It's better to get the request in the queue. If indeed I'm right and it's about moving host, trust and settling back into the SERPs, that will happen anyway. If it's in fact a penalty of some sort, at least that can be checked by the Reconsideration team and I'll be informed in Webmaster Tools if the site does indeed breach the Webmaster Guidelines in some way.

Dear Sir/Madam,

Since Monday 31th October we have seen Google traffic drop to almost zero and although our site www.example.com remains indexed with similar Page Rank, the homepage appears to have been penalised and removed from the index for all or specific keyword searches.

This past week I created a thread on the Google Webmaster Central Forum: I need to submit a Reconsideration Request this weekend. Please tell me what is wrong with my site.
[google.com...]

I also created a thread on Webmasterworld: Homepage missing from SERPs - is there a .301 error in my .htaccess?
[webmasterworld.com...]


The consensus seems to be that moving our site from Staminus in the USA to a host in the UK one week ago has led to the homepage being removed from the index. However, we have taken the past week to check the site for compliance with Webmaster Guidelines and have made a number of small but important changes.

1. Homepage links have been changed from <strong> white to blue, making them highly visible to visitors.
2. We have created and submitted fresh HTML, XML and URL sitemaps. The XML sitemap has been submitted using Webmaster Tools.
3. Statcounter has been removed from the site entirely.
4. 5 new URLs have been added to the site:
http://www.example.com/blonde-london-escorts.html
http://www.example.com/brunette-london-escorts.html
http://www.example.com/busty-london-escorts.html
http://www.example.com/latina-london-escorts.html
http://www.example.com/escort-map.html
5. Many old URLs have been combined and .301 redirected to one of the new URLs above.
6. Some 20 pages reported as .404 in Webmaster Tools now return a .410 gone status code.
7. As per the Webmasterworld thread above, the .htaccess has been thoroughly revised and is technically correct.
8. We have manually checked the headers for each page and the correct server response codes are being returned.

I can confirm that we have not used the services of an SEO. I can also confirm that we have not purchased, placed, nor traded links to or from our website.

Thank you for taking the time to read this Reconsideration Request.


Regards,
Jack

[mslina2002]

Given the nature of your site the obvious, though important, may have been overlooked. It was the one of the issues about Panda and the raters handbook - trust.

Nowhere on your site do you have a
- Privacy page
- About us page
- Contact page

Though you have a phone number and hours, I would dedicate a page to Contact. Even if it is a contact form with your phone number. Is it a cell phone?

Privacy is a big one in your niche. Your visitors will most likely want to be private so give them that security or assurance.

Another thing I notice is that by searching your keywords based on locality, a whole bunch of sites come up on local searches, which yours does not. So obviously the local businesses are given priority. Is your site not an actual physical business but more of an affiliate (referral) type so no local number is listed?

Though I noticed that the other sites on page 1 didn't have these privacy pages either but their phone numbers were listed as a local business.

[JackR]

That's a very interesting point mslina2002!

If you google the business name in various ways, the Google Local Business listing is there. The contact number is not a mobile, but a custom redirect - very common in this industry. It means calls can be diverted to either a mobile or a landline using the online control panel.

However: I've had a REAL problem verifying it. I've revised the listing twice in Google Places, but have received the following from Google:

Hello,

Thank you for requesting a review of your Google Places account. Upon further review, we've found that one or more of your listings still violates our Google Places quality guidelines. To get your listings back on Google Maps, please modify or remove any non-compliant listings, and request reconsideration within your account.

I completed the business listing as thoroughly as possible, so I'm unaware of what might not be compliant with Google Places quality guidelines.

[JackR]

Day #10 and my homepage is still absent for any and all keyword searches.

I find my love for Google growing stronger by the day :)

[leadegroot]

What sort of crawl rate do your logs show since the move, and in comparison to the old hosting? How often is the homepage in particular getting crawled?

[JackR]

Right after the move, Googlebot was hyperactive. The homepage is crawled daily and the most recent cache is 5th November.

[leadegroot]

Well, that puts paid to any suggestion that its a crawl problem, I guess :)