site:example.com count suddenly is zero along with traffic

[epmaniac]

today i noticed a drastic drop in many of my sites,... the traffic on all these sites went to ZERO

site:example.com count is also showing zero

what is this?

i have never ever seen anything like this before where millions of indexed pages have vanished overnight and traffic is reduced to rubbles

now this problem is occuring in 100s of sites which are hosted on different servers, so the problem is varied

what do u think, could be the problem? or is it just a temporary glitch?

[indyank]

However TOS and privacy policy are not one of these stipulations for organic SERPs (although IIRC they have said the might consider it a sign of quality or somesuch)

Agreed...

[HuskyPup]

<are we going off topic?>

Why would responsible site owners not have legals on their sites?

It costs absolutely nothing to create other than a couple of pages...baffled.

[lucy24]

Why do you need a page that says explicitly "We follow the law and we expect you to do the same"?

A privacy policy is only meaningful if the site collects personally identifiable information. Now suppose it says "We'll use your information any way we feel like." Does that meet the criteria for having a privacy policy? Why don't they simply say "Your policy is assumed to be such-and-such unless the site explicitly says otherwise"?

[HuskyPup]

Why do you need a page that says explicitly "We follow the law and we expect you to do the same"?

Because I run a multi million Dollar real-world B&M business with clients on every continent. I wouldn't trade blind with a possible new supplier if I did not know their legal position.

Maybe I'm old-school however one of the major indications of trust in the early days of The Net was a credible legal policy.

What the hell do I know? Nothing, obviously.

</gone completely off-topic now!>

[epmaniac]

i am sorry, when i said millions of pages were indexed, i meant millions of pages indexed rhetorically.... just meant many pages ...

on the average each site had around less than 1000 pages indexed...

@huskypup

no i dont have under construction written on the pages...

my news sites were like wikis..... but wht surprises me was that my sports sites were banned even though the content in them were NOT SYNDICATED... but original....... my authors used to write original articles there, why were these sports sites banned? youtube? but the percentage of youtube content was so small....

[anteck]

They've probably encountered a few of your sites, considered them very low quality, checked out some of your other sites via webmasters, saw a 'common theme' of low quality, and took out all of them from the index.

They've done it before, lots of times.

Sorry to say, but google are absolutely ruthless when it comes to what they consider 'low quality'. I've read time and time again, where webmasters entire network of sites has been deindexed because of a number of 'offending' sites within their portfolio.

Matt Cutt's vibe is 'we are a friendly mob' but the Anti-Spam team as a whole don't care who you are. Their general attitude is "we'll take you out with a nuke if you're what we consider you not up to whatever guidelines we feel like following on the day"

Remember : Google has lot of people working for anti-spam and search engine quality. We only hear from a few 'spokespeople' representing that space, and they can't possibly communicate the enormity and reality of the amount of spam they deal with daily. Methods like this save them time, money, and allow them to keep what they consider to be 'spammers' out of their index.

It's sometimes inaccurate, unfocussed, and unfair. Panda was revised many times as they attempted to 'get it right'. Penguin hasn't been refreshed in nearly two months now, and i'm starting to wonder if they ever will.

Google doesn't give a rats arse about your websites, no matter how good or bad you think they are. All they want is to keep their index what they consider to be 'clean' - no matter what 'damage' they do to people, their businesses, employee's and so on.

[spreporter]

"54 websites. All less than two months old ...millions of pages" I'd say well done from G because all those millions of pages IMHO they must have been a bunch of crap, aka, stolen content from other people's articles using autoblogging software, how else is human possible to publish millions of sites in such a short term. Next time you create a website sit down work and write your own articles. As about that your content was original I don't believe you (probably span articles) , how is possible to publish millions of pages? how many publishers did you used? the entire jobless former SEO crowd from India maybe ?

[epmaniac]

@spreporter

i have already corrected there werent millions of pages... just around less than 1000 of pages per site

@rest of the people

wht is the best strategy to get my top sites back....... my one site got banned which has a traffic of more than 100,000 each day, and is 3 years old? was it a low quality site? i guess not coz i made facebook page 3 months ago.. and today i have more than 9000 fans in my facebook page

how to get this site back?

[Shaddows]

epmaniac - several things. Lets start with two:

1) Please can you post again, with full, accurate information. Your sites have had millions, and only hundreds of pages. They have been years, or just months old. We need actual data.

2) "how to get this site back?" - It's simple. You just need a silver bullet. D'uh!

Basically, you have posted nothing meaningful, but expect advice. I can't help but feel a lack of critical thinking and a poor grasp of detail are the root of your problems.

[Marketing Guy]

Found your site. As someone told you on Google Groups, you had a DMCA complaint filed against you because you were streaming newly released movies for free.

That's reason 1 why you were deindexed.

I don't know why the rest of your network was hit, but it's likely because when someone clicks on a "watch for free" link, they are led to a landing page that is;

a) Heavily optimised (and a little bit spammy IMO).
b) Ad heavy (prominent Adsense ads).
c) Has loads of internal links to similarly optimised content (variations on the movie name).
d) DOESN'T HAVE THE ACTUAL MOVIE.

So basically a page optimised for brand terms with only ads and no content.

A little bit more digging and it seems you've had other DMCA issues with another website in the past. And it appears that website also heavily optimises for brand terms and returns little content and lots of ads.

So 2 of 50+ websites. 1 is spam focused around streaming of newly released movies (copyright infringment) and 1 is spam focused around the sale of counterfeit goods from China.

Dwelling on your privacy policy seem somewhat trivial at this point.

[epmaniac]

@marketing guy

thanks for the good post

But are u sure that we are removed coz of DMCA, coz when i do site:example.com i dont see any DMCA complaint, i dont know why google forum guys are saying its DMCA, i have not received any DMCA complaint also.... we dont stream any copyright content.......

What about thousands of other sites which actually DO STREAM copyright ed movies and they are on index?

But I appreciate your advice, and i am going to remove these pages altogether and make the site genuine, but help me here that is it really DMCA which is the reason why the site was deindexed without warning!

A point to note: the pages dont contain variation on the movie names, please check (we dont stuff similar keywords, they must be OTHER MOVIES)

- we dont focus on newly released movies, infact that contributes to less than 1% of our total traffic volume, most of the traffic we used to get were from news which were our own

- The pages u are talking about are not ad heavy, as they have only 2 ads slots

- You are right when u say, that the pages dont have actual movie,... as our intention was to list the newly released movie s .... it was just a listing of movies, rather than actual streaming, but in any case,... these pages will be removed soon.

But do let me know if it is really DMCA as google forum guys are saying, coz i dont see any DMCA notice anywhere

[netmeg]

It sounds like you need to rethink your business model.

It doesn't matter what everyone else is doing. It matters what YOU are doing, because you're the one who is banned. Nobody ever promised fair.

It doesn't sound like you have a lot of original content on this site, and even if you do, is it content that can't be found on a hundred other sites or a thousand other sites, in some form or the other?

There was a time when you could make serious money with a business model like this, but I think that's over. It's just not sustainable in 2012.

(NOBODY but Google knows what the final straw was that got you banned, ok? NOBODY. All anyone can do is guess)

[Leosghost]

But do let me know if it is really DMCA as google forum guys are saying, coz i dont see any DMCA notice anywhere

Type the name of your site ( which I won't mention here, but it is easy to find ) plus chilling effects into a search engine..

Like this

yoursitename chillingeffects

Don't put quote marks on each end..

Then look at the results.. and look at the "cached page"..visit the cache page..you'll find your site "highlighted"..on Chillingeffects dot org..

In a DMCA to Google..

repeat the excercise..

You will find all the places talking about the DMCAs that have mentioned your site as an offender..one in particular ( but there are many which mention you ) was filed over a year ago to Google..

132 sites are mentioned by name ( on that example )..with the exact URLs of the offending material..

And as mentioned in Google Groups ..all the still images you have are also subject to DMCA..because they are not yours to use..

IMO you will shortly find your adsense etc will not work..

Amazed it took the plex this long ..

[epmaniac]

@leosghost

i found only 2 pages when i did what u asked.

i countered filed DMCA these links ages ago... i dont know why they were sent to us, we dont stream any movie,... in any case i did remove the offending links when they were sent to me

so is this issue relevant because these are old dmca complaints for stream movies which i wasn't streaming in first place?

[Leosghost]

There are more..
They were not sent for "streaming movies"..

IMO the current issue is probably that the site has very very very very many images on every page, which it does not have the right to display..

If you removed all the copyright "still" images (from movies ) which are not yours..( that means probably all your images, on all your pages)..you'd have little or no content left..at least almost none that wasn't stolen..

As netmeg said

There was a time when you could make serious money with a business model like this, but I think that's over. It's just not sustainable in 2012.

and as others have said in the Google forums, running a site based on stolen image content was always going to get you trouble at some time..

Google have pulled the plug..and will probably switch of the adsense etc, very soon..

[epmaniac]

@leosghost

ok got it, i am gonna remove them

but tell me, when u get banned from google index, do u receive any message or u dont?.... coz i didnt receive any kind of notification from webmastertool....

i know that when sites are delisted they are sent a message that they dont meet google quality guidelines, in this case there was none

[Leosghost]

Never been banned..so can't tell you..

But I did get "de-indexed" on one site ( no links in serps to one of my domains, only to domains that mentioned my domain ) suddenly earlier this year..it was on as shared server IP.. I wasn't using it for other than email..it had just a single page ( I have many single page sites )..turned out that someone else on that IP had done something Google didn't like ..so they just de-indexed the IP ..and all the sites that were on it.."guilty or innocent", we were all "thrown under the bus"..no trace ..

I moved my site to one of my own IPs..came back to fully indexed and number 1 for it's targeted keywords ( very high competition money term ) within 12 hours..

The other sites on that original IP are still de-indexed..

I never got a message, I don't use WMT or Ganalytics, I just noticed it had been de-indexed, when checking on it's position in serps..all direct links to it were gone..it was only de-indexed for less than one day..I check regularly on a few sites, at different times of day , and from different IPs, to see what G is up to, or might be testing*..

*That is how I spotted Panda being tested over 6 months before it was released..

[edited by: Leosghost at 7:23 pm (utc) on Jul 13, 2012]

[tedster]

...they are sent a message that they dont meet google quality guidelines, in this case there was none

Not always, no. This is especially true in the case of widespread violations.

[netmeg]

As far as I know, you don't always get notified. They are stepping up their notifications, but I'd be amazed if they were at 100% yet.

By the time you remove the content that they might object to, you are not going to have a lot left. Which puts you into another set of problems altogether.

As has been said before - you need to run your online business like an offline business, and if you have built this big community, you should probably start thinking about what else you can do with them.

To be honest, I don't think this one is going to come back any time soon.

[epmaniac]

@leosghost

thanks for wonderful information, i am working hard to remove the infringing content (posters etc)... and then i will file for reconsideration,.... do u think if i change my ip address, would it help?

[spreporter]

talking about stolen images, I wonder how does it rank at top positions a website dealing with a world map finder.....the site in question uses on every page over 30 maps as thumbs stolen from other pages, should be reported in chilling effects or in Google spam? (bit out of topic but relevant)

[Robert Charlton]

talking about stolen images

Perhaps worth noting here that Google has enhanced its "Search by Image" capabilities and is apparently much better at spotting scraped images. See this discussion...

Google Makes "Smarter Best Guesses" On Image Search
http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4471887.htm [webmasterworld.com]

With regard to images on web pages, btw, image scraping without detection is now likely to be much harder.... Note the "Pages that include matching images" results in the search by image serps pages.... The matching images (in some cases with watermarks cut off) seem to be precisely matching images.

Any search-by-image that you do is undoubtedly going to be adding the image you use to search with to Google's image data base, so I'd keep that in mind when using the feature.

[giggle]

(slightly off topic)

epmaniac mentioned youTube videos. I have public youTube videos in my website. I had never considered that there would be a problem as there's always a 'share' on the youTube website. Is it ok to have these videos on my site?

[epmaniac]

i received this message in wmt today that

Dear site owner or webmaster of [site.com...] We've detected that some of your site's pages may be using techniques that are outside Google's Webmaster Guidelines. If you have any questions about how to resolve this issue, please see our Webmaster Help Forum for support. Sincerely, Google Search Quality Team


wat does that mean?

everybody was saying that i was deindexed coz of DMCA but now i gets the message that i violate quality guidelines...

so does quality guidelines incorporate DMCA issues?

because when i look at google webmaster guidelines under quality guideline section

i dont find DMCA issues

Quality guidelines - specific guidelines

Avoid hidden text or hidden links.

Don't use cloaking or sneaky redirects.

Don't send automated queries to Google.

Don't load pages with irrelevant keywords.

Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.

Don't create pages with malicious behavior, such as phishing or installing viruses, trojans, or other badware.

Avoid "doorway" pages created just for search engines, or other "cookie cutter" approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.

If your site participates in an affiliate program, make sure that your site adds value. Provide unique and relevant content that gives users a reason to visit your site first.

so is the problem something else, or it was mistake to believe we were removed because of DMCA?

[tedster]

That message certainly is a curve ball. What you received, as far as I know, is a highly generic bit of boilerplate that many are reporting when Google takes a manual action against a site. It can be almost inscrutable if you aren't aware of any area where you've been pushing the edge.

My sense of it? Rhis message is often about artificial link building that overwhelms natural backlinks in the total profile. However, it can also be used in almost any situation where Google took a manual action.

That said, your site was completely removed from the SERPs and not just penalized. Historically, it takes a violation that Google considers quite severe to get removed - or as we used to say, "banned". This is not the usual situation that I've heard about when people report this particular message.

Also, from what I've seen, DMCA notices usually do trigger a specific DMCA message in WMT. At least, that's what I've seen when a complaint is filed against just a couple of pages in an overall site.

But if someone (and it wouldn't need to be another website, per se but anyone who owns intellectual property) has filed a DMCA complaint against nearly every page on your site, that would be outside my experience - and it certainly might result in treatment that is outside "the usual".

[tedster]

One thing I'll add - I'd say you should not consider anything small in this situation. This action was drastic and Google's ban is saying your sites are far outside what they want to show in the SERPs. This is not just some minor technicality, so I would not look at that level but rather at something quite global.

[aakk9999]

@epmaniac, I am confused with what exactly happened. Looking at your past messages:

10:22 am on July 11, 2012 (gmt 0)

i just received message in WMT that my sites dont meet google quality guideline....

12:58 pm on July 11, 2012 (gmt 0)

i am talking abt around 54 sites

9:17 am on July 12, 2012 (gmt 0)

these sites are hardly 2 months old

8:02 am on July 13, 2012 (gmt 0)

my one site got banned which has a traffic of more than 100,000 each day, and is 3 years old

10:10 am on July 14, 2012 (gmt 0)

i received this message in wmt today that ...We've detected that some of your site's pages may be using techniques that are outside Google's Webmaster Guidelines...

As you can see from the quotes above, there is lots of confusing information and there are lots of questions here:

- Today's message from Google - seems to be the second such message. I presume it is for a different site to the first message from Google? Or is it for the same site again?
- For what site did you receive the second message - is it for 3 year old site or for one of these 54 2-months old sites or something third?
- The first message from Google - for which site it was, for one of 54 new sites or some other site?
- Are the both messages from Google identical or are they different?
- The site that is talked in google groups that has DMCA served - this site is a 7 years old site. You do not mention anywhere in your posting a 7 years old site?
- Sites that are deindexed - are these just 54 new sites or does this also include 3 years old site AND 7 years old site?
- Are all sites deindexed at the same time or since your first posting you had further sites deindexed?
- etc

OR to quote Shaddows reply to you (which you have completely ignored):

Please can you post again, with full, accurate information....We need actual data... Basically, you have posted nothing meaningful, but expect advice.

Something like this:
- I have nn sites, of which 54 are 2 months old, 1 is 3 years old, 1 is 7 years old (etc.. list others)
- All sites were ranking nnnn and had traffic nnnn (give some info here)
- On 11th July I have noticed a drastic drop on many of my sites and site: command returns zero. This happened for nn of my 2-months old sites, nn of my nn years old sites and nn of my nn old sites.
- on the same day (11th July) I have received a message from Google via Google WMT that my sites do not meet quality guidelines. This message was given for nn site aged nnn (or was it for multiple sites?)
- I still have nn sites that are not affected, these are nn (site age), nn (site age)
- the difference that I can see between the sites that are not affected and sites that are affected is ....
- on 14th July I have received another message from Google, this message is (the same / different) to the message I received on 11th July and it was given for my site that is nn old and that (was/was not) one of the sites that were deindexed on 11th July

etc...

Try it. You may learn much in the process yourself. Then post the info here and perhaps someone can help with some ideas on what happened.

[epmaniac]

thanks ted and aakk9999

guys... after quality guideline violation email from google, i received this email

Googlebot can't access your siteJuly 14, 2012
Over the last 24 hours, Googlebot encountered 1872 errors while attempting to connect to your site. Your site's overall connection failure rate is 2.1%.
You can see more details about these errors in Webmaster Tools.
Recommended action
Verify that the web service software for your site is installed and running properly.
Verify that your firewall or server are not blocking googlebot's access to your site.
Verify that all scripts that run on your site have proper permissions to run.
Verify that your site has proper permissions to access the pages of your site.
Using Webmaster Tools, find a day with a high error rate and examine the logs for your web server for that day. Look for errors in the logs for that day and fix the causes of those errors.
Your site may be overloaded. Talk with your hosting provider about either reconfiguring your web server or allocating more resources to your web server.
After you think you've fixed the problem, use Fetch as Google to verify that Googlebot can properly access your site.

wht do u guys think it is? could because of poor conectivity my site was deindexed?

[netmeg]

It sounds like you have a lot of things going on over multiple sites. Very hard to diagnose from a distance.

[lucy24]

Oh, and by the way...

The words are conventionally spelled "you" and "because". Sentences conventionally begin with a capital letter. And, ahem, netmeg isn't a guy.

This is not a wildly irrelevant observation thrown in so everyone else can stop sitting on their hands. I'm getting this suspicion that your approach to www sites is similar to your approach to the English language: Do it the fast-and-easy way rather than the proper and time-consuming way.

Backtracking... You need to watch out for the amusing hyperbole. Some people's sites really do have millions of pages. So when you say "millions of pages", the assumption is that you mean, literally, millions. Some sites really have catastrophic errors that result in no visitors one day. So when you say "zero visitors", that will be taken as, literally, none.

Same goes for number of sites, number of different errors and so on. Sometimes it may be more useful to give proportions. "I lost half my traffic" may convey more information than "My visitor count dropped by {some number}". But, again, only if you really and literally mean something close to 50%.