html5 and google - anything new?

[mihomes]

Has anyone done any tests with html5 and Google ranking recently... specifically use of the <nav> element?

I ask because I recently started using html5 doctype, however, have yet to really take advantage of any of the new markup. Also, I previously made a change to my main navigation which of course is sitewide. Immediately following that I was gone from rankings essentially.

The thought popped into my head that perhaps these 'signals' could be used in conjunction with other algos.

[goodroi]

Did you change the amount of links or anchor text? Simply swapping out <div> for <nav> and keeping everything else the same should not remove your site from Google. Have you checked to see if there might be a typo or technical issue that is preventing Google from crawling your site?

[mihomes]

I never had <nav> in place... the change was simply adding a new menu item or two which is a drop down ul-li structure.

The reason I was asking was the thought that using <nav> would give them a better idea what was changed since, in this case, was site-wide and probably tripped a filter/algo.

[goodroi]

Sorry, I am a little confused. You mentioned that your site was gone from the rankings. Is this still the case?

[mihomes]

When I made changes to the site navigation (drop down menu as mentioned above) the site was gone. I am assuming this triggered something, possibly with their new patent that has been talked about, since it was a site-wide change.

My question is basically asking if any tests have been done with html5 and cases such as this. In other words, would using <nav> have prevented this from happening as G would have known it was a navigational change (within <ava>) and not me throwing up spam links or something they must have seen questionable or negative.

The changes obviously weren't negative or spam, but I think since they were done sitewide on so many pages a false trigger was hit.