How To Tell if Google's Hummingbird Update Hit My Site

[bobrock4]

Hi all

My website <snip> it has been penalized. It has been increasing its positions (for some keywords it was in first page), but on 5th of september it fall down from GWT and in organic searches. It has a low linkbuilding, the site speed is low, but it ranked well before that date.

I'm reading that humming penalized little sites with few content and this could be that case.

I have created a new page 7 days ago. It's not already in Google database...

Thanks to all who are able to give to me a help.

[edited by: aakk9999 at 10:14 am (utc) on Sep 30, 2013]
[edit reason] Please no domain names as per Charter [/edit]

[lucy24]

I have created a new page 7 days ago. It's not already in Google database...

First things first. Has it been crawled?

[bobrock4]

Yes. GWT shows passages every day

[aakk9999]

I think Lucy asks whether you have checked if the new page has been crawled.

You can find this information from your HTTP logs - grab the logs of the last 7 days, filter down to your new page URL and see if you get googlebot visiting it.

[bobrock4]

Hi, hostgator gives to me raw logs only for the present day. In this log file there are some hits as

74.125.187.181 - - [30/Sep/2013:11:55:22 -0500] "GET /sitemap_index.xml HTTP/1.1" 200 539 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)"

The IP is coming from Google. I don't know if this is what you were looking for...

Thanks, bye

[not2easy]

Hostgator will archive your daily logs if you go to CP> Raw Access Logs and click the box to do that. The access log you posted shows that Google has visited your site to get the sitemap. Can you see any lines where they have accessed requesting your new page? Until that happens it won't be indexed.

[jimbeetle]

I'm reading that humming penalized little sites with few content and this could be that case.

It might help if you had a better understanding of what Hummingbird actually is. Read Danny's writeup [searchengineland.com], then decide if your site was actually *hit* by Hummingbird.

[Mentat]

The 3-5 september update was a curios one. It acted as a sandbox penalty.
The pages are in google database, but not shown on usual searches.
Ad your site name to the search and the pages will be in the results.

I suspect a "over optimization" penalty, as many sites that were hit that day, were old sites, with steady traffic.

Really, for the moment , the new algo seems broken + this secrecy is not helping.

[bobrock4]

@not2easy @aakk9999 yoast seo plugin hadn't put that page in the sitemap. I have made some changes and now it is in sitemap (with priority).

The bots have passed also today, but they have not take that page (I saw it in the raw daily logs).

If the website is under a penalization maybe search engines are slow to index new page?

[bobrock4]

@jimbeetle it not really clear from that article the reasons why those few websites have been hit by hummingbird. I have only bad positions now and no reasons why...

@Mentat I hope that a sandbox penalty could be go back...this site is quite new and with few traffic...lot of it made by adwords..

Thanks to all are partecipating in this discussion :-)

[bobrock4]

The doubt is to continue with linkbuilding now...

[turbocharged]

The doubt is to continue with linkbuilding now...

The only certainty in this statement is that you did not study the information at the url jimbeetle gave you or take the time to perform your own research on what hummingbird is. Hummingbird, to the best of my knowledge, has nothing to do with links. It is a refinement in how content is interpreted by Google. If you have thin content, no amount of links will overcome that weakness.

[bobrock4]

No Turbocharged, I read the link jimbeetle gave to me, but it seems to me it doesn't talk about thin content. This is an information I have found somewhere else. I would like to read more about hummingbird to understand better my situation. You all have given to me very useful information, and I strongly thank you all of you, but I would like to read some good sources. Have you an idea where could I look? Mentat has talked about secrecy...

[heisje]

It might help if you had a better understanding of what Hummingbird actually is. Read Danny's writeup

It is interesting to see, in year 2013, that some people still accept Google spin as the truth, and reproduce it almost with obstinacy. Also, have news for you: Danny S. has lost his credibility long, long ago.

.

[lucy24]

seo plugin hadn't put that page in the sitemap

That should make no difference whatsoever, unless the new page is an absolute island with no links from anywhere else on your site. In which case, how would humans ever find it?

New page = new links. A page isn't created in a vacuum.

[bobrock4]

@lucy 24. The page is linked to other two pages, one is old and one is the newest (from the time I have made this thread I have created another page). Any one of these 2 new pages has been indexed by Google so far. More than 10 days for one of them...

[lucy24]

Well, it can never hurt to go into gwt-- or any other search engine you like-- and say "fetch as ###bot". If the page still doesn't show up in the index within a few days,* you'll have grounds for suspicion.


* If you are an important site like, ahem, this one, new pages get indexed before your window has time to refresh. For ordinary civilians it may take a few days after the crawl.

[nomis5]

.... but I would like to read some good sources. Have you an idea where could I look?

If you find any sites with better sources than this one please let me know!

Beware of downgrading advice and insights just because they don't fit into your way of thinking.

[bobrock4]

@lucy24. Good advice, I have just applied it. We will see. But some -100 and -90 in gwt for keyword positions don't make me think this is just a period

@nomis5. This is a very good website. I'm finding very interesting information in here