Site just went from #2 to #90 after coding accident! Disaster!

[littlecubpanda]

Here's what I think happened:

I was using Godaddy's crappy web site builder 6.0

I made a few mistakes and sometimes what will happen is the site builder will convert all javascripts to an "image" that says "script" and erase all the data! I published the site like this!

I was able to fix it, but since then in just a matter of 2 days I went from #2 to #90! Traffic plummeted!

I really think it's because I updated the site like that and it got crawled and destroyed. I also think the H tags were all messed up.

What a nightmare. I hope it recovers but who knows!

I THINK this is why it was decimated, I can't think of any other reason! I happened right after I published it by accident with the code all messed up.

[denisl]

Most of us learnt fairly early on to thoroughly check any changes made to a site!
On the plus side, depending on how long you took to fix it, there's a good chance you will get your ranking back.

[salvatorecapolupo]

Do not think too much about H tag and/or similar details, but recover your website and make it functional at its best. you should go back into good positions in few days, in my opinion. good luck!

[aakk9999]

Can you revert to what it was before your changes? Do this asap and as Denisl says, there is all chance that the rankings will return.

Then give it some time and only then do the changes you were going to do in the first place when the site was messed up.

[littlecubpanda]

Believe me, if I could have reverted to a previous upload, I would have, but I was not in the habit of backing up this site before I published it for some stupid reason. But of what was lost was minor on that fatal upload -- just some javascript and I think H tags got messed up. I fixed it within hours. Was that enough time to be moved in the rankings? Who knows.

It's confusing, because for this keyword, my site should rank on the first page, period. Period. But now it's 90th? Com'on.

The only other possibility... I bought some backlinks awhile back on fivvrr... but that was quite a while ago. Bad backlinks? Maybe.

I felt it was related to the fatal upload error, but who knows. I learned an important lesson.

[aakk9999]

It could be upload error or it could be that this is a result of changes you have done. Or it could be a completely different penalty and the timing coincidental.

I was able to fix it, but since then in just a matter of 2 days I went from #2 to #90! Traffic plummeted!

I fixed it within hours.

So if I read this well, you published changed pages with error, the error was there for a few hours only, you fixed the error and two days later the site ranking plummeted.

Have you checked your logs to see how many pages Google crawled whilst you had error on page?
Have you checked your logs to see if Google has re-crawled the fixed pages?
Do you have pages that Google has not recrawled in that time period when there was an error on the site, but where page also dropped in ranking?

What I am getting at is - you need more information to see what caused the drop. It could be the javascript/Hn error but it could also be because of changes on the site.

What kind of changes they were - once you fixed the javascript and Hn, how does the changed page compare with what was there before?

[littlecubpanda]

I think the changes might have made it better, because I *thought* I fixed some H tag problems after the coding mess. I resubmitted everything through Google Webmaster, but I haven't checked the logs.

It's odd because the site ranks normally for all other keywords. The main keyword the drove traffic is what was hammered. I'm suspecting this is unrelated to the screwed up upload.