Let's do a poll - who are having problem with google and what's wrong

vanished sites, burried results, dispeared PRs, let google hear this...

[dididudu]

Hi guys, I have a thought, let's put together a "little" list of problems that some of our webmaster are experiencing so far. However, before you put down anything, please read the rules of this forum and the standard format of this thread. I don't want to start a thread for people to simply yelling at google, buy more to put down their problem they are experiencing so far. Mind you, according to GG, this update is far from over, so, your problem may just be solved over the next few days (weeks), but I think these information are still valuable to the new webmasters, or even google themself. :)

Simply put down the following information in ur reply:

1) what's the problem, (no url posting), use simple words, like site vanished, PR dropped to a white bar/grey bar.

2) when did this happen. Please stick to the recent event, if you had problem since the last update, please do not post it here.

3) how long have your sites been online (from what I know, people who have sites online within the last 40 days are not in the same boat with people who have sites that over months old)?

4) what was the original PR before you had this problem.

5) I hope you all do have legit material (no spam), however, our guesses so far is that the new google algo may be strickier than before, so, put down what do you think that could caused a penalty on your site. (such as, it could be duplicated contents, hidden links). Remember, in simple words, no need to say why u had them. (To make you feel better, hey, if google never detected it before this update, then ur site is perfect legit up to now, nothing to be ashamed of)

6) You comments: what do you think is happening, and what do u want to say to google... (again, please do not use harsh tones. neither googleguy nor google owes us anything, they are here to help us to gain fortunes, they have their own reasons of making changes, we can't blame them for everything we see now).

So, guys, please share your thoughts, and moderators/admins, please keep this thread clean for useful information sharing. Thank you all!

-DiDu

[bluecorr]

Down from PR6 to PR0 as of today. Site is fairly new, backlinks still show and some serps still stable. For the main keywords it's buried. Nothing fishy going on I think it just doesn't calculate the PR using all the backlinks.

[dididudu]

LOL, Just found out my case is like the reverse of many of you out there now:

My site is listed on www, but ONLY 1 Page of my entire site is indexed. And that page is THE homepage! LOL

But I am confident that google will keep the entire site back in the index soon or later.

[drmkensington]

I find it so discouraging to bounce in and out of the index for my keywords. Sometimes I think I am hallucinating with a page 1 listing that melts away within a couple of hours and leaves me unlisted again. But am now a bit worried, 2 full days without any sign of my site which is the longest period in the cold for a month now. My competitiors seem to remain static though. Google just doesn't seem concerned that it plays so capriciously with webmasters' business hopes and dreams. I am a small bizness and cannot afford big google adword campaigns to keep me going.

dm

[rfgdxm1]

Has your site ever been in an index for a whole month solid drmkensington? Sounds like you aren't in this index at all, and just that freshbot keeps occasionally adding you.

[superstar]

It still seems to be quite a mess in the new index.

[crobb305]

It is interesting to me that out of the thousands of posts regarding this horrible index, only a handful report anything positive. The pervasive attitude is that this really is a major step back for all of us. Given the number of people here experiencing the same thing, I think it is safe to say that Google has really fouled up. From my observation, newer sites, sites with mostly guestbook backlinks, or previously penalized sites, are doing very well in the serps. Many of these may belong to the handful of webmasters who currently report good times. If the things that Googleguy said would happen come to pass, their days are truly numbered...and the hard work that the rest of us have done will once again pay off.

C

[edited by: crobb305 at 11:30 pm (utc) on May 21, 2003]

[drmkensington]

nope I have not had a full month in the index. site was launched in jan 2003 and srted showing up in march since then it has yo=yoed in and out moving from from page 1 to page 3 to page 4 to page 1 etc etc and now disappears again.

dm

[dididudu]

crobb305: Indeed, I totally agree with ur attitude. One of us should compile this thread and send to google engineers...

[ronhollin]

1) what's the problem

The problem is that we have completely dropped out of Google for all keywords that we were once coming up in Google for. I mean 100% gone.

2) when did this happen.

This became apparent Monday.

3) how long have your sites been online

The site has been online now for about 2 months.

4) what was the original PR before you had this problem.

PR0

5) I hope you all do have legit material (no spam), however, our guesses so far is that the new Google algo may be stickier than before, so, put down what do you think that could caused a penalty on your site. (Such as, it could be duplicated contents, hidden links). Remember, in simple words, no need to say why u had them. (To make you feel better, hey, if Google never detected it before this update, then ur site is perfect legit up to now, nothing to be ashamed of)

I can’t see any reason why we would be “banned” if this is what this question is asking for.

6) You comments: what do you think is happening?

I'm not sure if it’s just Google changing stuff or this:
Just a few days ago (after about three weeks of research) we decided to change some stuff on our site. Here’s what we did:

First think we did was changed the title from:

Discount Widgets - Replica Widgets - Cheap Widgets
To:
Cheap discount replica widgets from $9.95

The other thing we did was we took out the disclaimer we had in the footer of the static index.htm page. The disclaimer was this:

<Snip>

I was under the impression that you want your keywords at 3-7% of total words on the page. Is this correct? If so, then wouldn't taking out the disclaimer (which btw has a large amount of "non-relevant" words therefore diluting the keyword density). Do I have this right?

[edited by: WebGuerrilla at 1:05 am (utc) on May 22, 2003]
[edit reason] Removed Specifics/TOS #10 [/edit]

[twilight47]

I agree that the end resulting index will be probably be fine, and those, like myself who are left out right now, will be included.
My question is, will it be this month or next month?

[rfgdxm1]

In that case drmkensington, you've only got in by freshbot. You'll have to wait at least one more index to get in permanently.

[drmkensington]

It's so unfair the way these things interconnect - I loose my first page yahoo listing too. Tell me rfgdxm1, will I have more false dawns between now and next index?

dm

[rfgdxm1]

Yes drmkensington. As for fairness, as many can attest here, Google is not fair. Note I mean that not in the sense of malice, but in terms of not working very well at doing things.

[patriciak]

My site has been up since Summer 2002. My sudden problem (just noticed May 20th) is that two of my pages have a PR of 0, and the pr on my main page is fluctuating from a 4 to a 5 (previous to last update, had been a 5).

Of the two pages that are now a pr 0, one is new, but has nothing that I believe violates any rules...it is simply my "what's new" page for my retail site. The other page is one of my oldest, it describes the company, and previous to this, it had a consistent PR of 4.

I've also seen a huge dive in where I'm listed for some of my kw phrases, but overall have stayed where I wanted to stay, or improved (I track over 21 keyword phrases that I've tried to optimize for).

I am hopeful I will see an answer on this forum as to what is cauing this problem for me, so I can fix it!

Patriciak