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What can I do to recover from this storm?
Should I drop all the sites and starts a new one?
Please share your opinion.
On monday, I have three pages of new content I am putting live that will help. All I know when all else failed in the past, I continued with my content building, and my site came back in the SERPs.
There are just two many webmasters here complaining for me to think update florida is done.
In the meantime, while other webmasters are trying to figure our why, I will wait until google figures it out and keep on improving my site.
jd
Be afraid. Be VERY afraid. Things may not go as you hope. I have the reverse problem. My main site is basically unchanged from the pre-Florida excellent SERPs it had, and hits from Google are shockingly high. I just added minutes ago a new page of important content that I have been putting off doing for a while. And, when I added a link to the home page to that, decreased keyword density of the main keyword on the theory that may be why I am at #3 still rather than #1. Even I think I was overdoing it with KWD. However, #3 ain't bad. I'm now scared that I will be cast into Google SERP obscurity. The problem is the reverse when you are ranking well. Constant fear that any change to the site will result in total disaster. The technical term for this is "Googlenoia." :(
I could make good money selling potassium cyanide...
How about a lethal dose of DXM?
Too high of a chance of ending up brain damaged in a mental hospital for the next 50 years. :( When choosing a suicide method the idea is one that will achieve the desired goal. For those distraught webmasters here, the old neck on the train tracks technique is highly effective. But REALLY messy for those having to clean it up.
Yes, it's tempting to cross over into the blackhat area from time to time, especially when results appear to come quicker that way (as someone once said on this board, very few of us SEOs are squeaky clean). But Google always gets wise to quick-fix solutions in the end (especially when people boast about them here!) and removes the shortcuts.
You may even have wandered into blackhat territory inadvertendly, in which case you should just familiarize yourself with the "rules".
If you go back to the drawing board and put in some more hard work, sticking carefully to Google's guidelines (or to Brett's infamous 26 steps to 15k a day post), you will find yourself in a good position again within a few months -- and next time around your SERP listings will not disappear.
Chin up!
[edited by: michael_heraghty at 8:29 pm (utc) on Nov. 19, 2003]
option 1: "wait and see"
option 2: bolster your visitors with a couple ppc campaigns
option 3: "act like nothing is wrong". If your site truly has good content and you haven't been "cutting corners" (you know if you have or not) - then just keep building.
<<snip>>
[edited by: vitaplease at 2:57 pm (utc) on Nov. 20, 2003]
[edit reason] please no url's as per TOS [/edit]
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Dropping all your sites and starting a new one right now is unwise! The best thing that you can do now is to make an intensive and extensive study as of why some sites do rise up, why some sites still maintain their position and why your sites fall down. Then apply the learned knowledge into yours.
This time it is MORE THAN a normal Google update as G has added new ingredients so what you have done successfully in the past may not be so this time.
all 28 of my sites dissapeared from SERP
You have been doing something seriously wrong!
TJ
I have to laugh... this one creases me up. They will 'punish' any site that trips their filters, innocent or guilty.
The issue is the nature of the filter, which clearly doesn't work either in terms of quality SERPS or taking out sites selectively.
Dave
Googlenoia
There is a LOT of that about. Only the guilty have something to hide.
Dave
Totally diagree.
>>They will 'punish' any site that trips their filters, innocent or
guilty. <<
Well said.
I also am also nowhere again for any relevant search term with a new site which sells software and was optimised for terms describing that software.
My site still appears if I search for the url or my product name so it IS listed on google. What seems to have happened is that google are applying a filter that says if you meet certain conditions you get a huge -ve score when determining position.
History:
1. created/optimised July and went to page one on main phrase.
2. started to show with PR4 (previously not ranked) & dropped to page three on main phrase, still in page one if add other relevant words.
3. NOW - not in first 1000 results on main phrase. Still being found from google.de but assume this will change to reflect google.com results.
SEO done according to all the good advice (thanks guys):
- The KWD is 5-8% - probably high but pages read as english and made to give info about the software.
- keyword-phrase included in title and H1 tags.
- keyword-phrase included in readable relevant alt text for images
- keyword-phrase included in readable relevant onmouseover text for images
- tens (hundreds?) of links to the optimised page, few with good anchor text from software listing sites.
-keyword phrase used as filename for page (seperated with underscore)
Possible problems:
- KWD simply too high
- perhaps some software listing sites are flagged by google as link farms (some of them are not much more). I used one of the programs used to help manually submit software to many list sites.
- some filtering is being done if file name / URL contains search term as well as anchor text.
- there are probably *NO* links to my site from other sites with PR3 or above. There was previously at least one with PR3 (another of my own sites which has dropped to PR2 from 3)
- still not listed in dmoz (submitted strt Sept)
- my index includes (too much) product-description text which is repeated on many pages (probably 5-10% of text on page)
In any case I *have* read google quality guidelines. I do fall within them as far as they are exact. And I am trying to create a site that can be found with relevant terms.
I certainly don't have hidden text, anything not designed for a human to read, etc., etc. I don't even have any affiliate links let alone the thinly described ones (I recommend ...) - unlike a lot of sites I find when I search for something on Google.
Suggestion to google:
A "check my page for quality" tool.
- To avoid automated use by spamipmers add an image that shows text to be retyped.
- To further reduce mis-use restrict the use on same-similar pages and using the same IP to once every 5-10 mins.
My opinion is that google are now certainly punishing the innocent as well as the guilty.
So now simply frustrated. I will change my site to change some of the possible problems above but feel especially frustrated that I am working to some moving and arbitrary target. It just seems a silly game and waste of my time which I'd like to spend doing productive work (creating software).
All the people writing that if you work on quality content you'll get a good position will no doubt change their tune just as soon as they happen to trigger one of googles ever-changing filters.
One more observation:
It's very frustrating to have just dissapeared and I just feel like Google wasted a lot of my time. The other company that I regularly feel this way about is M$. The big contrast between Google and Windows is that changing to another OS involves a huge effort. Huge opportunity for another search engine, to be honest I haven't tried many others recently .. which is the best of other free-to-list search engines?
Site added to profile.
Nothing to hide.
All comment appreciated.
just a thought...any ideas?
To be honest this was a pain as all the other links for the other sites were in other locations and had no relevance to my part of the world. So in a way I can see why G is giving people a slap down for using too much anchor in a group of sites.
I am going to delink my sites, take away internal anchor text and concentrate on getting links to each individual site with chaging anchor text.
I am pretty sure this will do the trick after looking around for the past week.
I do not understand Google's rational. I can't WAIT until they have competition.
