Think i've tripped a duplicate content filter

but this is an interesting problem

[lufc1955]

Our pr6 site yesterday vanished from Google. The previous day I had added just over 400 new pages. These new pages looked very similar but in fact were intro pages to streaming videos of destinations around the world. Each video, lasting about 3 minutes, is obviously unique but the text on each page is very similar apart from the name of the destination is different on each page. Also, each page was cross linked for navigation purposes.

Adding these new pages appears to have tripped some sort of filter so that even our domain name does not appear in Google. we have been in the Google index for many years and have hundreds of inbound links.

Can anybody give any advice on how to get back in the Google index. Our traffic has slumped by 75% over night.

[prairie]

If you add a heap of new pages to a site, google rankings can take a temporary dive. Unfortunately it could be several months before this clears up for you.

[jk3210]

lufc1955
I've added as many as 3,000 pages in one day with no adverse effects. There have been numerous times when I've added 1,500 pages a day with only 1-4 words changed on each page and still no problems.

Maybe some other cause? Server problem?

[internetheaven]

If you add a heap of new pages to a site, google rankings can take a temporary dive. Unfortunately it could be several months before this clears up for you.

In THEORY this is very possible as Google rankings are highly dependant on linking and density. Therefore if the linking structure is diluted along with the keyword density in the anchor text of the site (such as when large numbers of pages are added) it is POSSIBLE that this could cause a drop in rankings until the new pages have aquired there own "standing" in the search results.

But I can't say I've ever seen it happen, I've found many webmasters who are convinced this is the case until it is pointed out to them that there is a totally different explanation. It is so much easier to say - "Oh, Google have caused me to drop in rankings" than to take responsibility for other actions you may have performed on your own site.

[lufc1955]

Thanks for your replies. Adding the new pages is the only thing I have done to the site for several months. Our rankings have dropped to such an extent that we appear to be completely banned. Even a search for our domain name produces no results. Our site had approx. 1,400 pages all with high rankings. The drop in traffic could put us out of business.

[PatrickDeese]

It is doubtful that Google would have spidered 400 pages overnight and banned you the next.

I would look into server issues - have you used the server headers check tool [webmasterworld.com] provided by webmasterworld?

At any rate having 400 relatively identical pages would not result in a ban, at worst, they'd only show up in site searches with the &filter=0 tacked on at the end.

You need to look at hosting issues, technical issues with the site, or some sort of selectively filtering issues. If you've been cloaking, even for the "right" reasons, that may have tripped the filter.