Main Index page disappeared from Google Index

Anyone else suffering from this?

[The Cricketer]

My problem seems to have taken place during the recent google changes. My entire site seems ok except for my main index page has been lost.

It looks like it's disappeared from Google entirely. Has anyone else suffered from this recently? or can anyone offer an explanation about why it's just this page which has disappeared.

I suppose there's always the posiibility that that particular page could have been down when googlebot came to visit....?

[webnewton]

Wait for a while! your home page should be back with 2 weeks.

[The Cricketer]

I suppose this is related, but I forgot to say....all my inbound links to my site have disappeared too. I'll just have to wait.

[dazz]

often happens in big updates but i usually find they get picked up again after a week or so.

I have lost 1 site this update but my other one has jumped up alot too........its never plain sailing this webmaster stuff!

[kaled]

Index pages have disappeared from Google before. Wait a few days before your begin to panic.

Kaled.

[Jessica]

i have similar problem.

index page is gone (even when i search for the url - no results)

it's been like this for a month now. dont know whats the problem.

google said it wasnt penalised or banned (i emailed them)

[The Cricketer]

It's very strange. My site has been in Google for over 2 a half years, and this has never happened before. But it has now.....

[stevens]

Something I experienced may relate to your problem. About a year ago I started a new site, submitted it to Google and waited. I found that my mainpage was listed way below one of the subpages. Obviously, that's not the way I wanted it. What I found was that another site with a reasonably high PR had linked to that subpage of mine. Google, then, recognized my subpage as more relevant to its search results. It took some months, but now the mainpage shows up first in the listings. I wish I could do better than an average of 14 to 17 on the SERP though. Well, I'm working on it. Anyway, bring up the page that Google is listing first for your site, then try their backward links option. You might find that another site has linke to it, and because of their PR it has raised the relevance of your subpage. Just a thought.

[The Cricketer]

Interesting thought Stevens but there aren't any external links pointing to my highest ranked page.

UPDATE
I now have an update on my previous posts. My index page is now back in the SERPs, but now it has no where near the 'power' it used to. Out of all my pages it has by far the most quality back links. It has about 60.

The curious aspect is when it comes to searching for our club (MADE UP EXAMPLE: "Lower Ruckle Skiing Club") which should in theory definitely return my home page at the top of the SERPs but instead returns it below a sub page of mine on the 6th page of Google results.

The site is a sports club in a town of 8000 inhabitants. So it's not of large scale interest on the web. My website has over 400 pages which mention the club. All of the sites above us in the SERPs are links from directories and from other sites which hardly have any content on the site which refers to Lower Ruckle Skiing Club. What is going on? Nearly all my incoming links have anchor text showing Lower Ruckle Skiing Club!

Is this just a case of waiting?

[caveman]

Maybe, maybe not. I'm guessing that you have a small, but fixable problem on your hands.

Recently there was a tweak to G's algo that seemed to discount internal backlinks a bit, and more importantly, require more external backlinks in order for a page to perform well in the SERP's. Even a very relevant page.

This is not necessarily the cause of your problem, but it could be. I've seen identical results recently on smaller sites.

60 backlinks is not much. I'd get out there and get some more inbound links, especially from relevant sites. If you're sports/club/pub related, then there are about 5 billion relevant sites out there. ;-)

Also, if you have not got yourself listed in all the relevant directories, do that too.

There was a time when being the most relevant for a specific search almost guaranteed that you'd show well in G. Not any more. Their anti spam measures over the last 14 months have hurt their ability to offer pinpoint relevance, unfortunately. One caveman's opinion.

[Immersion]

Hello Folks,

I have the same thing happening with one of my sites. First the index disappeared completely from searches and now it is back but non-existent in searches for which is used to rank 7-8th. Any ideas on what would have caused this? This site is not a big money making venture, it is just a simple business site in a highly competitive area. We switched hosts on the 14th of November, but it makes no sense that the other pages remain the same.

Thanks for any ideas

[The_Hitcher]

Another phenomena with Google related to index pages is when your index page will not respond to obvious keywords. For the past four months I've had a site that no matter what text I change on the page, it will simply not appear above the top 20 - it was always number one. At first I thought it was a straightforward penalization (though heaven knows what for - I steer well inside Google guidelines)and I've even asked Google direct if its been penalised or the result of another site which scaped its content (found one) - their reply (more or less) was that the page is in their serps, end of story.

After tweaking and watching results I am drawn to the conclusion that the index page only is being filtered somehow. Other pages come up well but not the most important one. It appears but despite being keyword (title)/ keyword (first word) etc, it will still sit on page 2 or 3 and beaten by sites that aren't as relevant. It only seems to apply to this one site too.

Paranoia has set in now of manual changes at Google by some devious fiend hell bent on pushing this site down. I'm sure its not, but I cannot get this index page to do its job. It passes all the usual W3C standards, is in Google guidelines and is on a site that is the biggest retailer in the world in its field - beats me.

Grrrrrrrr......

[The_Hitcher]

I might add, it was also replicated and cloaked by a competitor prior to this happening and the competitor stayed in. So what with 301's, 302's, scraped content, duplicate pages, some aspects of Google are decidely messy with no signs of them being fixed either - or even any recognition its engine has problems.

[kevinpate]

We saw the index page do a Houdini on two occasions back in late winter / spring of 2003, as did many others. Don't freak and Give it a week or 3 was the general consensus back then, just as it is now. I'm no expert, but I've no reason to believe such advice is less sound in 2005.

[The_Hitcher]

Apart from fact its now four months - thats the problem. I tried the casual "oh it'll right itself" approach (I'm used to that) but I think this one goes a little deeper.

[Symbios]

You are not alone in this one, I have similar problems, I have one site that does the exact same thing, I did a site:mysite.com search and noticed many pages listed as supplemental results, also I noticed it listing both as www.mysite.com and mysite.com so I put in some 301's to resolve everything to www.mysite.com, I noticed many pages showed exactly the same snippet of text for the description and site name (taken from the footers/headers) so I modified the code on every page to prevent this, so now I wait and yes I spotted some scraper site listings as well.

[caveman]

The_Hitcher, nothing new. Try backing off of your SEO efforts a bit...just what relates to your index page. ;-)

[Ledfish]

I have the same problem, have had it for about six months now. It seems like no matter what I do, Google just hates my index page. I revised almost more times than I have had my hair cut in the last six months.

I thought about the manual penalty by someone devious too but figured I was too small of potatos for that type of thing.

Not sure what to do, but given the sandbox, my options are much more limited.

[caveman]

You guys should go back and read the Florida and Austin threads. Homepage casualties were a main feature of the carnage back then...and there were ways to get it fixed.

[walkman]

it could be worst, check Blockbuster:
[google.com...]

[Symbios]

The_Hitcher, nothing new. Try backing off of your SEO efforts a bit...just what relates to your index page. ;-)

I know exactly what you mean by that ie where your incoming links point and what you is said in the anchor text of these links, I don't think its that.

[caveman]

Symbios, your issue and The_Hitcher's are not the same, if I read them right.

His index page is showing on page 2 or 3 of the regular results (though when I made my comment, I had missed his second post about scraped content doing better, which may be his issue).

My main point is that often when a homepage is down on page 2 or 3, and IF it has lots of other things going for it, like good inbounds, etc, yet no matter what is done to tweak it, it still can't get past page 2, then pulling back on the 'optimization' can help. It can involve not only inbounds as you say, but the whole myriad of SEO tactics involved. (Various SEO tactics can be thought of as being more related than many seem to realize...push too many at once and it can hurt you, and pullling back on one has also to do with how the others are being gauged.)

In your case, having a page in the supplemental results is an entirely different issue. This, again, is assuming that I'm reading your and Hitcher's posts correctly.

[Symbios]

Caveman, thanks for the advice, I'm not quite sure of the specifics that are causing this problem but I'll try a few things out, if there's something specific you know then a sticky would really be appreciated.

[The_Hitcher]

I'm not an agressive SEO by any means. Learnt the better of sailing that close to the line so like a motorist passing a cyclist, I give sufficient room for error - ie if the algo suddenly changes, I don't find myself up a creek with no paddle (or boat for that matter).

I do recommend a DECENT html validator though (and I mean good one). Its SO easy to miss an obvious fault. On one occasion I discovered that a page that displayed fine in a browser actually had the blasted <head> statement missing - Doh! That was enough to eradicate it from the index entirely as there was NOTHING to read. Browser interpreted it correctly but Google's spider likes a tadge more accuracy than that.

[GodLikeLotus]

Google has massive problems. Why change your site to try and solve problems that are nothing to do with you.

Google, you won't get away with this crap for long.

[The Cricketer]

I started off this thread and just for the record i think that I have found my problem and hopefully a solution.

You can find my full account here [webmasterworld.com] but for now I'll give you a brief recap.

1. My index page drops dramatically in SERPS
   
2. I think a bit and draw the wrong conclusions
   
3. I think a bit more...
   
4. I have two domain names: the one which is parked on my free ISP provided website and the one which I bought from a hosting company which points to the parked domain name of my free website.
   
5. In the first month or so of the website I built reciprocal links etc using my free website domain name which was a rubbish domain name.
   
6. I then realised that in the future if I move to a paid hosting solution I would not be able to use this domain name and I would have to start afresh.
   
7. So after that, the majority of my reciprocal links were created using my unparked paid for domain name (which looked good!)
   
8. PROBLEM: After 2 1/2 years Google decides that I will only have one domain name which will carry any weight from external links. That domain name will be my free ISP domain.
   
9. RESULT: Links (with regard to Googlebot) reduce dramatically in number. The ranking of my home page drops massively.
   
10. SOLUTION: Move to paid hosting and park my paid domain name there.
    
11. RESULT(fingers crossed): Over time my rankings will return.

[SoleDrag]

I lost my index page today, and I am panicing. I tried to post a new thread, but mine never get accepted for some reason.

My index page is totally gone. Can be found nowhere in the SERPS. (however the www.homepage.com/defualt does)

I ranked well following Google guidelines. I've really worked hard lately getting good relevant links and building content.

Why? I'll take any and all suggestions.

[SoleDrag]

Would 'on my knees begging' help?

[whizkiddo]

take it as a good indicator to work on links. look up the links forum, get some tips. whatver they do remember the prime directive on which google is based, incoming links. If they mess with that, then you wont be bothered with Google anyway. So start asking for , exchanging links. At the worst , it wont make a difference. At the best....

[bakedjake]

*ahem*

[webmasterworld.com...]

Specifically, you'll be interested in msg #33.