Major Serp Reversal - Back from the Dead

[gamma]

Well I had a an *old* (1996) site that dropped in serps around the 6th of March (from like first page to page xx). Today is the first day they appear to be coming back.

Anyone else see drops and returns on simliar dates?

[hulkster]

I saw exactly the opposite - decade old site that ranked decently just disappeared overnight - D'OH! :-(

[gamma]

Well my only consolation is that it might return! This has been by far the longest drop I have seen.. about 5 weeks. Just hoping that for all of us affected (then and now) that it's temporary

[crazygirl]

One of my sites goes up and down like a yo yo for certain terms only the other terms I rank for are stable. I look in my logs and see hits for a term that I used to be #1 for - then I dropped out of site - I click the link and my site is not listed, I use the google cache tool and see it ranks at #1 in about 5-10 datacenters, the next day it is 15-20 data centers then the next day it is no where to be found again. Also I see the same behaviour for a new term I started targeting - #3 in some data centers one day - not listed the next.

[rcj662]

Google seems to be trying to figure out best formula for search results. The last update killed alot of sites and made some search results Useless.

Maybe they are finaly trying to fix the results. I saw alot of dead sites and forums for some search results. Alot of the forums had nothing to do with the search terms and where 2 or 3 years old.

[kamchatka]

Something is definitely broken. I have this site, which contains very authoritative information in its niche, it used to rank #1 for its primary key phrase, and than early march, it slipped down to almost nowhere, than it again came back to #1 than mid march it again got lost in SERP oblivion.

Day before yesterday it again came back to its former position of #1. Also I have noticed another very curious thing; this very same site, was ranking in msn and yahoo all this time and was bringing in lots of visitors, but there was very less number of clicks and the epc went for a nosedive.

Everytime it ranks in google, the epc and ctr, both increases. Does that mean that visitors from yahoo or msn are not giving much CTR.

[crazygirl]

dude the website in your sig is down

Originally Posted by kamchatka

Something is definitely broken. I have this site, which contains very authoritative information in its niche, it used to rank #1 for its primary key phrase, and than early march, it slipped down to almost nowhere, than it again came back to #1 than mid march it again got lost in SERP oblivion.

Day before yesterday it again came back to its former position of #1. Also I have noticed another very curious thing; this very same site, was ranking in msn and yahoo all this time and was bringing in lots of visitors, but there was very less number of clicks and the epc went for a nosedive.

Everytime it ranks in google, the epc and ctr, both increases. Does that mean that visitors from yahoo or msn are not giving much CTR.

[kamchatka]

Nope, the site in my sig is working fine

[crazygirl]

LOL sorry the site that it points to is down masterseek.com

[Chili]

I had a site pop back up today to the #2 spot after totally disappearing for a few months. It's been top 3 for 3+ years before that.

[jakomo]

For me nothing is broken! Google is playing with us It's the new Search Engine model, you are here, you are not here, Where Google earn money? Adword!, why Google will help you ranking top ten.... if you want to rank top ten forever you need to pay to them.. Easy...

As I wrote many month ago, they have NEW RULES, or NEW words like data fresh, penalty 950, 50, 30, there is not a penalty for Adwords Easy for me...

If you don't want to lose money... I think the best way is create many good quality sites, if you lose ranking of one site, you have another one earning money, etc etc..

My 2 cents,
Jakomo

[longcall911]

Originally Posted by gamma

Well I had a an *old* (1996) site that dropped in serps around the 6th of March. . .

For the three sites I track, G SERPs are exactly as they appeared in early March for most keywords associated with those sites.

I had made some good progress over the past 4-5 weeks, but for me, the clock has been turned backward.

/*tom*/

[mobilebay]

I have seen alot of my search results fluxing too, all seemed to be around 31 - 40 now they are all over the shop, and traffic is increasing. Think im recovering yay

[JasonBartholme]

My article site is now getting the traffic and ranks that I received 3 weeks ago. At that time, I had two weeks of my best rankings and traffic ever. Then, it dropped off, almost completely. Now, my site is hitting hard again.

Once again, I did not make any major changes to my site. Oh, well. I'll ride this influx out for as long as it lasts again.

[Burta]

Originally Posted by hulkster

I saw exactly the opposite - decade old site that ranked decently just disappeared overnight - D'OH! :-(

I seemed to have been hit by something similar 3 year old site - has been ranking really well for years bombed of the face of Google.

Can I ask when was your site dropped, was April 6th around the BL update? and did Google's count of your BL's drop? because I think that is where I have been hit - Google seems to think that there are only 8 backlinks pointing to my site which less than a week ago had 3000 - and I know for a fact that many of the major backlinks are still there. So I'm wondering if this drop is just a case of Google's miscalculations.

Originally Posted by gamma

Well I had a an *old* (1996) site that dropped in serps around the 6th of March (from like first page to page xx). Today is the first day they appear to be coming back.

Anyone else see drops and returns on simliar dates?

As I mentioned above I was just recently hit by a bit drop though it makes me happy to hear that it might only last 5 weeks, and I'm definitely crossing my figures that your recovery will be similar to mine.

[Mia]

Originally Posted by hulkster

I saw exactly the opposite - decade old site that ranked decently just disappeared overnight - D'OH! :-(

Same here.. I think it proves my "shit floats to the top" theory about PR updates.

[gamma]

Burta - the site in question dropped rank around March 6th. To be honest I don't do alot of SEO so I don't count backlinks, but the site is a decent solid PR5/PR6 - on topic, all organic links, over a dozen dmoz entries, etc.. It gets new content every few weeks.

I doubt major backlinks disappeared at that time, but perhaps rather Google changed the way it values the existing backlinks (dmoz, etc).

I did make one change after the initial drop. I added meta/keyword tags to every page, and replaced the old css class with <h1> tags. (I told you I don't do SEO, lol) Anyway I doubt these changes prompted the change in serps but that's literally the only change I made.

[M Yasir]

Since last week of March 2007 I noticed some -ve change in Traffic and BL. In last 15 days I loosed up to 20% traffic of my websites.

Yet I have not seen any +ve change for my websites like others. This update is looks like strange for me..

PR is expected in current week, hopefully the picture will be clear in next week. Let's see what's going to be happen.

[MonkeyBoo]

I have seen my site of 2 years just disappear completely from google. Which I never had happen before. All my target terms disappeared...however

in my experience, it probably come back up in week or two, I hope, never had such a severe drop like this. It fluctuates all the time, not sure the reason. I think it is normal.

Google is not static, it is always changing. It is not a directory. Just think if Google stayed the same all the time, then how do all our new content get linked. Just think of it a good thing that Google is continue serping for new content.

Burta hows BrisVegas?

[sadcox]

I saw something like this happen last year, probably during "updation". One of my sites that has been up for 10 years, www.knoxvillerugby.com, disappeared completely from SERPS. I couldn't even find it by searching for "Knoxville Rugby".

This site is about as nichey as can be. I freaked out for about two days, then it reappeared at the top.

Don't worry about it. Even if all the search engines completely changed their methods and reset everything to zero, there's not much you could do about it today. Keep adding good content and building links. The rest will take care of itself.