I have a WordPress blog that has chronicled moving from California to Puerto Rico and building a house. It is not a made for adsense or made for affiliate blog. It is legitimate, helpful and built for the end user. One month ago, it stopped showing up for search terms in Google that it has always shown for (ie. California to Puerto Rico, my name, my girlfriends name). I have done some research and tweaking trying to figure out what is going on. All of the pages are still indexed and I'm not seeing any Supplemental page results from Google. Here are the changes that were made to the site in the past 30 days: -A second Adsense Account was added -Coop Was Added -FeedBurner RSS Feed Sign-up Form -RSS Feed Google Webmaster is not showing any Page errors...just some errors regarding placement of some <center> tags. The strange thing is, Google Webmaster is showing some of the top keywords to the site as content we have on another site on the same server. These to domains share the same IP. Could it have something to do with sharing the IP address? I would greatly appreciate any feedback from any of ya'll that may have had a similar experience or the first hand knowledge on how to remedy or even diagnose what the problem may be. The site is: http://www.ca2pr.com
You seem to have a ton of hidden links that are broken. Sometimes Google finds what you did wrong 6 months or a year ago. They aren't always that fast... (sponsor links in footer (though you dont have many of them) stuff like that) but frankly I think just fix the links for now. Hidden links: 108. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 109. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 110. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 111. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 112. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 113. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 114. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 115. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 116. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 117. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2/ 118. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 119. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 120. http://ca2pr.com/category/ 121. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 122. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 123. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2/ 124. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 125. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 126. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 127. http://ca2pr.com/category/ 128. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2/ 129. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2/ 130. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2/ 131. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2/ 132. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 133. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 134. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 135. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 136. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 137. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 138. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 139. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 140. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 141. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 142. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 143. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 144. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 145. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 146. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 147. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 148. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 149. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 150. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 151. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 152. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 153. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 154. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 155. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 156. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 157. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 158. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 159. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 160. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 161. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 162. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 163. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 164. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 165. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 166. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ 167. http://ca2pr.com/category/-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ Code (markup):
Google penalizes for your "sponsor" links. Lingerie, plastic surgeons, car finance etc... Completely unrelated to your content. Such things clearly run into Google spam filters. And repair your hidden/broken links.
Guys...the 'hidden link' thing is a bi-product of upgrading from WordPress 2.1 to 2.6 Today. It doesn't properly update your categories...it is a fix I will be doing in phpMyadmin...but just showed up today. I don't think Google is going to penalize for 3 or 4 links. Besides, all of them could be related to our blog on one level or another. That is the thing about blogs that aren't over analyzed ...people have random stuff on them, and that's ok...it's a journal. I am not trying to shoot either of you guys down, I really appreciate the feedback and closer inspection of the site. Hopefully I'll get the category stuff fixed today, and I don't get any other advice I may take off the CoOp links and see if that helps.
DomainMagia: Who is this Matt Cutts guy? Is he a butcher? What would he know about Google? Jeez... I am trying to fix the links. When I updated to WordPress 2.6 it dropped the "description" field of all my categories but kept all the rest. Therefore, everything is categorized the way it was in my old WordPress, but there is not "Name" associated with the link category. I found a fix online which involves comparing your database back up in a text editor to the wp_term_taxonomy directory in my PhpMyadmin, but I can't figure out how to edit the 'description' fields. Thanks for the help everyone...here are the action steps I took: Removed Co-op Removed 2nd adsense Account Removed FeedBurner (tons of Spammy sites are displaying my feed as their content) Here is what I am going to do: Fix Category links, continue posting for the user, sit back and wait and see if any of the above helped.
Pretty narrow niche to run adwords. How many people move from CA to PR and will find value in your blog? Not trying to be critical but this is a tough game and you should allocate your work time for maximum payoff. Again, I apologize but I think you deserve a bigger payoff. My niche is the trillion dollar wealth transfer business and I am struggling to get the word out and make anything close to a living.
EstateGuy: Thanks for the business advice regarding my 'moving to puerto rico' niche not being profitable. It's not a niche, its a blog for the 'few' people that may be researching the move and building here. We aren't looking to make millions...just a few happy hour cocktails every month (they're only $2 each at sunset). With that said, I don't think your reply has anything to do with my question. Good luck with your trillion dollar wealth transfer business.
priyakochin: No, I am not doing any promotion for this site aside from what it gets organically, so it hasn't had a dramatic increase in in-bound links. Thanks for the post.
I figured out why we dropped out of Google's rankings, but the remedy is now my problem. Here is how I figured it out:I looked at a google cache page (double checking what google sees). It looked exactly as you and I see it. Then, I clicked the 'text only' option and guess what I saw all the way at the bottom. Hundreds of hidden ring tone links. It looks like it is in the footer of our WP template! I went into the footer file and the Style Sheet and couldn't find the malicious code anywhere. Check out the screenshot I took: Does anyone have any more ideas for me?
I figured this out, well, someone figured this out. Seeing as I always come to DP to find answers and it ranks all over the place...hopefully this will save someone 20 hours of banging their head against the keyboard: Check out these two links to learn more about these spammers that insert code/scripts into your WordPress database: http://linux.byexamples.com/archive...it-we-been-hit-by-hidden-spam-link-injection/ http://www.teohuiming.name/blog/wordpress-exploit
Monks, thanks for posting your results. I followed a trail of links leading from the ones you posted to try to get some idea what this is all about. There's been a bunch of posts lately about WP blogs with hidden links that only show up in the Google cached pages. It seemed very weird. It is apparently an exploit that surfaced a few months ago and was patched in April. For people experienced with searching source files, PHP code, and phpMyAdmin, the fix appears to be "doable" but more difficult than most. For beginners who had trouble just figuring out how to do their initial WP installation, this will be a nightmare. Something like this happens every couple of months. I do not understand why anyone uses WordPress. For those who feel they must use it, try to find a website, mailing list, or someplace where you can be notified within 1 day of new releases. Even though I don't use WP, I registered months ago at the WP site for their notifications newsletter, and... have never received a notification about anything. Maybe it's because I don't actually have a WP installation? Anyway, even if you are notified within 1 day of a new release, you will probably still be weeks behind the curve because WP is so slow to patch vulnerabilities.