Anyones Rankings Just Sunk?

I wish I had seen this thread before I wrote my first post.

Around the time this thread began, I had a very similar experience.

My site has been around for years, but it wasn't until November of last year that I did anything actively with it from an SEO standpoint. I noticed my ranking in SERPs went up, things were looking good. Then at the end of January, the pages I normally check as a baseline suddenly went from the #2 to 10 range to off the charts. I thought perhaps I had done something wrong SEO-wise.. but I couldn't really find anything wrong. A few days later, maybe a week, maybe less, everything returned to normal again and, in fact, got much better.

Until the last couple days. Everything is back off the charts again. My site is a music review magazine, so I test pages regularly using the artist's name and the term "review". I went from scoring in the top 10 on many, many pages to being.. I don't even know where.. but far below 100.

I don't buy or sell links, I don't do anything unethical or black-hat in nature -- at least nothing that I can conceive of that would result in a penalty. There are a few pages with duplicate titles and due to the CMS I'm using some pages do show up as having duplicate content, but the magazine has been around since 1996 and there are literally thousands of review pages out there -- duplicate content, so far as I can see , is well less than 1% of the pages and I eradicate it where ever I can.

So I feel all your pain. I've seen the bottom fall out, then come back once. I only hope that this is indeed some sort of a swing being caused by changes in Google's algorithms and that it will come back again!

 

Yea mine did

 

I suspect that the bot checks the position of a link
Thus if it is in a place that (lets be honest 99% of the time is paid)
then yes
you are a victim

 

So then, since mine isn't, how do I go about correcting this?

 

Google.com usa results is fluctuated for 2 weeks and seems no one know when it would be ended. I feel like a shit when see site ranking in Google.com other countries and "ALL" Google DC's #3 while ranking #15 in Google.com usa results. My site is whitehat and offers quality content plus updated on regular basis. That's why its ranked #3 in all Google DC's except Google usa. I don't understand why Google take so much time to merge all supplement results in their main index. When this sick will be end?

 

I totally understand. I am in the exact same position other than going from the first page to the 13th page. and bouncing to the 9th page, 10th etc... I don't understand it for the life of me. All Google datacenters and just about other other country where Google has a country domain (.ca, ie, au, etc) Im on the first page... It has been this way now for around 3-4 weeks I think, I have lost track. Have you contacted Google?

 

Why don't you guys start flooding Matt Cutts with questions about this? Or grouping together to submit your situations to various seo bloggers?

 

How does one get ahold of Matt Cutts?
I tried sending him an email (getting his supposed email from a whois search on his domain) but no reply...

 

Perhaps consistent comments and links to threads placed in his blog would work?? http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/

 

my site maintained its 8th position at Google. i didn't noticed any sunk or rankings.

 

He cannot comment or say anything unless the URL of the website in question is disclosed..

 

Anyone have any updates yet??

 

Well i just ran my main batch of keywords and checked yesterdays stats, and it's D-E-A-D.

Who knows if anyone will even read the re-inclusion request but i doubt it.

 

Yeah, I have one, but I think a lot of you aren't going to like it and it is really leaving me to scratch my head.

This afternoon my rankings are all right back where they were before. Fanstastic news for me -- but what the hell happened???

This is twice now that I know of.. both times the problem seemed to happen during or right before the weekend (I don't check constantly, so the starting point may be inaccurate. The first time Was around January 30, 2008. By Monday everything was back to normal again, looking great. The second time was last Friday (2/15/08) and I was out of the water until sometime today.

One particular keyword combo that I hadn't really tried to hone in on was at around 15 to 20 on Friday. Saturday, Sunday and Monday it was +/- 650. Today it was solidly at 17 again. Another keyword combo that was at #1 on Friday was at +/- 450 all weekend and then, like magic, right back to #1 today.

What is really disconcerting to me -- and don't get me wrong, I'm glad everything is back to normal with little or no intervention from me -- is that this seems to happen for no apparent reason and really drags my traffic down with it. I would LOVE to know what is going on here, whether it will stop and if there is anything I can do to (or am doing) that can keep it from happening or make it better.

 

Yup well here on my side, my last keyword that I was ranking for vanished on the 17th in the high 90th pages, then came back to normal yesterday.

Still nothing on the rest...

 

I wonder what would happen if 50 talented webmasters that have been given the shaft by G got together for some revenge?????

 

50 wont make a difference... at least 5000.. (probably add some more zeros to the figure..)

 

To what end? Do you think that 50 or 5000 or 500000 webmasters are going to make a difference against one of the biggest corporations in the world? Going to hurt them? It is a silly notion really.. if people are that indignant about how they are being treated by Google, about the only thing I can think of that they can do is delist themselves and concentrate on their rankings on other SE's which, frankly, isn't going to help their own bottom lines at all, but either way isn't going to hurt Google any more than any kind of revenge you can think of.

I don't like what happened with Google.. have no idea what caused it -- whether I did or they did or whether it was accidental or on purpose... but there's not much I can do about it. I still need Google just as much as I ever did .. and frankly so do you.

Defeatist attitude? Maybe, but let's be realistic about this.

 

OK. 5 billion then. lol

Ever heard of "the power of one" concept? We can come up with quite a few "ones" that had an impact on millions throughout history. Ever heard what one determined Marine can do? Or 50?

I am not advocating bringing down G. lol But perhaps a few determined "ones" could make a difference.

This situation many of you are going through does not impact me at all. A person that I consider a friend was hurt by this, and that's the reason for my interest.

 

Well, I won't argue whether you have a point or not... but as crusades go, no matter what you do this would be an uphill battle at best.

Personally, I would just as soon learn from every curve ball that gets thrown at me and come up with ways to use it to my advantage, or to get past it and keep progressing.

From this I've learned to watch Google more closely (to know when the proverbial stuff hits the fan) and to avoid concentrating too heavily on this one means of throwing traffic at my sites. My interpretation based on what has happened to me twice and based on some of what I've read here and elsewhere is that Google is making some changes and I'm either suffering from these changes or getting caught in the over-correction that occurs after changes that have nothing (or little) to do with my sites.

Either way, I've learned a change in focus is in order.