For the life of me I really don't get this... I'd say about a year ago I was listed on the front page (#1 in some cases) for the most common Google search terms for my site. Now I've dropped to the second page for "vbulletin skins" and phpBB skins and IPB skins are totally off the map for the main .com site. What kills me is that MSN, Yahoo, Ask.com, etc. still list me very very highly. Yahoo: http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=vbulletin+skins http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=ipb+skins http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=phpbb+skins MSN: http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=vbulletin+skins http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=ipb+skins http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=phpbb+skins And the list goes on. I've had to set up adwords just to show up on the side... Really, I don't get it. I don't see anything that violates their webmaster guidelines. And I have more traffic than the top sites listed, plus I have thousands of linkbacks from the skins people are using (they all contain a text link (eXtremepixels.com) going back to the main page of my site.. I'm at a loss. I've signed up for Google webmaster tools, added a sitemap and robots.txt. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. I don't understand how I dropped from number one or nearly number one to nearly the bottom of the second page or non-existent.
when did this drop take place? this morning i woke up to an overnight drop - lost all my #1 rankings...
There can be many reasons. IF there is nothing drastic that you have done recently on the website during search engine optimization then I think the most likely reason is increase in competition. It is quite likely that during the last year other websites search engine optimisation efforts and back links have overtaken yours. In either case I think with some catching up I am sure you can win back your ranking,.
If you make changes to content or meta tags then it can effect your ranking. Competition could have also catched up tyo your site links etc.
Google started to nofollow pages with many external links giving them a PR0 or even deleting them from the index. I saw many well known directories where the PR is listed only on home page. If you enter the categories (where external links) are present you can see no page rank and on some directories that URLs that reflect subcategories do not exist any more in google index (search results)....so with other words...if you SEO campaign was based in exchange links with other websites or submitting your website in directories...this is the reason. Some pages where your link was submitted, were receiving a google no PR or were deleted from index....it means also your website is getting less and lesss back links affecting your rankings.....so... LINK EXCHANGE is dead....you should focus on your website content and natural linking...this is a new era
Firstly, you have many nice themes i've been a fan of a few of them for quite some time. My guess on your situation is, Google has somewhat devalued theme links due to the flood of Wordpress themes with links to manipulate Pagerank and SERP's. Also links in the footer have been devalued primarily due to the same reason, most theme links are tucked away in the footer. So, even though you have many links they are possibly carrying far less benefit then before. It's a tough one, because it's difficult to place your companies brand/link somewhere other then the footer without it becoming intrusive to the end customer.
Same here. Looks like it happened one or two days ago. My traffic across all sites has dropped to less than half. Daily Adsense down from $15 to $2. Sort of a bummer.
I believe the internet would be a lot better place if webmasters focused on the website, the content, usability, etc. I believe that's what Google is going for, however I have a feeling it's going to be a bumpy ride till that actually works without a major flaw. I'm excited to see how people handle this in the future.
As someone who takes great pains to make sure my sites are accurate, user-friendly, and actually provide some sort of unique benefit - that they are sites I would be proud to tell people I made, even in a world without online advertising - I'm particularly disappointed when these efforts are punished in favor of the MFAs that have taken over my spots. Oh well.
I experienced the same thing! My site has also been hit with whatever the heck Google is doing but one thing's for sure, every other site that's buying links is doing ffaarrr much better than my site and that SUCKS... you hear me Matt Cutts? THAT SUCKS!!
My sites wander up and down a few places all the time. How many good backlinks did you add in the last year?
ohhh yeah, i found the same problem with my website, but just we can not do any thing on that. we just need to do work hard on it, you will get your rankings back nearly.
If you are still in the google serps, then you have not been blacklisted. That is a positive note to your question. It must be noted that it is always easier to rank well in MSN, then Yahoo, than it ever is for Google. MSN is like the special olympics for SEO. The important thing for MSN is that you play the game, not that you play the game well. Frequently, what causes the drop in Google rankings is either the disappearance or discounting of the pages that gave you link value to begin with. I know that about a year back (circa Sept 07) that Google discounted a lot of the links from Link Directories. That resulted in a lot of sites losing their status in the Google serps. Think of it as if those other sites are lifting you up. And when some of those sites can no longer hold you up, then you drop in rank because those still holding you up do not have the combined strength to hold you as high as you once were. Often drops in Google rankings have more to do with what happened to the sites linking to you, as opposed to what happened to you.