Hi, About two months i bought a domain. I didn't check it's history as i figured if it was banned by Google i will only lose 9 Dollars. I put together a site within a few days, and started building the link campaign. All pages got indexed really quickly so there was no sign of a ban. During the course of the first month I submitted articles to many article directories, submitted the site to a few directories and got 5-10 dofollow backlinks from blog comments. My ranking for the two word phrase name of the domain gradually improved and after 4 to 5 weeks i was in the third Google results page for that phrase. Then i added various pages from the site to 20 or so social bookmarking sites, which took me about a week. My ranking for the two word phrase shot up to #9, back down to ~#30 then up to #6, back down, and then gradually went from ~#30 to #11, where it was stuck for a bout a week. Then, on September 1st, the home page disappeared from the SERPS completely. It was nowhere to be found in the 700+ visible results. On Sep 3rd i opened a Google webmasters account. In there it gives you search phrases and how you rank for them. It gave me 4 phrases, and my two word domain name phrase was #11, just like i saw for myself during the preceding week. Yesterday i saw an update in the web master tools and now only one of the four phrases appears there, but not my two letter phrase domain phrase. I'm really clueless as to what might have cause it. I have not changed anything on the site since day one, so It can't be content related (like keyword stuffing) right? Also, i am not promoting anything on the site, no Google adds, no affiliates links, nothing... the site is 100% clean. The content is 100% original (I wrote it), and it's not adult related in any way. When i Google site:domainname.com all the site pages are then INCLUDING my homepage. I would REALLY REALLY appreciate any help here... what might have caused it, how do i fix it etc... Thanks.
Sometimes new sites disappear for a week or two then reappear at the same place or higher. Or because it is a new site it could be the dreaded "Google Sandbox". People will tell you to just continue building backlnks, but personally I find that hard to do until it reappears. Do a search for your domain in Google's search box (yourdomain.com) and if it's the first listing it's still there and hasn't been banned (sometimes it takes a while to get listed). But for now, patience.
thanks bob. my site is #1 and #2 for searching the domain name. i thought that once you show up in the serps it means you're out of the sandbox... is that no so?
One factor I noticed that Google is looking at is the "freshness" date of your website and interior pages. There is a field in the sitemap where you can actually specify the last date and time you made an update, as well as the frequency of updates in the future (weekly, monthly, etc). I think doing Google Analytics and their Webmaster Tools will help to provide quicker information and updates directly to Google. But don't forget there are other search engines out there. How well do you rank on those?
I don't have a sitemap (yet)... just never got around to do it. Still, i was pretty solid at #11 so lack of fresh content should have just make me drop a few places, not vanish completely, no? I just checked and i'm #14 on bing.com, but not on Yahoo's first 1000 results. I do rank first for my domain name under Yahoo, so at least i am getting indexed.
Some ppl said, "too much link will kill you" Means that sometimes too much backlink can be identified as spamming
and there are always those saying that there is no such thing. if it is true, then will this punishment expire sometime soon?
still nothing i did a search using seo spyglass and i don't even have 30 backlinks, so that's not a let is it... they just washed me out of the search result for NO season!
Google will not punish you for too many links to your site. You are probably just stuck somewhere in the sandbox, they can come and go. Maybe if something gets suspicious they will take you off for a check or something. I have had my sites drop off the grid before only to return in a higher ranking. I would say keep up with what you are doing, if nothing shows up in a couple of weeks, you may have problems.
ok Mrbanks, thanks for the input. btw, have you had your site go off the grid for as long as two weeks?
I'm back on the grid, ranked #184 (!!) the weird thing is, i logged onto Google webmasters tool, and my sitemap is gone. as if i never submitted one (i did submit and had all pages indexed). site:domain shows all pages are indexed. It looks like my domain was "reset" or something!? could that be? so now i assume all the link backs i got are worth nothing? ifs that's so it is really outrages.
hey Gonzzo, I got the same problem yesterday. home page ranking disappears on SERPS but the subpages's rank is still there. I am looking for the answer. Many ppl told me I am building too many low quality links in short time.
One of my sites doesn't rank for the name but it ranks for the name with the .com at the end....Google is funny.
This is normal for a newly indexed site by Google. Initially you enjoy the honeymoon period, in which google gives you easy ride to the top, then settle down a bit. There is no such thing as Google sandbox, that's loser talk. Sandbox doesn't exist, it's a myth. Too many links can't get your site banned. Otherwise why bother SEO? Just sink your competitions by knocking them over with link spamming tools. However, if you build links too quickly, it could have set your SERP back, before pushing it up back as it takes time to index new links. This happened to couple of my sites before, and it took between 1 week to 6 weeks to fully recover. Get a new sitemap to Google as soon as possible and set your crawl speed to fastest, then you should be able to recover from this hopefully soon.
I think doing Google Analytics and their Webmaster Tools will help to provide quicker information and updates directly to Google. However, if you build links too quickly, it could have set your SERP back, before pushing it up back as it takes time to index new links