Hi Anyone got any ideas on this? My site was always top 5 for 1 particular phrase which over the last 9 weeks has been out of Google 3 times lasting about 5-7 days then back again. Other phrases ranked badly too although some remained high. Maybe roll-backs of some sort going on? Lately though my best phrase has been out of sight for over 2 weeks plus some of the other well ranked phrases. Again other phrases remain high, these phrases less relevant to the sites content as a whole. I'm begining to think it's permanent. It's a natural site with good traffic and usually good adverts. It hasn't has any major changes lately. It's my friends livelihood and she is really panicking. I'd love to hear from anyone with a similar problem or anyone that has any answers.
On further inspection, I find it's just the home page that has a problem, other pages seem to be ranking as normal.
I haven't experienced that yet but there are some sites that having the same problem with yours. One possible reason is the content feature of your homepage vs. the content of your subpages (e.g. your targeted keywords are more visible in other pages rather than your homepage). Another one is the backlinks of homepage vs. backlinks of subpages (which one has a greater no.? are the links good/quality enough on subpages vs. homepage?)
It's been happening to me too. I started a thread the other day.. http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=542446 It's really starting to tick me off too.
Maybe you hit the nail on the head here - google loves good fresh content, maybe the site needs some new content especially if the site is in a competitive niche. Look through the SERPS for the keywords you used to rank well for. Which sites have taken your place? Are they new sites (greedy bastards!!)? Are they old sites that have been updated? Google sometimes will favor new sites for a few days and then settle them back into the SERPS if they do not start getting links.
I think I have enough new content to prevent any problems. Some of my competitors are sites I run for them and they are holding good serps. My home page almost looks likes it's penalised but there really is no reason that I can see. Yes plenty of incoming links and home page of PR3, same as before plus good results from internal pages. One thing I notice that's weird on my Google stats is Google seems to think people are finding my site on phrases like 'rent in manchester', 'rent in wherever', which is really weird as my site is about swimming lessons and absolutely NOTHING to do with rent. I try these searches and my site definitely doesn't come up for these phrases. Nor do these phrases appear in my own stats file. It's like Google has it all wrong but that can't happen - can it?
How long have you been out for now? It's over 2 weeks for me this time and I'm begining to worry it's permanent.
When is the last time you added fresh content to your homepage? Or at least moved a few links and pics around?
google trying the different combination of the paid links algo. and they did not get success for that