Interesting observation - Can this be valid?

Hi Folks,

I ran into an anomaly over the past month or so and need someone to confirm or deny my observations.

Over the past month or so I changed the title of my main page at least three times. What I have noticed particularly in Google and MSN is that when you change your page title that specific page gets crawled and de-indexed for at least 2 o 3 days and then gets re-indexed into SERPS. Fortunately for me, it has resulted in better SERPs.

Has anyone else run across this or am I smoking too much seaweed?

Thanks for your imput!
Frank

 

Hmmm interesting...
I think this subject deserves some experimentation.

 

livingearth -

i am almost positive this is the case as all my SEO tools showed a complete drop off (de-index) from the indexes. Now, I'm not talking a few SERPs spots - I'm talking completely gone from the index for a few days and then POP! Back in the listings. Its almost like the SEs are recalculating your SERPs positioning or something.

I'm *thinking* this may be the case but may be totally off. Hopefully we can get some good feedback.

cheers
Frank

 

Hi guys,

I too have experienced this if I am not mistaken with one of our sites. It could have been another unknown factor, however I didn't see anything else playing a role. For me the site disappeared and reappeared after the title change...

 

Houston we have second sighting! Roger that! Do we have any other sightings?

 

Yep, I tweaked a page recently. It was the number 1 result, and so I thought I would tweak the title and add an advert. Dropped to number 3, and now back to number 1 (as of today ).

So it's not a complete drop from the index.

Before the page climbed back up, I tweaked the title again. We'll see what that does. The Google cached page is still the un-tweaked one.

 

ekstreme - please let us know your findings, typically what i saw was that the cached paged was not effected until the re-index occured. So in other words it remained there until it was crawled then the cache and the actual page disappeared then popped up again.

 

Sounds like a myth, guess you need proof to get people to consider this as a fact.

 

cpshosts - Myth? I've done my observations and thats why I posted here to see if this is accurate or a coincidence. Another member has also indicated some similar observations.

 

It does happen. How much it happens really depends on how drastic the change is...

I've made changes like:

widgets and more -> more widgets -- page doesnt drop out, new title appears in 24-48 hours

more drastic changes:

wall plaques -> garden stones -- page disappeared entirely from google index for about 7 months then reappeared at #13 for the new word afterwards.

 

I mean, I won't just believe something that happened to 2 or 3 people....

 

Lorien1973 - thanks for your feedback! I am starting to believe that this in fact does happen. I've done it with a couple other sites to see if it is just my imagination or what - and ITS NOT. This could be a interesting finding if we can validate further.

 

It was suggested to me a long time ago that I repurpose pages instead of deleting them. Simply change their focus. After doing it 2-3 times and seeing the results (and pr 4 page that couldn't rank for crap for 6-8 months), I decided repurposing was a waste of time. I just keep those pages and make new ones now as needed.

It may not be a "proven" fact, but that I have seen it happen (to me and my sites) is enough for me to not go messing around with a page's keywords very drastically.

Besides there are no "facts" on the internet. Everyone has suppositions and anecdotal evidence. Waiting around for something to be proven 100% true and you'll never get anything done.

 

Lorien1973 I couldn't have said it any better myself !
Frank

 

I have had the same thing when I change the title in MSN

from #1 to nowhere for a few days then back to #1

 

Thanks leeds1 - I'm sure that others will confirm aswell ... definitely becoming more plausible ...

Should we call the mythbusters?


Frank