My website is an authority website in a very popular niche, averaging over 15k unique visitors per day, every day for years.. I have been ranking from position 1 to position 5 for two years for some of the most competitive keywords. All of a sudden, about a week ago, I woke up to find my website was suddenly on page 4-6 for all of my most competitive keywords. It happened across the board, and it happened suddenly. I looked in Webmaster Tools and found a bunch of duplicate titles/ duplicate descriptions due to the way my website was coded. I immediately re-coded the website as quickly as possible to make sure all pages had unique titles and descriptions, but Webmaster tools has not yet updated. As far as I know, there are no paid links, duplicate content issues, etc. The domain name is over 7 years old and the website has long been established as an authority website. I have followed to the best of my knowledge all guidelines, and the site and popularity has grown organically. This website is my livelyhood, and my main source of income. Can anyone tell me how this can happen, if they believe it is a permanent penalty, etc? Should I file a reconsideration request, even if I have not been notified of a penalty? Any help is appreciated.
It happened to me today too. Although one of the keywords is back up and now even beating a authority site, but the rest are still down. IT happened to multiple of my sites today. I think its temporary. Well see.
This happened to my site a week ago, and has not recovered yet. Every one of my big keywords was hit. Can anyone else shed some light?
It happened to one of my authority sites about a month ago, it was banished from google compleatly for the normal serps, i found later that day that the Domain and the /forum/ URL had been deindexed ( which is where the main sources of traffic come from ) all other URL's were still indexed over a 1000 of them. Over the coming week and a half i monitored it and even changed my CMS as i too was using a CMS that had duplicate meta info and titles etc. Although after doing all that , 2.5 weeks later it jumped back into serps and in better positions than it was before and still climbing. Ive put the whole experience dont to either a recent server move and google having DNS trouble or google's dance, as it did happen just after it was dancing at the end of last month. Sit back and dont do anything to drastic, best to wait at least 3 - 4 weeks before really panicking ( i know it sounds like a long time :S )
What is your site URL? Check your htaccess and robots.txt. Some of our customers had their code hacked and google dropped their rankings for a while. Also make sure that your competitors aren't using some sneaky technique to drop you. If your site is really an authority these are the first ideas that come to my mind. Usually old authority aren't dropped so easily.
Its funny you say that, i was actually suspecting that a freelancer that never compleated a job on the site had done something just before the serps went which is the reason i changed servers , databases and completely reinstalled the CMS in the first place. *Sorry for going a little off topic but was it only the htaccess and robots.txt that you found to be altered ? I only ask because my site is still stupid slugish and although i am on shared hosting i have much busier more server intensive sites on the same plans and they are much faster. Ive contacted my host but they say its down to being on shared hosting but i think that aload of bull.
Imo it would be a big problem if your site is a authority site for two years but was suddently dropped serp...
I guess I'm wondering a couple of things: Is it possible to check whether my site is penalized? It has been a week, should I wait longer before I contact google with a reconsideration request? My site truly dominated Google for years until one day last week. It dropped to page 4 through page 6 for every single term. The only term it still ranks #1 for is "mysite.com". The site is still indexed in Google, so its not a ban.
I'm sorry to tell you that you'll might have to check page by page. In a few cases it was only the htaccess, in another case it was the robots.txt but we have also seen a case where the hacker actually installed a forum and new content into the website. Go to your cpanel and check which are the pages last edited, it is the fastest way to see if someone changed something. The shared hosting is BS, it is always better to have your own server, but at the same time if the rest or your websites are doing fine than it has nothing to do with the server. If you just changed servers than make sure everything was installed properly and files aren't missing. As I said earlier, "authority websites" won't loose rankings easily, something weird had to happen.
seosapien, I will look at htaccess, but we are on a dedicated server with no other sites. I do think someone may have intentionally reported my site to Google under webmaster tools for duplicate content because of the duplicate titles/descriptions. Would that cause a penalty?
NOT AT ALL!!!! If you really are an "authority website" it will take much more than a couple of duplicated meta tags to drop your rankings.
I think something is happening in Google - could be just the result of some flux. You say your Google positions have changed, but MOST importantly - how has it affected your traffic?
It looks to me like you have the -30 penalty. Do some research on it for more details, but this is basically a manual penalty applied by Google because they believe you have done something black hat. Review their guidelines again and verify that you aren't doing anything then file a reconsideration request through your webmaster's tools account. You'll get a manual review again and if your site is clean Google should include you again.
How long should I wait until I begin to assume it's a -30 or -50 penalty and at what point should I file a reconsideration request. It's only been 8 days so far. My site did have a bunch of duplicate title/meta descriptions. Ive cleaned them up.
I don't think its a -30 penalty. Your getting the same thing I am. One keyword that is very competitive just moved up to #1 a few hours ago, beating the most authoritive site in the niche. The rest are still down though. But how could that be possible penalty when all the other keywords are down? Plus when i search my website name its still #1. Wouldn't a -30 penalty even mean your website name or url is penalized when you search it? Plus it happened to multiple of my sites. The OP only has one, but i have many it happened too today. I think google is doing a big update. I just notice they are putting sublinks and titles under the last few serp results on page 1 for some keyword phrase i always search. Thats new today.
you know man, I had a site drop on January 11th for no reason at all. Like you, it ranked well for a long time. My server crashed, I moved everything to a new server for a few days until things were back to normal. Moved everything back and boom......gone from serps. Same spots as you.....page 4 to 6, only thing ahead of those is mysite.com at #1. I can't say that I reacted quickly, because various webmaster 'forums' told me to wait a few days....I waited about a week before worrying...not a good idea....sooooo..I started doing my normal updates, filed a reinclusion request at the 2 month mark and still no budge. Get on it now before you sit around waiting.
Well, my domain name is 3 words, let's say my website is FreeWidgetsOnline.com It shows #1 for freewidgetsonline.com it has always shown #1 for freewidgetsonline until last monday, when everything dropped and now its on page 5 for freewidgetsonline it has always shown #1 for free widgets online, until now, it's on page 6 These seem to be outside the normal Google flux, right? None of my main terms are showing up first page, as they have been for years. domainer1- How long have your serp's been screwed? Did it happen all at once for you?
I also experience this problem in one of my sites. The funny thing is that I get this message from my Google Webmasters dashboard: "No pages from your site are currently included in Google's index. Indexing can take time. You may find it helpful to review our information for webmasters and webmaster guidelines." But when I search for "site: http://easemystress.blogspot.com", I still get results. Any idea why this is happening?
I've read before that moving IPs and servers can hurt your serps, I assume that's what happened to you. My server did crash for 12 hours back in February. But I doubt that's what would've caused this, a month afterwards?
I have no idea what caused it......but whatever happened with yours, sounds like the same filter I've got. As far as -30 or -50 goes anyways. Seriously, I'd be trying to contact google through WMT as best you can.