All of my pages have been indexed on Google---pages 1 & 2 depending on the search phrase. I didn't check my pages this pages this weekend---well only my home page is left! The are giving me all the search phrases, but just sending them to my home page. What is up? The same thing happened to a client of mine.
Google has rolled back its index. They are using old data. That's why you are seeing what you are seeing. There is nothing you can do about it but wait it out.
I answered this question for someone a couple of day's ago ~ so please forgive this repeat post folks... it under scores what (stymiee) posted above. Google does the Walmart roll back noow and again to test for speed and accuracy of it's new Algos... I touched on this subject in my blog, Gorilla Marketing sometime back in September 2005, when the Google Jagger update hit. In short, I explained that Google maintains multiple datacenters all over the world. When Google wants to test just how fast and efficient a new algorithm will re-index the World Wide Web they simply roll-back a datacenter and install the new algo. They will test for ‘speed’ and ‘accuracy’. I was recently reading a press excerpt form Matt Cutt’s Blog, (The Google Guy), which confirmed my findings. Here is a portion of the briefing; ‘Alan Eustace is up. He’s our Senior VP of Engineering, so he doesn’t have to wear a suit. Cool, Alan’s going to walk through the life of a query! He runs through the need to crawl, index, and then score relevant results. “Speed matters.†With 8 billion pages, it would take 253 years (I think I got that right) to fetch pages if you fetch one page per second. “It’s important that we gently crawl the web at very high speeds.†Alan talks about duplicate pages, which can vary from 30-50% of pages with a naive approach. Alan notes that you have to avoid infinite loops such as calendars. Freshness matters. Size matters, especially with long-tail queries.’ So there you have it. Speed matters to Google, and lots of it.
IMHO you have to signup at https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ add your site, verify it and wait for the crawl stats to come through (may take some time). This will give some insight as to Google's view of your site. Glitches do happen, and they can hurt, but they are usually temporary. You should also run Xenu through your site after major changes and check all the links are good.
Thanks everyone. Does anyone know how long this could take? My client lost over 20 pages 2 weeks ago and none have come back since. I am just bumming! Stymiee, love your pic.
Depending on why they've been dropped it may be days, it may be months. You're sure it's not for "bad behaviour"? Use the downtime to do some link building so there's plenty of spider food.
They'll love it...but it won't get the pages back or help their rankings. With the rollback there isn't anything you can do really. Even a Google sitemap won't solve the problem as it seems they are using old data so new data (i.e. your new pages and my new pages) won't be displayed even though they are crawled regularly. This has been going on for a while now and it's very frustrating. But it does seems as though Google is still crawling actively so adding fresh content and seeking new links is still strongly encouraged. (And I'm glad you like my pic )
The fact that ou are not on the datacenter your queries hit does not mean you are out of ALL datacenters. Other people may still be able to find your inner pages while hitting other datacenters.
If you mean Google proprietary PageRank, well, it is not updated publicly very often (every three months or so) so you can't be sure your PR hasn't changed (although I would suspect it hasn't).
I am the least patient person on earth...this is really upsetting me. I have spent a lot of time and money trying to make things "just right" so Google would be happy!
You can't afford to get upset. Over time you'll see this happen over and over. Often you bounce back better and stronger. Are you sure you're up to the ride?
this may be useful too, Matt Cutts is a Google Staffer http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/indexing-timeline/
Reply from Google "Hi Melissa, Thank you for your reply. We understand your concern; however, these changes are consistent with the normal fluctuations outlined in our previous email. As we add new pages and incorporate updates to existing pages, you may see changes in the ranking and inclusion of sites in our index. Because our index changes regularly, it's possible your site will regain its ranking. In the meantime, we hope that you will review the helpful tips posted on our site. We're sorry we can't be of further assistance in this matter. Regards, The Google Team" previous email----- Thank you for your note. This is an automated reply to your inquiry about your site's inclusion in the Google search results. We're always working hard to provide comprehensive online assistance, and you'll likely find an answer to your question at the following links: http://google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=20921 http://google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=19760 If you have additional questions, we recommend reviewing the Google Help Center at http://www.google.com/support for our most up-to-date information. You might also try our online discussion forum at http://groups.google.com/groups?q=google.public.support.general Finally, if you've exhausted our online help content, and you're still having trouble finding an answer to your question, please feel free to reply to this email. It's important to keep in mind that we'll only be able to respond to your note if we can provide additional information that's not currently available on our Help Center. Thanks again for taking the time to write. Regards, The Google Team