Used to be Top 10 - Now nothing?

Discussion in 'SEO' started by whatsthedeal, Jun 18, 2007.

  1. #1
    Hello,

    About a week ago I noticed that our website results for a certain keyword completely disappeared when searching on Google. For months we have been Top 10 under this keyword and we have done nothing to make Google remove us. The site is 100% clean and plays by the rules. Any thoughts on how this would happen for multiple pages on our site?
     
    whatsthedeal, Jun 18, 2007 IP
  2. evan081

    evan081 Guest

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    #2
    Don't be too worried, if you didn't do any blackhat SEO, you should be fine. This happens from time to time as google update their results. Give it a few days.

    Also, try searching for your domain name to see if you get listed, if you are not even listed when searching based on domain search, then it may be problems
     
    evan081, Jun 18, 2007 IP
  3. trichnosis

    trichnosis Prominent Member

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    #3
    if you did not applied any black seo and did not loose any backlinks, you have tou wait. it will come back but you must wait
     
    trichnosis, Jun 18, 2007 IP
  4. whatsthedeal

    whatsthedeal Active Member

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    #4
    Yea the domain still comes up when searching...jus tnot the keyword pages mentioned above. Thanks guys, I guess we'll wat it out.
     
    whatsthedeal, Jun 18, 2007 IP
  5. evenfall

    evenfall Well-Known Member

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    #5
    One of my sites had steadily moved up for my main keyphrase. Got to something like #9 then dropped off entirely one day.

    Then it suddenly came back at #4 maybe a week later. Then moved up to 3. And dropped off entirely again a few days ago.

    Maybe our sites will come back at #1 ;)
     
    evenfall, Jun 18, 2007 IP
  6. whatsthedeal

    whatsthedeal Active Member

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    #6
    Yea, that would be pretty darn cool. :D
     
    whatsthedeal, Jun 18, 2007 IP
  7. liamvictor

    liamvictor Peon

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    #7
    It could just be a tweak, often results sets change completely for a wee while whilst the engineers play with the data. Normally, after a period the results revert to a less harsh tweak.

    It's impossible to say what those periods are. I had a page constantly at top ten in 60 M results for some years then drop three or four pages for a week, then pop straight back to #3. I have another page that (usually) ranks #11 in 237 M results that will pop in & out of top five and then drops a page or two before settling back at #11.

    Have your competitors sites dropped too? If not, and assuming you are still in the index, then your competitors may simply be doing "some seo".

    1. check for penalties (such as your results are at -30). Solution: try an work out what the problem is (if nothing else bad perhaps some bad links in/out), solve it and contact Google.

    Is this a competitive field? I don't mean there are a 100 M results, I mean is there serious money being made here? If so, perhaps someone is playing dirty, and has reported you for selling links / buying links, or created links to you from a bad neighborhood. Has your rankings changed in Yahoo/MSN ?

    2. check the link count for the sites that are now replacing you in the SERPS, how does that compare to you?

    3. Check those sites for common inbound links that you are missing - can you get a link there too. It could be that the linking site has got a boost from it's links elsewhere and its outbound links have received their boosts in turn - solution get a link from same place.

    4. Check competitors for common stylistic areas - word count, keyword density, title formatting (and keywords in), headings, meta keywords, meta description. - If you see some consistency in competitors sites, you may need to match your content stylistically.

    You want to start making moves to protect your site's serps, but don't be too much of a hurry if your previous competitors have all been affected then it's a tweak and you may want to wait another week before changing your pages.
     
    liamvictor, Jun 18, 2007 IP
  8. evenfall

    evenfall Well-Known Member

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    #8
    FYI: Just came back at the bottom of pg 1. Not too concerned about it.
     
    evenfall, Jun 19, 2007 IP