71 replies to this topic

[penstaar]

Hi all,

We have been struggling with our site for a while. I've been trying to bring up the rankings by adding more content to the home page and developing inbound links to the site.

I also removed a link that was a 1 x 1 pixel image, which linked to a visitor counter.

I tried using absolute CSS positioning to manipulate the position of important keywords on the page, but then rankings dropped and I got scared that Google would notice and penalize for that, so I removed it at least a week and a half ago.

Since then Google has been back to the site and rankings have improved, but then today rankings dropped to more than position 200. They also dropped in Yahoo.

I really can't see that anything on the current site should be causing a penalty.

I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas of what else I should look at.

I once read that someone was able to prove that the way the site was being hosted was the cause of the problem. I'm not sure how to investigate this further or what I need to know from the hosting company to verify this.

I've heard that shared hosting is bad for SEO, but aren't most small sites hosted on shared hosting plans?

Thanks for any help!

[Jill]

Penstaar if you're talking about Google and your site is fairly new, there's not much you can do but wait, as they have a sort of "age delay" in place.

[Scottie]

Shared hosting is not an issue, unless you share hosting with gambling or adult sites that have gotten banned for some reason.

Don't worry so much about moving things around and changing so much- give your site a chance. Check it in Yahoo and MSN- you won't see it in Google for up to a year.

[penstaar]

Penstaar if you're talking about Google and your site is fairly new, there's not much you can do but wait, as they have a sort of "age delay" in place.

Hi Jill,

The site is not new at all and has enjoyed excellent rankings in the past.

[penstaar]

Scottie,

Thanks for the reply. I should have been more clear about the site. It is not new and used to rank on the first page of Google and Yahoo for target search terms.

About 6 months ago rankings dropped and I have been trying to get them back up.

Any ideas?

[oneofthe3lions]

You would have to be doing something genuinely bad to get penalised mate. I wouldnt worry about it.. as you do seem to be worrying then it seems that you are safe enough. Rankings will fluctuate with google, see how many backlinks you have showing with them. dont expect any decent rankings with them on competetive terms until you have built up quite a list of 'good' backlinks.

[mytighe]

Hello, Everyone
I'm brand spankin new here and new to SEO so please bare with me. I opened my Yahoo Store a year ago October. With the help of Jill's newsletter and other resources I managed to rank fairly high on a few choice keywords. To track visitors to the store I opened an account with VisitorVille and had to install a tracking code on all the web pages I wanted to track. I recently removed the tracking code from my web pages because I had to cancel the account. About a week after I did that, I noticed that most of my site was not longer indexed in Google. I don't know if this problem exsisted before I removed the code so I'm not sure if that is what caused me to be dropped. What effect, if any, does a tracking code have on page rank? And, if not the removal of the code, what would cause me to be dropped from the Google Index?

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
mytighe

[MJOSE]

I am new to posting here and new to SEO. I have a website www.customphotojewelry.com which has been ranking within the top 10 for the past 8 months under a search for "photo jewelry". Yesterday, checking my rankings, I realized my site is no being longer listed anywhere. I have checked numerous search phrases where I was previously indexed and I am no longer listed. I don't think I have been banned as I am still indexed, but cannot find my site. I feel I may have been penalized for a poor link exchange choice which I recently added. This added link exchange site is now showing up in the top ten ranking where my site was previously indexed, has my site ranking been hijacked?
I have removed this link from my site and requested they remove my site information from their directory. What else can I do? Any ideas on what happened? Thanks for your help!

[Connie]

MJOSE,

Google seems to have gone through some major changes in the last few days which may or may not pertain to your situation. Good luck.

[torka]

Hi, Mytighe

How did you check to see whether you're indexed in Google? In other words -- are you saying that you were really dropped from the index (as in none of your pages are anywhere in Google's database anymore) or are you saying that your rankings dropped off the map (as in, your site's pages are still in the database but don't show up for your desired key phrases)?

How was the tracking code implemented? Depending on how it was done, removing it might or might not have a temporary effect.

How are your rankings for the same desired search terms in Yahoo and MSN?

--Torka

[penstaar]

Hi there,

The site I'm working on also seems to have dropped for specific keywords.

Torka, does this sound like a penalty?

Two days ago the site was listed within the top 100 for target keywords. Now the home page doesn't even seem to be listed in the top 1000 for those same keywords. But the links page is ranking around 600 for the same target keywords.

I know that there was just a huge update, but I guess since the change seems so extreme it seems like a penalty.

Thanks for any ideas!

[torka]

Generally, if a penalty is imposed, its for something fairly eggregious. In other words, if someone gets penalized, they've usually got a pretty good idea of why.

If you're sure there's been nothing done that might invoke a penalty, then it probably isn't one. The folks at Google have enough to keep themselves busy trying to stay one step ahead of the spammers without wasting their time going around slapping penalties on innocent websites for no good reason.

Which is not to say that it doesn't feel like a penalty when your site drops that far all at once.

Seriously, I wouldn't panic over a change that just happened yesterday. Give yourself an "idiot check" to make sure that there's nothing amiss with the site in terms of spiderability, nothing nefarious going on with anything potentially spammy, then relax for a few days.

(This is why I don't check my rankings on a daily basis -- too much heartburn! )

--Torka

[Jill]

Welcome mytighe!

There was a major algorithm shift a few days ago. That is what is causing the change in Google, it has nothing to do with your visitorville code as that's irrelevant to Google.

We have another thread here somewhere on google's changes, which you may want to read.

Jill

[mytighe]

Thanks, everyone for your input. Torka, to answer your questions, I would say out of the 400+ pages on the website only a dozen are indexed. When I right click on the main page and select "Cached Snapshot of Page" it says "Sorry, no content found for this URL". Also, when I type allinurl:www.onlinestorefortots.com in the search box only about a dozen pages appear. I tried typing the entire web address in the search box and nothing. The HTML tracking code was added to the pages using an FTP wizard provided by VisitorVille. It was removed the same way. It's been about 2 weeks since I removed the code.
I hope this helps.

Thanks for your help.
Marilyn

Edited by mytighe, 08 February 2005 - 04:28 PM.

[Connie]

Do you link to anybody. I have seen evidence recently that Google may be cracking down on sites linking to bad neighborhoods. Also have you tried site:www.domain.com rather than the allinurl?