It was my understanding that Google penalized some of the blogs that were taking paid links and paid posts because they wanted to provide the “most accurate” search engine results. Passing off page rank and getting paid for links that were unrelated to your blog was seen as a no-no and against Google’s terms. OK, so they want to provide accurate results…there is nothing wrong with that.
Have they done a good job for the last two months then? I don’t think so. Here is a graph from my Google analytics showing the Google search engine hits my blog has been getting. Now remember, my blog is well over six months old now so it is not a website that should bounce around that much in the search engine rankings.
As you can see, in late January for one day my blog dropped off the map and I was listed no where for any search terms (except “DayJobNuker”). Then, mysteriously back I went to more normal levels as I was listed again. That lasted for a little over a week and then suddenly I was gone for two days. During those two days, DayJobNuker was again nowhere to be found anywhere on Google. Then, just like the previous time, back I came although this time I lost 10-20 spots on several search terms.
What the ____ is Google doing? Are they drunk? I know I haven’t done a thing as I have hardly been posting. How can my site just disappear for days at a time and then suddenly reappear? I ask one question: is this really providing the “most accurate” search engine results to have sites coming and then going like this? Why is my site valid one day for a search term and not the next?
I know this has been happening to a lot of other blogs as well. Here is a link to a Digital Point forum thread that talks about sites being de-indexted and/or losing their SERPS. It seems this has been going on since December. I am really disappointed with Google as they are so important to anyone who wants to make money on the Internet. I want to be listed on Google, I need to be listed on Google, and anyone who tells you that you don’t need Google is a flat out liar. But it seems that Google is a bit drunk right now and can’t decide what it wants.
UPDATE: Now DayJobNuker is no where to be found in the SERPS again 12 hours after posting this.
I have been suffering from this too. A lot of my sites are just dropping of the face of the earth and then within a week they are back up and running. It is crazy.
I honestly believe they’ve over-tweaked the algorithm. There are now things that happen that are OBVIOUSLY glitches in the system that never were there before.
I’ve seen a similar pattern on many of my sites. Most of my sites however are less then 2 months old. Some days I’m getting over 100 uniques from google, while other days I am getting like 5 uniques. Also my listings in the SERPS is all over the place from day to day.
Google sometimes drops some of the pages from their index and then re-indexes them again.
It’s normal and it’s happening all the time. It’s out of your control so I wouldn’t worry about that.
Just write content and get trust-worthy links and you’ll be fine.
“just write content and get trust-worthy links and you’ll be fine” – Well that’s a very old phrase and in hour days means nothing. I’ve seen site totally original content with links from high authority sites, go to nowhere in google serps. I’ve seen sites like that get de-indexed without no reason. Google it’s something we can’t understand well, specially in the last year/months. The best way is allways to have many links from other sites, that way you allways will have some traffic from that links, even if google quicks you withou reason
Google has been on the strange a little bit lately, but I tell you what they are gobbling up all the info they can. they are always changing their algo’s but like the post above just rely on their link guidelines and whitehat seo and everything will be fine.
It is really hard to figure out what’s going on with Google in the past few weeks. We will just continue to suffer on their algorithm. But if you are just doing the right thing, then there is no way of getting worried.
Car Parts & Daily Tech,
You have a lot more faith in Google than I do.
I’ve noticed some serious issues on the SERPS with some of my sites.
I do everything by the book, and don’t employ any blackhat methods.
Seems Google is more than drunk…
One of my sites is coming up on 5 years old now. It has high rankings for just about every keyword phrase I want it to.
However, for probably the first three years or so it bounced up and down just like yours is. It used to drive me crazy but I finally just got used to it and it didn’t bother me anymore. It has finally settled in and doesn’t bounce much anymore.
Basically what I am trying to say is that this might happen to you for a long time. Hopefully it doesn’t but don’t be surprised if it does.
This sucks, i had the exact same thing happen to two of my websites today. Hope this is just a temp. thing
Same thing here, frustrating but what can you do?
google may be drunk but you usually find it will “sober” up later on. once it has finished with its updating(guessing thats whats doing this). few years back one of my clients sites would disappear from the front page every second day. anyway it will work its self out … eventually
Dude, I feel your google-pain. My graph looks similar. I don’t understand how I can be in one place one day and then nowhere to be found on another day. I am interested to read more about what is going on and if it is only a temporary thing
I’ve seen this happening a lot lately, I’m not sure if it has to do with Google penalizing sites or just algorithm changes.
Don’t think that you are the only one. The SERPS are going through some sort of change. If you check webmasterworld’s forum, you will see that many are experiencing wild fluctuations too. As far as I know, Google’s penalty does work like this. You could be experiencing the (so-called) -950 penalty.
When I dropped out of the serps a year ago, I found out a lot of info from Webmaster Tools. In short, my host’s server was inadvertently blocking Googlebot and I didn’t notice it until I fell out of the SERPS. What a shocker that was!
It’s all such a game, isn’t it? And why does it seem like Google always holds the winning hand?
I don’t know why but many time I have found that google shows some weird thing go on but at the end nothing is wrong. Google shows the perfect result.. Don’t know how it happen.
This started to happend to many of my sites this week. Before this i havent noticed much, very strange. Does this still happend to others or are you guys through it?
/G