Most regular posters will have noted our struggle to try and regain some foothold in Google for several keywords we use to rank top ten for. It was with much pleasure and joy that we noted on Saturday the 1st of September that after 4 months of 'doghouse' nearly everything had returned to 'normal'.
3 days later, as of about 12 hours ago, we're back in the doghouse.
Logically speaking it is not possible that a page/site is super relevant to searchers one day and not even worth mentioning in the first 100 pages the next, so what the heck is this? I don't wish to tell Google their business, but isn't it to rank what is most relevant the highest and nothing else? That IS the ESSENCE of everything isn't it?!
I know there's been a lot of talk about a 950 penalty etc, and I don't want to add fuel to the flames, but can someone smart please tell Google that they need to let webmasters know what is going on when this happens?! PLEASE?
It should come as no surprise that this is extremely frustrating and nerve racking, let alone seemingly inexplicable. I have read other accounts of this happening and then coming back again and then dropping again etc. etc. Is that how I am going to have to live my life from now on; wondering what that day is going to bring me from Google?
Google, if you are reading, I feel you owe webmasters at least a tiny bit of an answer here. After all we do need to have some kind of sense of reliability from the big G.
I guess your "Get out of the shithouse free" card expired. :-(
It would seem the only thing left to try is the nofollow, or had you done that already?
Another possibility, assuming the drop back down again had anything thing to do with changes, primarily possible additions, you could look to see what blogs were added or added to and when the changes were crawled but still, you'd be looking for a needle that may not even exist in a big hay stack. :-(
> Most regular posters will have noted our struggle to try and regain > some foothold in Google for several keywords we use to rank top ten > for. It was with much pleasure and joy that we noted on Saturday the > 1st of September that after 4 months of 'doghouse' nearly everything > had returned to 'normal'.
> 3 days later, as of about 12 hours ago, we're back in the doghouse.
> Logically speaking it is not possible that a page/site is super > relevant to searchers one day and not even worth mentioning in the > first 100 pages the next, so what the heck is this? I don't wish to > tell Google their business, but isn't it to rank what is most relevant > the highest and nothing else? That IS the ESSENCE of everything isn't > it?!
> I know there's been a lot of talk about a 950 penalty etc, and I don't > want to add fuel to the flames, but can someone smart please tell > Google that they need to let webmasters know what is going on when > this happens?! PLEASE?
> It should come as no surprise that this is extremely frustrating and > nerve racking, let alone seemingly inexplicable. I have read other > accounts of this happening and then coming back again and then > dropping again etc. etc. Is that how I am going to have to live my > life from now on; wondering what that day is going to bring me from > Google?
> Google, if you are reading, I feel you owe webmasters at least a tiny > bit of an answer here. After all we do need to have some kind of sense > of reliability from the big G.
Never mind, I just read your update in a different thread.
Sorry. It does blow.
What blows harder is that we seem unable to determine the cause, either for it being down as it has been or even why it popped back up for a brief period of time.
One possibility, although possibly slight, maybe there was an algo tweak that sent your site to the shithouse in the first place, then another tweak that ended up bringing it back to where it was but that tweak maybe caused something else to break and so either that tweak was removed or another tweak added, who knows.
Maybe it will pop back up again in the near future. Any positive change at all, no matter how short lived, suggests something is happening, hopefully something positive that is a bit more long lasting is soon in the coming. That could all be wishful thinking but again, who knows, I sure don't. :-(
> I guess your "Get out of the shithouse free" card expired. :-(
> It would seem the only thing left to try is the nofollow, or had you > done that already?
> Another possibility, assuming the drop back down again had anything > thing to do with changes, primarily possible additions, you could look > to see what blogs were added or added to and when the changes were > crawled but still, you'd be looking for a needle that may not even > exist in a big hay stack. :-(
> Craig
> On Sep 4, 6:56 pm, Sam I Am wrote:
> > Most regular posters will have noted our struggle to try and regain > > some foothold in Google for several keywords we use to rank top ten > > for. It was with much pleasure and joy that we noted on Saturday the > > 1st of September that after 4 months of 'doghouse' nearly everything > > had returned to 'normal'.
> > 3 days later, as of about 12 hours ago, we're back in the doghouse.
> > Logically speaking it is not possible that a page/site is super > > relevant to searchers one day and not even worth mentioning in the > > first 100 pages the next, so what the heck is this? I don't wish to > > tell Google their business, but isn't it to rank what is most relevant > > the highest and nothing else? That IS the ESSENCE of everything isn't > > it?!
> > I know there's been a lot of talk about a 950 penalty etc, and I don't > > want to add fuel to the flames, but can someone smart please tell > > Google that they need to let webmasters know what is going on when > > this happens?! PLEASE?
> > It should come as no surprise that this is extremely frustrating and > > nerve racking, let alone seemingly inexplicable. I have read other > > accounts of this happening and then coming back again and then > > dropping again etc. etc. Is that how I am going to have to live my > > life from now on; wondering what that day is going to bring me from > > Google?
> > Google, if you are reading, I feel you owe webmasters at least a tiny > > bit of an answer here. After all we do need to have some kind of sense > > of reliability from the big G.
It would be nice if there was some note in Webmaster Tools as to what causes the penalty! I got my 136 404s down to 18 today, using meta robots, so that's good. I'm hoping it was just the renaming of photos to descriptive file names that is temporarily upsetting the spider. Still, in the meantime I realized I had display: none; on a two items in my css, not to be tricky at all, really just the home text link in menu was hidden and I don't currently need it to show because the site logo is clickable, but I changed it back to visible for sure. Now that I think about it, I did fall about 3 places on page 1 a couple of years ago when I used logo image replacement (-9000px). Luckily, I don't use that any more. Funny, that back in 2003 when I had a much smaller website with no accessibility features to speak of (which I do have now), I ranked the best on page 1 that I ever have ranked.
I'm clinging to hope because my fan site title text is now appearing in search and it wasn't a week ago (only the exact url appeared), but keywords are not back and PR has fallen to 0. God, this is like slowly recovering from surgery, if I'm recovering. I'm just trying to get into the philosophy that I constantly make improvements on my website, and that having a good website is not based on studying Google night and day.
> Any positive > change at all, no matter how short lived, suggests something is > happening, hopefully something positive that is a bit more long > lasting is soon in the coming. That could all be wishful thinking but > again, who knows, I sure don't. :-(
Thanks Craig! To be quite honest, I think I can guarantee you right now that no SEO in the world can figure this out and I'd go as far as to say that NO GOOGLER in the world would be able to explain it either. That's scary (and I have VERY VERY strong email communication to back this up from Google employees!). I think we'll soon see the first litigation case brought against google for penalizing sites that comply with their terms; and rightfully so. We deserve at least a little stableness from one of the top brands in the world.
I just hope G gets its act together and fixes its ranking. When even the employees look into it and can't figure it out, it says a lot. And it should NOT be webmasters paying the price for their inadequacy. I was talking to a 'regular user' today and he asked how it was possible that a relevant result dropped to the last page overnight. I told him to contact Google, if he could figure out how to...
Google, 3 years ago you guys were cool. Now you remind me of Microsoft, except for that rather cool flight simulator of course.... :)
> Never mind, I just read your update in a different thread.
> Sorry. It does blow.
> What blows harder is that we seem unable to determine the cause, > either for it being down as it has been or even why it popped back up > for a brief period of time.
> One possibility, although possibly slight, maybe there was an algo > tweak that sent your site to the shithouse in the first place, then > another tweak that ended up bringing it back to where it was but that > tweak maybe caused something else to break and so either that tweak > was removed or another tweak added, who knows.
> Maybe it will pop back up again in the near future. Any positive > change at all, no matter how short lived, suggests something is > happening, hopefully something positive that is a bit more long > lasting is soon in the coming. That could all be wishful thinking but > again, who knows, I sure don't. :-(
> Craig
> On Sep 4, 8:57 pm, cass-hacks wrote:
> > I guess your "Get out of the shithouse free" card expired. :-(
> > It would seem the only thing left to try is the nofollow, or had you > > done that already?
> > Another possibility, assuming the drop back down again had anything > > thing to do with changes, primarily possible additions, you could look > > to see what blogs were added or added to and when the changes were > > crawled but still, you'd be looking for a needle that may not even > > exist in a big hay stack. :-(
> > Craig
> > On Sep 4, 6:56 pm, Sam I Am wrote:
> > > Most regular posters will have noted our struggle to try and regain > > > some foothold in Google for several keywords we use to rank top ten > > > for. It was with much pleasure and joy that we noted on Saturday the > > > 1st of September that after 4 months of 'doghouse' nearly everything > > > had returned to 'normal'.
> > > 3 days later, as of about 12 hours ago, we're back in the doghouse.
> > > Logically speaking it is not possible that a page/site is super > > > relevant to searchers one day and not even worth mentioning in the > > > first 100 pages the next, so what the heck is this? I don't wish to > > > tell Google their business, but isn't it to rank what is most relevant > > > the highest and nothing else? That IS the ESSENCE of everything isn't > > > it?!
> > > I know there's been a lot of talk about a 950 penalty etc, and I don't > > > want to add fuel to the flames, but can someone smart please tell > > > Google that they need to let webmasters know what is going on when > > > this happens?! PLEASE?
> > > It should come as no surprise that this is extremely frustrating and > > > nerve racking, let alone seemingly inexplicable. I have read other > > > accounts of this happening and then coming back again and then > > > dropping again etc. etc. Is that how I am going to have to live my > > > life from now on; wondering what that day is going to bring me from > > > Google?
> > > Google, if you are reading, I feel you owe webmasters at least a tiny > > > bit of an answer here. After all we do need to have some kind of sense > > > of reliability from the big G.
> to back this up from Google employees!). I think we'll soon see the > first litigation case brought against google for penalizing sites that > comply with their terms; and rightfully so. We deserve at least a > little stableness from one of the top brands in the world.
Howdy Sam,
Any court case will probably fail since Google can show in court that their scripting is doing things right. It will succeed only if they can substantiate that Google is intentionally and "maliciously" running too many processes (simultaneous scripts) on their servers.
Very few programmers, Webmasters, and System Admins are aware of the data corruption that occurs when too many CGI scripts run simultaneously. This used to be a major problem on Windows NT. It got better with Windows 2000 and pretty much resolved with Windows 2003 Server. However, you have to know how to properly set up the memory isolation. It has never been fixed with the cheap versions of Linux, which Google runs.
I'm quite sure the folks trying to keep the data bases unsnarled for Google are aware of the erratic errors. However, apparently, no money is being allocated to correct the cause of their headaches and the criminal level of damage done to web sites by the Googlebot.
You are quite welcome to have any attorney dealing with Google's unethical practices contact me at (505) 586-1225.
Thanks Chris. I was extremely pissed (more ways than one :) ) when writing that last post so it's somewhat rawer than I normally would have put it, but I still find it highly annoying that results can yo yo like this. And when a Google employee that is well known actually looks into it for a particular site and then responds indicating that they can't really figure it out themselves, it just goes to show how they do not really have control over what is happening and why decent sites get caught up in some penalty or filter sometimes. That blows, also for Google. Someone there needs to seriously look at the sites that are being affected and figure out what they've done that might have caused this.
Anyway, as of about an hour ago we seem to be back (no further changes made). Not holding my breath though... Expecting another drop to the last page any minute again. Yes, real stable. Real good for my heart.
> > to back this up from Google employees!). I think we'll soon see the > > first litigation case brought against google for penalizing sites that > > comply with their terms; and rightfully so. We deserve at least a > > little stableness from one of the top brands in the world.
> Howdy Sam,
> Any court case will probably fail since Google can show in court that > their scripting is doing things right. It will succeed only if they > can substantiate that Google is intentionally and "maliciously" > running too many processes (simultaneous scripts) on their servers.
> Very few programmers, Webmasters, and System Admins are aware of the > data corruption that occurs when too many CGI scripts run > simultaneously. This used to be a major problem on Windows NT. It > got better with Windows 2000 and pretty much resolved with Windows > 2003 Server. However, you have to know how to properly set up the > memory isolation. It has never been fixed with the cheap versions of > Linux, which Google runs.
> I'm quite sure the folks trying to keep the data bases unsnarled for > Google are aware of the erratic errors. However, apparently, no money > is being allocated to correct the cause of their headaches and the > criminal level of damage done to web sites by the Googlebot.
> You are quite welcome to have any attorney dealing with Google's > unethical practices contact me at (505) 586-1225.
And gone again. This time we were back in for a couple of days longer than last time though, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that in the next few days we'll be back in again and for yet longer again.
Clearly something is broken at Google, because we are NOT changing anything here. It's just their algo deciding one day that maybe we should be penalized and then the next deciding not, and then deciding so again, and then not etc. etc. Basically this leads me to believe that NONE of the changes we made contributed to either the recovery or the fall. Google's silence regarding this kind of penalty is speaking volumes.
One simple question: how can a site that complies with their terms be penalized?
> Thanks Chris. I was extremely pissed (more ways than one :) ) when > writing that last post so it's somewhat rawer than I normally would > have put it, but I still find it highly annoying that results can yo > yo like this. And when a Google employee that is well known actually > looks into it for a particular site and then responds indicating that > they can't really figure it out themselves, it just goes to show how > they do not really have control over what is happening and why decent > sites get caught up in some penalty or filter sometimes. That blows, > also for Google. Someone there needs to seriously look at the sites > that are being affected and figure out what they've done that might > have caused this.
> Anyway, as of about an hour ago we seem to be back (no further changes > made). Not holding my breath though... Expecting another drop to the > last page any minute again. Yes, real stable. Real good for my heart.
> On Sep 5, 7:19 pm, Chris Gunn wrote:
> > On Sep 4, 8:43 pm, Sam I Am wrote:
> > > to back this up from Google employees!). I think we'll soon see the > > > first litigation case brought against google for penalizing sites that > > > comply with their terms; and rightfully so. We deserve at least a > > > little stableness from one of the top brands in the world.
> > Howdy Sam,
> > Any court case will probably fail since Google can show in court that > > their scripting is doing things right. It will succeed only if they > > can substantiate that Google is intentionally and "maliciously" > > running too many processes (simultaneous scripts) on their servers.
> > Very few programmers, Webmasters, and System Admins are aware of the > > data corruption that occurs when too many CGI scripts run > > simultaneously. This used to be a major problem on Windows NT. It > > got better with Windows 2000 and pretty much resolved with Windows > > 2003 Server. However, you have to know how to properly set up the > > memory isolation. It has never been fixed with the cheap versions of > > Linux, which Google runs.
> > I'm quite sure the folks trying to keep the data bases unsnarled for > > Google are aware of the erratic errors. However, apparently, no money > > is being allocated to correct the cause of their headaches and the > > criminal level of damage done to web sites by the Googlebot.
> > You are quite welcome to have any attorney dealing with Google's > > unethical practices contact me at (505) 586-1225.
I am having a similar problem with one of my sites. For example, on any given day, the site will be ranked #4 for one of our terms. The next day it will drop to the 3rd page (depending on the search term, the amount of pages back the site falls in the rankings seems to vary). Then, the next day, it will be on page 1 again.
Sam I Am, if you figure something out, any insight on the matter would be great. If anyone wants to research this, please contact me and I will provide the site and keywords.
> And gone again. This time we were back in for a couple of days longer > than last time though, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that in the > next few days we'll be back in again and for yet longer again.
> Clearly something is broken at Google, because we are NOT changing > anything here. It's just their algo deciding one day that maybe we > should be penalized and then the next deciding not, and then deciding > so again, and then not etc. etc. Basically this leads me to believe > that NONE of the changes we made contributed to either the recovery or > the fall. Google's silence regarding this kind of penalty is speaking > volumes.
> One simple question: how can a site that complies with their terms be > penalized?
> On Sep 6, 11:37 am, Sam I Am wrote:
> > Thanks Chris. I was extremely pissed (more ways than one :) ) when > > writing that last post so it's somewhat rawer than I normally would > > have put it, but I still find it highly annoying that results can yo > > yo like this. And when a Google employee that is well known actually > > looks into it for a particular site and then responds indicating that > > they can't really figure it out themselves, it just goes to show how > > they do not really have control over what is happening and why decent > > sites get caught up in some penalty or filter sometimes. That blows, > > also for Google. Someone there needs to seriously look at the sites > > that are being affected and figure out what they've done that might > > have caused this.
> > Anyway, as of about an hour ago we seem to be back (no further changes > > made). Not holding my breath though... Expecting another drop to the > > last page any minute again. Yes, real stable. Real good for my heart.
