Why has my site disappeared from Google?

It appears you've become a victim of duplicate content. Your web designer has duplicated your website and Google has favoured their version of your site over yours.

Google will always try to eliminate copies as it has enough on its plate anyway.

If you search for carpet cleaning hampshire you'll find your site listed at position 4 on page 1.

• www.uk-carpets-upholstery-cleaning.quickonthenet.com

This is a very good result had it returned your domain.

My initial task would be to ask them to add a 301 redirect (permanent) from the root of their subdomain to your website.

Once G and Y! have picked this up you should start to see a return in results.

As a rule, if a web designer has a clients website on their own site (very common) it should at least be password protected to steer the robots away and protect the content until launch.

Hi Steve,

I'll be needing to see you again very soon and will be in touch. I did have a look at the site and there has been some changes since the recent Google update that have affected domain duplications.

I have noticed that your site is mapped on the following domains:

• www.vacuumbags2u.co.uk
• vacuumbags2u.co.uk.vudesign.net

Both of the above are showing the same content.

The first task is to get the site correctly mapped to a single domain, preferably www.vacuumbags2u.co.uk, so Google doesn't start to eliminate certain areas of your site. This normally isn't a problem if the mapping is done correctly but it's better to be safer than sorry with search engines.

I just had a look and the last Google cache was on the 18^th of May [seen here].

It may not always show the cache link on listings and there's no rhyme or reason why they do that. It could be down to the fact they have recently re-indexed and you have made many changes to previously still pages. I'll investigate further prior to our meeting.

With regards to rank and inbound links, you have 15 internal links listed. What you need are those all important external links pointing to your website. I'll start off by adding your site to my promotional section. I'll forward it to the www.vacuumbags2u.co.uk domain as it's the most likely single domain to map.

As soon as Google re-indexes the links to you, even those in this article, I'll measure the changes in terms of the keyphrases you're aiming for.

Hi Chelsea,

My first concern when I checked your website and it's rank was that your category listings were getting preference over your product pages when searching for a product. This indicates that the product pages, despite having more keywords relating to the searching terms, are not gaining rank from the top level pages that point to them.

If I were to create 3 tasks to start me off I would:

• Add more keyphrase descriptive content to the product pages and start to employ a more useful document structure. What this means is where you have "Runkle Geography" as a main heading, actually use the correct markup for a heading which is <H1>. This lends more importance and creates a focus for the page. While we talk of focus, make sure the <TITLE> tag also repeats the main header for each product page.
• I know you use dynamic pages to build the categories and products but investigate using a different addressing system, easy on a Linux hosting server using mod_rewrite. What this means is instead of .com/seriesresults2.cfm?strSeriesCode=Runkle you would have .com/seriesresults2.cfm/strSeriesCode/Runkle/ as search engines see this as a static page instead of a dynamic one and are more inclined to deep crawl the site. This isn't always true of heavily linked sites though but some of your addresses have spaces and other tag info included which won't help.
• Instead of getting links to your homepage, try to get more links directly pointing to your level2index.cfm page instead. This will mean that a search engine will crawl deeper into the site. Again, the above addressing solution will help no end.

Ultimately though, the fact that "runkle geography homeschool" puts you on the bottom of page 1 and "runkle geography" puts you in the middle of page 2 suggests that the recent Google update has let the competition squeeze you out rather than penalise you for something wrong with your website.

Let me know how you get on.

First of all, what a cracking site you have there Gavin. Really good to look at and informative, in fact, the sort of site that should be at the top of Google.

You're right about the keywords on the page, document structure and PageRank, they are all good and will provide a solid base but I have identified the main weakness your site has and why it's likely to have suffered during the previous update.

It's happened to a few people I know and every time the results were the same, the anchor text of the inbound links. I can understand why your site is at the bottom of the first page for "artgraphica" as you have very little in the way of keyphrases for that word but "free art lessons" should give good results, apart from the fact that few, if any at all, of the links that point to your website actually say "free art lessons".

A previous client of mine has a website selling art on behalf of local artists and was particularly aiming for the phrase "buy art online". Good PageRank, good content, medium results. We started by focussing the phrases a little and working on inbound links with the correct (descriptive) anchor text with excellent results considering the level of competition.

www.hastingsarts.net

• Google.co.uk: Pages from the UK: Page 1
• Google.co.uk: Pages from the web: Page 1
• Google.com: Page 2

There is huge importance on anchor text as it's a means of identifying what a website represents and it's something that a website owner has little control over, which in theory gives it it's relevance. If you sell "shoes" and everyone links to your site saying "boots" then a search engine has to query your sites content and adjust the results accordingly. In a binary world, anchor text of inbound links offers a human touch so it's a very important criteria of their algorithms.

RULE: Inbound links should be natural in their variation of keyphrase as well as descriptive of the resource they point to.

I'll start by adding your website to my promotion section using "free art lessons" and then monitor the index.

It's typical that an example site goes down when I refer to it.

Since you mentioned that less than a week ago you had good SERPS, I've spent quite some time looking into this and have even contacted Google because for the phrases you were consistent for, I still didn't find you, even on page 50.

Check out the following results:

• Google
• Yahoo
• MSN

There can only be a few explanations for this.

1. Your server was down or giving incorrect HTTP messages to Googlebot but this is highly unlikely despite your site being hosted on IIS. I'm sure Google knows when a server is down and must come across it every 10 seconds when indexing on a global scale. Recent cache dispels this anyway.
2. You have tags or robot/.htaccess information steering Google away. Again highly unlikely.
3. Google has dropped your site from listings as a glitch within it's algorithm which is something they had suggested in their response. Answer is to wait for Google to sort itself out which it often does.

In light of looking into it, all you can do is wait a while and see when you get picked up again. My site gets hit by Google nearly every two weeks so will find the links to your site shortly.

Here's some homework.

Task: Check logs daily (if time permits) for Googlebot and see what it crawls.

Task: Check Google referrals and the keywords used to hit you, if any.

I always like to hear peoples experiences of search engines, especially when things inexplicably go horribly wrong, as these are the most intruiging. They also serve as the best source of identifying their weaknesses.

I'll be keeping an eye out but I wouldn't be too concerned. You've great content, inbound links are counted, you're not pointing to any blacklisted sites and your host certainly isn't blacklisted. There's nothing a competitor can do to affect your ranking and Google certainly isn't picking on you, although it can feel like that.

Give it two weeks, I'll see if there are any reflections in the index and let you know.

Hi Michelle,

Google has definitely indexed your domain but no content whatsoever.

Seen here:

• site:http://www.qualityniknaks.com

As always, links rule, and you have none. I can start off by linking to your site with the keyphrase you're aiming for:

• Quality Nik Naks

This particular article is ranked in Google and is crawled frequently so this should be your first inbound link. The downside of this link is that the copy of this page isn't relevant to the products and services you supply so there will be less potential value than a relevant link.

What happened to you happened to me when my site started out. They find your website, read the content but don't dig too deep. Then they put you on probation and start to see if anyone is pointing to you. If not, then you start to sink in the results.

The first thing I would do is submit to Dmoz.org straight away in the appropriate category. This will also generate inbound links from the likes of Google Directory, Alta Vista and Excite as well as feed many of the major search engines.

Once Google has found those other links pointing to you it will start to reflect this in your rank position.

The good news is that the phrase "quality nik naks" has little in the way of online competition. You also have plenty of pages to your site and the products have plenty of descriptive text about them.

Get to work on those links though.

Hi William,

I've got a feeling you're not going to like what I'm gonna say. After running a few checks on the big search engines, MSN is the only one that has listed you to any degree. Yahoo has indexed the homepage only and Google has kicked you out.

• MSN
• Yahoo
• Google

Maybe the following link will shed some light:

• "www.fortune2000net.com"

The majority of your previous inbound links are from prime, blacklisted sites such as pharmaceuticals and gambling. The majority of your products are the ones every internet user gets in their inbox daily by the hundreds which to a search engine shouts "SPAM".

Now I'm not suggesting you're a perpetrator of this. Your products represent a multi-million pound/euro/dollar market and it's a great industry to retail in so if I were after long term consistency in terms of business, I would serious consider the following:

• Ditch the domain name. It's a spammy name and not representative of your business. Plus the fact too many blacklisted sites are pointing to it.
• Shift hosting provider before the IP address gets blacklisted too. Hosting is ten a penny so shouldn't be a problem, although migration always is.
• Don't worry about the relevance of inbound links when acquiring new links for your new domain. Think quality.
• Get listed in the Dmoz directory when your site is up on the new domain.
• Think about structure of your website too. An example is www.fortune2000net.com/exercisers.html which lists adverts before content, something a search engine has to wade through. Content first!
• Lower the level of affiliate links per page and put more focus into the products. I know you're making a living and affiliation is a viable business model but less advertising and more content is what the search engines are striving to deliver.

Unfortunately it's not good news. Have a look at the long term and successful competitors in your industry and use that as a guide for your business.

Hope that's constructive and helps.

Eddie.

Quote: I was just wondering how people that work in google and yahoo will feel, if suddenly all the phone companies in the world decided to stop them because of spamming the phone lines (googleads on 1000's of spam sites, directories and scraper sites all around the world), well I suppose that it will never happen.

Since Google has applied for patents the technologies have been exposed to a certain degree and traffic is a major factor. You can bet that if a site generates a lot of income, from say Adsense, then it's unlikely Google would apply their filter and block it.

You would have to ask yourself does Google favour making money over delivering content and the answer isn't clear so if it is money they hide it well.

Another factor is Google tracks a searchers IP address, reads the phrase they are aiming for and tracks the page the user ends up spending more time (before returning to Google) as this will indicate useful content on that site which increases rank. This is why content is first as it keeps the user on the site a little longer.

Google is certainly a puzzling search engine.

James, you can shed more light on the number of links that point to you by doing a character check like below.

• "www.apexhydraulics.co.uk"

After scanning the results of that, the majority of the inbound links are from search directories, link farms and sites with little or no rank themselves.

It appears that a few of my recent clients have also suffered heavily within the last few weeks due to a shake up at Google. Sources suggest that there has been a huge leap in the definition of marketing and natural links.

This is where sites with good quality natural inbound links are still flying high while sites that obtain every possible link going through directories and exchanges are sinking fast.

Whatever the circumstance of any particular site though, links are everything. First things first you'll need to define a quality link.

A quality link should contain a concise and descriptive phrase of the destination and be located naturally in the flow of a document, not a list or farm of links.

An example would be: Hydraulic & Pneumatic Cylinders because it appears mid paragraph and to a search engine appears more natural. The links on the right of this site will be less valued because a search engine can define them as lists of links.

The problem with links are whether Google changes it's mind down the line and decides that natural links are all that valuable either, then what?

This is where you have to play it safe and acquire a variety of links that follow the quality criteria.

The link above will start you off. Discussion groups and articles form great resources that get linked to so get writing content, reviews and articles and work on those quality inbound links.

Google has been very jumpy of late but don't worry long term, it will settle down.

Good directories are just that, dull but very useful, are all directories links rated in the same way?

A directory is just a resource locator and as such is a means of a search engine finding websites rather than ranking them. Depending on the perceived quality of that directory, there will be value but nothing beats quality such as natural links and authority sites such as .gov and .edu domains for example.

After checking your listing I can see that Google doesn't even know or show you in their index. The second link shows that no other web resource Google knows of knows you either.

• site:www.hacamo.com
• "www.hacamo.com"

First thing to do is start getting those links pointing to your website because without them you won't assume any rank whatsoever.

Since your site is Portugese, I would locate the relevant category in DMOZ and submit straight away.

Start here.

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