Huge Hit in Traffic

Well - let's see how well you do over the next few weeks, once you get the directory shut down as well.

You don't need to block .php via robots. Our 301 redirects will automatically let Google know the old vB .php formats are no longer in use, and have a new location.

Sounds good. I'll let you know when I have one of the directories killed.

Do you have a suggestion from the SEO side of things on which one to keep? That might make my decision easier.

Ok, just as an update. I have killed one of my directories and 301 redirected it to the other directory.

I just did this tonight.

Up to this point, I'm seeing about the same traffic as I always have been. Hopefully I'll start to see an increase with this change.

I'm going to give it a few days and see what happens. I hope it gets better soon. My Adsense earnings are in the dumpster...

Ok, keep us posted.

Just an update.

It's been about 2 weeks and so far, I've not seen any real improvement. I'm still seeing roughly 1000 page views a day, which is down from 3,500-4000 :(

I'm seeing new pages are getting indexed, and I'm doing my best to update 404 errors from external links and I'm trying to track down anything that might be in violation of the google guidelines -- but I'm really not finding much, so anything that looks suspect at all is being removed, e.g., links in my signatures to my sites are being removed -- especially if they don't relate to the topic of my forum (which most don't).

I really wish their was an easier way to track down why or what happened, but after month + of this, I think I've narrowed it down to the changes I made last september to my URL structure -- I think that was a bad idea, and I didn't at the time recognize the damage that could be done in a very small tweak.

Webmaster Tools says that 31,000+ URL's are indexed -- this number hasn't changed much if at all -- though I know new pages are being indexed. Site:www.mydomain.com is showing around 16,500, which is down from 21,000 or so.

My suspision is that google is clearing out all old URL's and Indexing new ones. The clearing is going faster than the re-indexing. Not sure if their is anything I can do anything about that, so I patiently wait. Anyway, that's what I think has happened, as I can't really find any blatant reason for a google penalty.

Anywho, that's where we are at this point.

Here is a good page outlining Google penalties. At this stage, since you were previously in good standing, you might want to develop a concise list of things you might have done that could have been bad (which you are willing to reverse) and attempt a re-inclusion request.

"Types of Google Penalties" | SEO Black Hat & Google Penalty

Thanks Joe, I'm going to submit this to the webmaster help forums and have some of them take a look first to make sure that what I have done will indeed make a difference or I should say reverse the damage I think I've done.

Then submit a re-inclusion request.

I've submitted my request to the webmaster help forums. Hopefully this proves fruitful...

For any that want to follow it: http://cli.gs/sUZV1p

Well, I have good news. The penalty has been lifted. I am SOOOO happy/relieved.

So whatever it was I did in my efforts to fix the problem, must have done it.

I never did submit a re-inclusion request, but did post in the Google webmaster forums looking for help. I didn't really get any, but I posted my case, and I have a sneaky suspicion that a G Employee may have seen it and helped my process along, since the penalty was lifted shortly after starting my thread over there. So after a little over a month of scrambling to fix anything that might have looked shady, I'm BAAACK!!!

If I've learned anything it's to read the webmaster guidelines and don't do anything that you think may cause suspicion of you breaking the rules. Eventually G will catch you. I was not trying to cheat the system, but in my zealous efforts to excel, I crossed a line. Not sure which it was -- maybe a combination of a few -- but I won't do that again.

Anyway, I just wanted to thank everyone that helped me with this. Especially you Joe. You were awesome, so thank you!

Woo Hoooo!!!!

Also, I attached my G Analytics dashboard view so anyone interested can see what a penalty looks like when added, and removed. Kinda interesting if nothing else.

Great to hear that you are back on track. I think you effort in providing such a detailed description probably lead to a quick re-enabling:
http://cli.gs/sUZV1p

Nice to hear you are back on track

Thanks both of you.

I had hoped it would help, but I was just looking for help. I had also read enough to know that not being honest and up-front on those forums can lead to getting eaten alive. So I wanted to be prepared.