Need to hire someone to help with Google traffic drop problem

len backus · #1 06-06-2008, 08:51 AM

Starting May 9th, my Google visits per day dropped from 1,700 per day to 700 per day...all in one day if I go back and look at Google's traffic chart.

My best search terms dropped from high on page one of results (5 years here) to the bottom of page five.

I have no idea what could have caused this. I posted a support ticket to VBSEO on May 15th and still have no response.

On May 16th I filed a reconsideration request with Google. No change in traffic since then and of course they tell you that they will never actually reply directly to your reconsideration request.

I would like to hire someone to help me figure out what is wrong to cause Google to dump me like this.

Joe Ward · #2 06-08-2008, 03:09 PM

What changes did you make prior to the drop?

Did you notice any *new* websites that have come out of nowhere and displaced you for the terms you used to rank for?

How much was your average drop? Just slipping to page 2 from page 1, or falling further than that?

If you dropped just slightly, they could be competitive forces, or the effects of tweaking stuff, or even the loss of some good linkbacks.

If you dropped out of site, that would appear to be more likely some kind of demotion or penalty, or even *a site error* that you have not yet detected.

len backus · #3 06-08-2008, 04:47 PM

Joe, thanks

No new sites to compete.
I have dropped on just about everything. Big time. THe number of visits from Google is down from 1700 to 600 or less per day overnite. None of my search terms have dropped less than 3 or 4 pages down the list of results. And this all happened overnight.

What would be examples of "site errors"?

I remember looking in the VBSEO Cp around then but I don't know much about those settings so I stay away from changing them. But I wonder if you would mind going into my CP and seeing if I inadvertantly screwed it up. I know sometime around there I was getting curious about Linkbacks and what that is all about. Now that you mention "even the loss of some good linkbacks." I wonder if it's possible I screwed that up somehow in the CP.

len backus · #4 06-17-2008, 08:12 AM

Quote:

If you dropped out of site, that would appear to be more likely some kind of demotion or penalty, or even *a site error* that you have not yet detected.

Joe, what is a site error?

Joe Ward · #5 06-17-2008, 05:49 PM

We have seen cases of users who made a mistake in their robots.txt that blocked access, we have seen hosts quietly start blocking search engines from crawling the sites hosted on their network, problems with sitemaps, periods of intermittent server downtime or lag time, etc. Google will usually alert you of most of these types of problems in your Webmaster Tools:
Google Webmaster Tools - Recommended for All vBSEO Customers

Joe Ward · #6 06-17-2008, 05:51 PM

This part of your website worries me a lot:

Quote:

Car Insurance | Myspace Layouts | Remortgages | Ringtones | Loans

len backus · #7 06-17-2008, 06:08 PM

Thanks again, Joe

The links at the bottom of my page are not new. The company started paying me for them 5 or 6 months ago. What is it that troubles you?

If you click on the link above, it shows a few errors, but not many.

I don'[t know what a robot.txt file is so I didn't change it as far as I know.

Joe Ward · #8 06-17-2008, 06:14 PM

Those links are not relevant to your site. Although you may have had them in place for awhile, Google may only be imposing a penalty to you now.

Note: I can't see your webmaster tools. It's a login area.

len backus · #9 06-17-2008, 06:25 PM

Joe, are you saying those links are something that Google doesn't like? I never intend to do anything Google frowns on. Should I remove them and forgo the $100 per month income? I am losing far, far more in revenue now since my traffic dropped.
===============

Here is a link to a screen shot showing the webmaster crawl stats

briansol · #10 06-17-2008, 10:31 PM

yeah, selling text links is a huge no-no now-a-days, especially since they aren't even remotely in your niche (which is how they can tell you sold them).

crawl errors like you have are normal. network hickups, deleted threads = 404, and so on.

len backus · #11 06-18-2008, 12:42 AM

Brian and Joe

I had no idea that was against the rules. I disabled it immediately.

I will send Google another request for reconsideration. What are the chances that the text links are the reason they dropped me so low?

And thanks so much for your help.

Joe Ward · #12 06-18-2008, 01:40 AM

Unless you have done any other significant changes within the last few months, that may very well be the problem.

len backus · #13 06-18-2008, 08:28 PM

I told the person who bought the links on my site that I have disabled tyhem for the above reasons and offered her a refund. THe following is her response:

Quote:

Len,

The solution I offer is pretty simple. Google does state that external links can effect page rank and search engine ranks. This is pretty common knowledge any external link can effect these things. Typically we have not seen any effect to search rank or page rank due to our ads, we have had many sites running for over 3 years but I imagine it can happen. According to what I have read on Google and Matt Cuts blog using the no follow tag with external links will resolve any potential google penalty. If you want to try this rather the canceling let me know.

Thank you,

Kim

Do you guys have any thoughts on her comments?

Joe Ward · #14 06-18-2008, 08:54 PM

It's up to you Len. You'll have to sacrifice a revenue source in order to stop the run of these ads.

However, I personally would definitely not place non-relevant links on my site, without or without rel=nofollow.

My best suggestion would be to track down related sites that might be interested in purchasing ads. They would still be paid links, but at least they would be within your niche.

Joe Ward · #15 06-18-2008, 08:58 PM

Also Len - you could ask the advertiser if they are interested in running the ads within your registered users area instead. That way the ads would not show up when guests are browsing the site, and would not be available to search engines.

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Need to hire someone to help with Google traffic drop problem

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