Issue with VBSEO - my pages are gone

Hi - I purchased vbSEO about 2 months ago and since I installed it, my traffic has basically gone down to zero. It seems that nothing has been indexed in Google and the prior pages show as dupes -- it shows 2,050 results when I do a "site:forums.htmlcenter.com" but clicking page 2 shows dupes.

site:forums.htmlcenter.com - Google Search

This has become a huge struggle for me as I am not sure what to change to make the site start to rank again.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks,
Allen

leave it. this is good.

most of the results are showthread urls, but you do have a couple /seo/ url's in there.

you're in the low point where google is cleaning out your old crap and starting to index you with the good stuff.

sit on it. i know its hard to do nothing, but it WILL pay off in the long run.

see this post:
How did vBSEO Buy a Young Entrepreneur a BMW M3 Luxury Car?

you can see i dropped some hits when i first installed.... but the next month i shot through the roof.

Hi Allen,

Have you made any other changes to your forum? Are you running our sitemap?

Do you use Google Webmaster Tools?
Google Webmaster Tools - Recommended for All vBSEO Customers

thanks -- yes, I installed the sitemap the same day but it doesn't look like i submitted it to google inside the webmaster tools...the sitemap shows 21,000+ items in it.

when i attempt to submit it to google, it says:
URL restricted by robots.txt
We encountered an error while trying to access your Sitemap. Please ensure your Sitemap follows our guidelines and can be accessed at the location you provided and then resubmit.

hrm

What's in your robots.txt?

PHP Code:

User-agent: GooglebotDisallow: /*tDisallow: /*do=Disallow: /*searchid=Disallow: /*postDisallow: /*/*postDisallow: /*topDisallow: /*linkbacksDisallow: /*postingsDisallow: /*infractionDisallow: /*miscDisallow: /*msgDisallow: /*f-Disallow: /*/*f-Disallow: /*printpageDisallow: /*.js$Disallow: /*.inc$Disallow: /*.css$Disallow: /*.cgi$Disallow: /archived/Disallow: /faq.phpDisallow: /calendar.phpDisallow: /login.phpDisallow: /usercp.phpDisallow: /search.phpDisallow: /register.phpDisallow: /sendmessage.phpDisallow: /newreply.phpDisallow: /newthread.phpDisallow: /showgroups.phpDisallow: /online.phpDisallow: /forumdisplay.phpDisallow: /profile.phpDisallow: /private.phpDisallow: /misc.phpDisallow: /postings.phpDisallow: /infraction.phpDisallow: /subscription.phpDisallow: /usernote.phpDisallow: /admincp/Disallow: /announcement.phpDisallow: /calendar.phpDisallow: /cron.phpDisallow: /editpost.phpDisallow: /faq.phpDisallow: /joinrequests.phpDisallow: /member.phpDisallow: /misc.phpDisallow: /modcp/Disallow: /moderator.phpDisallow: /newreply.phpDisallow: /newthread.phpDisallow: /online.phpDisallow: /printthread.phpDisallow: /showpost.phpDisallow: /subscriptions.phpDisallow: /threadrate.phpUser-agent: SlurpDisallow: /*tDisallow: /*do=Disallow: /*searchid=Disallow: /*postDisallow: /*/*postDisallow: /*topDisallow: /*linkbacksDisallow: /*postingsDisallow: /*infractionDisallow: /*miscDisallow: /*msgDisallow: /*f-Disallow: /*/*f-Disallow: /*printpageDisallow: /*.js$Disallow: /*.inc$Disallow: /*.css$Disallow: /*.cgi$User-agent: *Disallow: /archived/Disallow: /faq.phpDisallow: /calendar.phpDisallow: /login.phpDisallow: /usercp.phpDisallow: /search.phpDisallow: /register.phpDisallow: /sendmessage.phpDisallow: /newreply.phpDisallow: /newthread.phpDisallow: /showgroups.phpDisallow: /online.phpDisallow: /forumdisplay.phpDisallow: /profile.phpDisallow: /private.phpDisallow: /misc.phpDisallow: /postings.phpDisallow: /infraction.phpDisallow: /subscription.phpDisallow: /usernote.phpDisallow: /admincp/Disallow: /announcement.phpDisallow: /calendar.phpDisallow: /cron.phpDisallow: /editpost.phpDisallow: /faq.phpDisallow: /joinrequests.phpDisallow: /member.phpDisallow: /misc.phpDisallow: /modcp/Disallow: /moderator.phpDisallow: /newreply.phpDisallow: /newthread.phpDisallow: /online.phpDisallow: /printthread.phpDisallow: /showpost.phpDisallow: /subscriptions.phpDisallow: /threadrate.php 


I hope it doesn't really look like that. You need to start by formatting it line by line.

Originally Posted by Joe Ward

I hope it doesn't really look like that. You need to start by formatting it line by line.

wow you replied so quickly - i can't seem to get the vb to paste it with the breaks!

here's a link:
http://forums.htmlcenter.com/robots.txt

amazing that you replied in under 1 minute

thanks

To analyze a site's robots.txt file:

• Sign into Google Webmaster Tools with your Google Account.
• On the Dashboard, click the URL for the site you want.
• Click Tools, and then click Analyze robots.txt.

Try getting rid of the wildcard (*) lines first to see if it allows the sitemap then to check for a conflict.

didnt work - same error

Try removing robots.txt completely for a test. If it's not there at all, it can't throw an error.

just as an update to this post - i am an absolutely disappointed customer - your plugin which I paid a tremendous amount of money for has done nothing to help my rankings. in fact, my traffic to the forums is as close to zero as possible without being zero - it seems as a matter of fact that the traffic is actually lower now than it was before the plugin. really, really disappointed - especially after the claims you make on the home page - it's almost like the diet pills that claim you will lose 20 lbs in 3 days.

Hi Allen,

I have not received an update since I last requested that you remove your robots.txt. Did you? Was there a change in your Google Webmaster Tools status?

If you have a problem with your site configuration or an error in your robots.txt that has to be corrected, or vBSEO cannot do its job.

So - firstly, did you try removing your robots.txt? Is that error message still showing up?

I have submitted the sitemap yesterday finally - it "took" - this morning I see lots of errors. I totally deleted the robots.txt file as well. It looks like the sitemap file was processed and now it shows errors against robots.txt which clearly isn't there - I will give it a few days to see if it clears and will post again at that point.

i wanted to provide an update - the sitemap errors are gone now - but now it says that there are over 200 pages with duplicate title tags - here is an example:

HTMLCenter Web Development Forums - View Single Post - Building Flash Gallery without programming �
‎/10267-post4.html‎
‎/9502-post1.html‎

no idea what those links are - can you provide an update?