Site vanished from Google....

[jasonstarr2005]

Hi Guys and Gals,

I don't claim to be an expert on this so I'm just hoping someone can give me a pointers. My site (wobly wobly wobly dillistone dot com) has disappeared from the google DB. It happened about 3 weeks ago having been in for years. We have not knowingly broken any rules and it is costing us a fortune. Any ideas very much appreciated. Interestingly, Google are still happy to take our money on adclicks....

Thanks in advance.

Jason

[GuyFromChicago]

Your site still shows as indexed...doesn't appear that you've been dropped or penalized. I assume you just no longer place well in the serps for your target terms. Without knowing what your target terms are, maybe it's just the competition has picked up in your industry and your competitors are outperforming your site.

When I search for your company name your jobs page comes back at #5 in Google so you're still in their index.

[krisval]

Editing my post...looked at your site.

Your pages do look to be in the index. You may just need to build links. The link: command shows zero links. Unless you are doing something that would otherwise get you penalized, you may want to focus in that area.

[jasonstarr2005]

thanks for looking but I didnt make myself clear...

if you search for my formal domain (ie www. etc) it gives a message "Sorry, no information is available for the URL"

We do have plenty of incoming links relatively speaking (we are in a niche market so there are not many appropriate sites, but most of the major trade organizations link to us - iacpr dot org, aesc dot org etc - so do the magazine type sites). We were in the top couple of positions on our preferred keywords.

My problem is not that we have gone down in rankings, its simply that our home page and the vast majority of our subpages don't come up - even if you search for the exact URL.

I'm glad to know you don't consider it a banning - thanks for that - but I'm still not having a clue about why we have disappeared.

[glengara]

Can't reach the site...

[jasonstarr2005]

That's strange. It's up as far as I can see, and has been all afternoon...

[glengara]

Odd, I'm on a Mac, site won't come up with IE but does with Safari/Firefox...

[mcanerin]

The majority of indexing/ranking problems are technical in nature, rather than spam-related.

It's looking like this may be one of them. If a search engine can't reach a site, it will usually assume there is a technical problem and stop presenting it as a result (but keep it in the index), which can make it look like you've been penalized.

Then, after a pre-determined period of time, it will stop assuming it's a glitch and assume the site has actually been taken down - that would be a bad thing!

I would immediately start a complete technical diagnosis - look at your logs, and don't forget to check the site from outside your network. dnsreport.com and tools that are similar may also be helpful.

Ian

[krisval]

What is this site http://www.uwsoftware.co.uk It is an exact duplicate to your dillistone.com. That would definitely constiture a Duplicent content penalty.

[mcanerin]

What is this site http://www.uwsoftware.co.uk It is an exact duplicate to your dillistone.com. That would definitely constiture a Duplicent content penalty.

Ouch - not good. Lots of SEO's talk about PR not mattering anymore, but that's not completely true - in the case of duplicate content (and that's checked in text only mode, ignoring graphics, remember) the site with the highest PR almost always wins. That would be the UK one (PR7)

So now you need to check why some people can't get to your sites, and why there is at least one site with dupe content out there.

Ian

[jasonstarr2005]

Thanks guys. UWSoftware is an old site that we owned... the business was closed and so, without thinking through the implications, we chucked the ds data up. Clearly an error. I'll arrange to put the no-spider stuff in place - or would it be better to delete it entirely? (I'd rather avoid the latter, given I don't currently have an alternative!). I will also find out about the site problems. Thanks!

[krisval]

Jason,

You may want to 301 it to your current domain. Your current domain is still indexed which is good. I'd do it sooner than later. It would be great to capture at least some value from that sight because of its PR7.

[jasonstarr2005]

Thanks I'll get onto it. Again, I appreciate all your help!

[jasonstarr2005]

OK. That's great advice, but one fundamental problem. I haven't the faintest what a 301 is, and so I don't know what to ask our guru's to do.

Please, I'm just a simple englishman - can you tell me what is involved in 301ing dill -sys.co.uk to dill... .com? Thanks. You are all on my christmas list.

[krisval]

Hi Jason,

A 301 is a permanent redirect. It looks like you have a Windows Server. Your tech guys should know how to do this in a Windows/ASP environment. Essentially, this will redirect your old URL to your new URL. From a user perspective, when a user visits, WSoftware they will be automatically be redirected to your other site. In theory, from a search engine perspective, Google will know that you have moved this site permanently to the new site and will follow the redirect to your new site dillistone.

See # 2 http://www.google.com/webmasters/3.html

Make sure that you tell your tech guys NOT to use a temporary redirect under any circumstances. This could cause an even bigger penlaty.

[jasonstarr2005]

Top, top man.

We've done this and I appreciate your help.