Here Today, Gone Tomorrow, Back the Day After

[SpeedyPin]

I've been a hands on, in-the-trenches optimizer since late 1998 and have never asked the following question.

I noticed over the course of 2005 that very randomly our rankings for some key phrases would just disappear from Google. I don't mean a drop in rankings nor being banned. Just POOF, WHAM & GONE! Then a day or two later they magically reappear in the same place they were originally.

Well, it's happened again and a check on G's datacenters confirm the "disappearance."

So, why does this happen? :confused:

[Scottie]

Because Google is often updating it's algo and shifting things. They don't guarantee anyone a specific ranking and since they stopped doing monthly updates, the changes are more frequent.

Why check your rankings every single day? It will just make you nuts. :D

[SpeedyPin]

Why check your rankings every single day? It will just make you nuts.

Agreed! While I definitely know there is no guarantee, the rankings have been rock solid for nearly 6 months and one more than 1 year. Luckily, I minimize my "going nutty" by checking just 5 core keywords/phrases daily (they are huge traffic drivers for us).

Happy New Year!!!

[Scottie]

Happy New Year! Here's hoping your rankings stay fairly rock solid! :toast:

[SpeedyPin]

Scottie...

So as I thought, our rankings came back fine, but with one small issue. Now it appears as though Gbot is confused about what our homepage URL is. Instead of domain.com, G is listing one of our affiliate URLs domain.com/?aff=XXXX&co_branded=0.

This becomes a problem in more ways than one including a query at G's directory (dir.google.com) for domain.com, results in no listing for us. We're usually listed 3rd for a VERY coveted key phrase.

Yes, this has happened in the past, but the last incident was well over a year ago so I thought G fixed this especially after listening to Matt C. Am I correct in thinking that we can let all bots/spiders (especially Gbot) know that our homepage is ALWAYS domain.com via tweaking our server file(s)?

Matt???

Thanks in advance for your feedback!