I have been running a site for almost two years. About eight or so months ago we changed the domain name of the site, basically to reflect the site`s national audience.
On the previous domain, we had an excellent position with all the major keywords which resulted in number one position. We also had a PR of 6.
We changed the domain, and realised it would hurt us initially with regards to SEO. We worked hard on trying to regain our status. Our backlinks were updated to the new domain, the old domain was permanently redirected to the new domain. Within two months we got an instant PR of 5 which pleasantly surprised me.
However, despite this we have suffered badly for such a popular site (yes, we are a popular site). Our position on google is awful despite our popularity, strong backlinks and PR of 5. Even typing in the complete domain reveals a low position.
A month ago we actually got a `promotion` and for about two weeks, we were soaring high on google. All the keywords revealed us at the top, and I felt we were finally getting somewhere. To my horror after two weeks we sunk bank to the abyss. We are back to the same old crappy positions.
If we type in our domain in google, sites that have backlinked to us come up higher than our site itself.
Does this sound like Google is penalising us for something? I cannot believe we have broken any rules for anything, if so why would they give us a PR of 5
Man, this google business is a strange one to crack!! I`m sure there are others confused by all this. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
PR does not reflect position in search results. Just don't worry about PR because it's worthless.
Google has to make sure your not a spammer, over time you may rise up through the ranks, but till then, build some backlinks on relevant pages similar to yours.
Biggest factors in this situation look to be the possible "sandbox" factor, the "newness" of your new domain and time. I'm no expert but Google does seem to have a sandbox effect on new sites. Sometimes it takes six months or longer to get placed into real rankings. New sites are often spam sites. One factor Google uses to weed spam sites is the registration time on the domain. Also many spam sites are on different domains than the typical .com .org .net so that could be a factor. Many times it just takes time for Google to let your site into the index. You may consider emailing Google and asking them directly about it. They've made some changes lately because of "GoogleBombing" and "GoogleWashing" techniques and your site may appear to them to be doing this (its not but it could look that way to a program). Those techniques use redirects and such to abuse the algorithm...
Try talking to Google and see if they have any suggestions for you.
NV
Thanks,
Given me lots to think about. I had never heard of the sandbox before!!
I looked around google, where can I find the contact address. Seems well hidden!!
http://www.google.com/intl/en/contact/
Fairly easy to find, click About Us on the Home Page and then click Contact Us.
Thanks I fired them an email
I was also looking at the new google sitemaps. I haven`t used this yet, and was wondering if this might be an advantage for me, and maybe help me with this possible sandbox problem?
My XML skills are very limited, would a simple text file sitemap be ok to use, or would using XML be better? Finally, are these google sitemap generators any good in case get real lazy?
Thanks.
It wouldn't help with the sandbox because that's something set which nothing else can help with, (if you think about it logically it makes sense, otherwise spammers would be doing the same). The Sitemap is just suppose to help Google find out how your site is structured basically. And the generators are for lazy people or those whom don't have enough time on their hands.
It will need to be in the XML format that they provide on their site otherwise you'll get an error back.
it's not just the sandbox, Google also delays the values of the links being passed.
so even if you have a link from Google itself, the link will go to some delay before it's true value is passed on to you.
Hey maritimer,
Did you get a reply from Google? If yes, what did it say?
I set up a simple blog with bluehost.com and a blogger.com and within a week my site had been indexed my google. I think it just depends on content and what meta data you actually specify for your website. Granted some larger host sights might be more favoured as they pump in larger volumes of good data constantly. To this day the website is still indexed, even with a complete restructure. And while its content was changing it was being re-indexed. And i'm only a blogger with a nice looking website
Posting Permissions
LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
Reply With Quote