Google Whacked For Site Being Down

**startuk** · 06-04-09

Today one of our sites (Offers.co.uk for anyone interested - not sure why people don't reveal their sites on here, am probably making a huge mistake, but anyway) got a big fat Googlewhack. Went from page 1 for 'offers' to absolutely nowhere (not in the top 20 pages anyway - couldn't be bothered going further).

We're assuming this is because our site was down for a few hours last night. I'm assuming that because we don't dabble in the dark arts unlike some other VC sites (see MVC).

Does anyone have any experience of this and:

a) is the down-time the likely cause?
b) how long does it take to get it back!?

Any help appreciated.

Cheers,

Tom

**Lancaster** · 06-04-09

No experience of the dark arts but this has happened to me before and it's not fun. But rest assured that your site will probably be back to it's usual standings within a week - this was my experience. Of course it's then time to start thinking about getting a better host because if it keeps happening G will probably drop you for a longer time.

**ash** · 06-04-09

When did this go live?

Offers.co.uk Redesign April 2009 | The Offers Blog

I'd say its more likely to be this rather than a short hosting outage....is it just a visual redesign? If it is it'll be back up soon enough, will probably have to wait for Google to reindex the whole site though.

Also a quick scan of your backlinks revealed ALOT of crosslinks from your other sites.

**startuk** · 07-04-09

Thanks Ash, Lancaster,

The design change was 95% cosmetic - certainly no changes to URL structures, page titles etc., so I wouldn't have thought that was enough to go from page 1 to zilcho...but probably played a part.

It's hosted on our own servers at a data center, so shouldn't be that either...and I know it was our fault it was down, as it only affected a couple of our sites on a particular server.

As for the cross-linking - we know it's not good, and we're dropping it, but it's helped some of our new sites get a peg-up in the past, so we've done it.

Another couple of things - no significant drop in number of pages indexed, and our PR has gone from 1 to 3...very strange.

Thanks again for your help,

Tom

**losdev** · 07-04-09

Timing is everything...or in the case of Google, it is a lottery, UNLESS YOU KNOW WHEN THEY ARE COMING BY :scared

If you have to take your site down for any period of time then I would always advise use of a 302 direct to a holding page showing why you are down, estimated time etc.

Once you have finito, rebuild your sitemap and resubmit to the big G in your webmaster tools panel.

In this instance, I weould imagine you will re-appear in a relatively short space of time.

HTH
:tup

**startuk** · 07-04-09

Originally Posted by losdev

In this instance, I weould imagine you will re-appear in a relatively short space of time.

HTH
:tup

Thanks for your optimism!

Will bear that in mind for scheduled downtime - the thing was we didn't expect it to be down! :blush

**d33man** · 07-04-09

Hi my site also lost rankings today - my website monitor also noted some downtime though it happened at around 2.30pm yet my traffic has been slow since morning so i don't think it is related

Could it be an algorithm change? I'm currently about 80% down on relative traffic in the day, its a massive trough in my otherwise fairly consistent traffic levels. Looked at some top 10 rankings, they've disappeared but not all my rankings have...

Anyone else with any thoughts?

Thanks

**startuk** · 08-04-09

I personally don't think it's an algorithm change, because I don't think Google would drop you from page 1 to page 40+ unless you're doing something really dodgy (and I can't see that we are doing - but people please say so if you think we are).

Like you d33man, we're still ranking for other things, so it's strange. Thankfully traffic hasn't really gone down, though it was growing daily beforehand, so we've lost a bit.

**Alfie** · 08-04-09

I think there may be some Google dancing going on - one of my sites had been climing gradually, and during the last 12 hours, has suddenly slumped - it also appears about 200 pages have disappeared from the index - so maybe I should be a little more worried

However, experience has told me that a week can be a long time in Google, so i'll wait until after the BH before i really start to panic!

All the best,

Alf

**3Wheel** · 08-04-09

I feel for you. This happened to me after my host's server went on the fritz...

Not happy, and still not back in the big G after 3 weeks. :cry

**startuk** · 09-04-09

Still not back for no1 keyword....4 days now....oh well...guess we can expect to wait a while longer

**startuk** · 17-04-09

Back to page 1/2 now.

Though we've made more changes, so will probably take another hit when it re-indexes everything!

**d33man** · 17-04-09

Originally Posted by startuk

Back to page 1/2 now.

Though we've made more changes, so will probably take another hit when it re-indexes everything!

us too WHOO HOO!!!! (we're back in the Google SERPs that is!!)

I resorted to CPC in the meantime but hopefully with organic picking up we'll be back to normal in no time! :tup