Google Playing Silly Buggers?

**pav** · 09-02-07

I have been experiencing some odd things with Google at the moment and wonder if anyone has had similar or knows what the score is.

I have seen a few of my sites with some number one ranking on some good keywords disappear for a length of time only to reappear in the same position. It usually happens when a change is made i.e added content to home page or tweak of a page title. The sites disappear for anything between 2 days – 2 weeks at a time and some have done so several times.

It’s almost as if they are taking the site out of the listings to asses the changes before putting it back.

I probably should add that the site does not completely disappear for all keywords, but it’s usually the most popular keywords with the most traffic which are affected.

**Lee_Owen** · 10-02-07

Something is going on.

I'm getting about 140 domains into the engines at the moment, some are new, some have history, some were just parked, some had a previous site and were listed, some were parked with meta tags.

Taking just three examples.

New domain, new site, first day in it got listed and it stayed, next two or three days, gone. Went away, came back after a few days, gone again and it still isn't back, which is a shame as the sales were nice, but not sure whether I'm subject of fraud or not yet as the subsequent sales are same cookie.

Next two domains, newly bought, not in the engine, so I park and link and get them in, one isn't for the split keyword so I change and make framed and meta, they show and then both disappear, the one that's framed and meta'd came back and stayed, the other drops - possibly 'cause it's parked, maybe it will be back.

Now to see what happens with the others, domains with previous sites, no matter what shape or size, well they've stayed so far under the new site updates, but new ones are in and out like a bank robber on valentines day. It would be nice to see the new site return but maybe this is a new sandbox but a rude one and it's a flasher.

It could be different datacenters switching around but why I don't know. Even in sandbox I thought you stayed in the engine just about 4 million pages back but with this, you can't even find the domain on url search. Weird.

**Lee_Owen** · 11-02-07

It still hasn't returned, does anyone know the exact process these days? 15 days, 30 days?

**futureweb** · 11-02-07

a new one of mine http://www.hdtvoffer.co.uk is in and out like a yo yo and goes from 1 page -> 201 every so often as well just for fun.

**Lee_Owen** · 13-02-07

It gets more strange.

Do a search on the domain ******.co.uk and it comes up only in page mentions, but no listing, search only the keyword, no show. But do a search on site:www.*****.co.uk and it's there with 342 pages.

So first it gets listed, stays a while, then gets dumped completely, comes back, stays a while, gets dumped completely, I suppose google must be on about 20 days now? It used to be 15 but before that 30. I'm not counting but it must be about 15 to 20 so far. Cached dates are 7th February.

Come on google, I want money.

**Lee_Owen** · 14-02-07

I've just checked again this morning and entered ******.co.uk and see that it's on page 3 and in 22nd, shouldn't it be at the top for domain and extension? well at leats it's there...

**Itchy** · 14-02-07

Welcome to the google dance

We put your site right in
Your site right out
in out in out
we mess it all about
You do the Google Dance
And we mess you around
What it's all about?
Oh, Okey-Cokey-Cokey
Oh, Okey-Cokey-Cokey
Oh, Okey-Cokey-Cokey
Wheres my site gone
Boo-Hoo-Hoo

**pav** · 15-02-07

Originally Posted by Itchy

Welcome to the google dance

We put your site right in
Your site right out
in out in out
we mess it all about
You do the Google Dance
And we mess you around
What it's all about?
Oh, Okey-Cokey-Cokey
Oh, Okey-Cokey-Cokey
Oh, Okey-Cokey-Cokey
Wheres my site gone
Boo-Hoo-Hoo

Love it

**bulbo** · 22-02-07

Did a link exchange with a website with PR3 tonight (I checked it at around 6pm and it was PR3.)

Just checked it about an hour ago... PR0!!!

No, it has nothing to do with my site being blacklisted or anything silly! My site still has PR3.

Something weird is going on and if this isn't sorted by morning, the guy who owns the site is going to be VERY unhappy.

**bulbo** · 22-02-07

Definitely something going on.

One of my best link-ex partners (for a completely different site) had my link on a PR5 page (their main page was PR6).

Tonight, their main page is PR4, the page which contains my link is currently showing PR0.

**Johnhson** · 20-03-07

I suspect something has gone badly wrong at google, its been returning pages that don't even exist. Talking with ppl, I think some sort of rollback took place to try and get over some major change that went wrong.

As for page rank, I run the most popular site in the UK for allotment gardeners and it only has PR5 - lots of people link to it as well as exchange links but Mr G only says it's a 5.

I stuck up a load of sites on another subject, scraped and slightly jumbled wikipedia content and google gives them all a PR3 - these are one holding page sites.

Also have a 50 page site thats been around for 6 years and is full of genuine unique content - google gives it a PR2

Anyone who can make sense of this is a cleverer man than me

**Brendon** · 20-03-07

Ignore PR - its' value is marginal at best

>> I think some sort of rollback took place

I'm seeing exaxctly the opposite - fresh content being slammed in, and quickly. However, that's not to say that there may not be a rollback happening too, but it's not obvious in the terms I watch

**Johnhson** · 21-03-07

I thought page rank was supposed to be really important? So why is it marginal at best?

**Brendon** · 22-03-07

>> I thought page rank was supposed to be really important?

Not for about 4 years

>> So why is it marginal at best?

There have been 2 major changes to how it works - Hilltop and TrustRank. Both have fundamental implications for SEO, and the true value of links

**getvisible** · 22-03-07

Ignore PR - its' value is marginal at best

I'd change that to "Ignore Toolbar PR"

I've always contended that there are various levels of SEO'er and SEO'ing and that data proffessional SEO'ers would tend to ignore are still of value to webmasters/marketeers that don't have SEO has a core element of their marketing strategy. Hence people that don't have the time or inclination to spend hours on SEO are still better off paying some attention to TBPR than paying none.