What happened to my rankings?

[FLN]

Poppindots.com used to be on the 2nd page of google for keywords like "girly myspace layouts" , "girly layouts", "girly myspace graphics" and a few more that I can't recall off the top of my head. I checked my stats yesterday, and saw that I'm not even receiving half the traffic that I was a few days ago. I've lacked updating my index page lately, but I've been updating the navigation links (content). Now I don't even see my site listed in the top 100 rankings for any of those keywords.. i still show for poppindots and poppindots.com .. but none of the keywords I was targeting... Just wondering what happened?

[Andrew2]

:-( That sucks, Maybe you're being penalized for something else that you did.

[WarBud]

Its really hard to say what's causing your problem. It also depends on how long it has been happening. If its just a day or two, you might just suddenly reappear. It could be something you have done, something buggy with your site, a big loss of backlinks, or just another Google mystery.

I have had sites disappear for varying lengths of time (days to weeks) and then they are back. Often doing better than before. I also had one site that would keep dropping out of Google, stay for a few days, then vanish. That one was caused by problems with an interstitial.

Before deciding to make any major changes/efforts to get back, it is often better to wait and see what happens. This does not mean you shouldn't keep updating and working on the site. Just don't do anything rash.

[cutelayouts]

your site is PR0 there is no way it would stay on page 2 for girly myspace layouts....
you need to give it some time...

[FLN]

i did notice that I got about 300 backlinks in a matter of days.. but those were all from one site, and being listed sitewide.. other then that.. ive just been adding content, and updating the content links. Just havn't updated the text/images on the front page of the site for a while.
I hope it doesn't last long.

another thing i noticed, is that every once in a while il get a visitor from google for the keywords im targeting, and I click the link in my stats to see what page im on, and it says that they found me on the 2nd page for that keyword but then i scan through the 1-10 ranking pages and I'm no where to be found.

[Ajay]

nobody will give you the answer for why this happens. Your best bet is to leave your site as is, and monitor the rankings to see if they come back as warbud suggested. you should also check on who you linked to recently to make sure they are indexed in google and what not. don't go crazy trying to figure it out. just working on building your site or start a new one.

[Nora]

Give it time.. as long as its relevant and in your eyes better than the content on other sites ranked higher it will eventually rank for that term again :) their rankings aren't just based on pr..

[cutelayouts]

it happens to some people but not everyone see your site on the 1st page you are still far from it.

[Andrew2]

it happens to some people, but not everyone. see your site on the 1st page? you are still far from it.

Is that what you were trying to say? I don't get it.

[cutelayouts]

haha sorry my bad.

basically not everyone on the net see your website on the 1st page. Some people see it once in a while something like a glitch i guess. After you get your PR and work your SEO and bacl links you will be on 1st page.

[Alex!]

same thing happened to me. I Had the In one week out the next. I was ranked #4 for a big term then i dropped back to page four then didn't come back in like a month then I got dropped completely. I gave up searching the pages to find it. Sent in a reconsideration request after changing some stuff, even though there was nothing spammy or "black hat" on it, not back yet. Its just one of those thing i guess.

If you don't get back, then keep slogging away as hard as it may be, there are other search engines than google, and if google doesn't like your site as it hasn't liked mine then they are waiting to catch you :P

[FLN]

hehe.. thanks for the encouragement alex! :)

[belowthestars]

Is your website new?

You are not banned and you won't have been penalised for 300 backlinks, just keep updating and building backlinks as you would if you were on page 2... You will come back soon enough. This is pretty normal.

[FLN]

It's been open since Late october early november

[belowthestars]

Yeh, you'll come back - keep working. You're on page 40 for girly myspace layouts, but for a quote banners page :P lol.

Don't worry about it :).

[Connections]

this kinda thing happens I was ranking number 3 for a site that gets 16 thousand searches a day and i was dropped to page 4 ....google sucks some times

[Andrew2]

http://us.movies1.yimg.com/movies.yahoo.com/images/hv/photo/movie_pix/walt_disney/monsters__inc_/boo2.jpg

Cheer up boo.

[FLN]

lol, ty andrew... :)

[Ad disengaged]

Your site unfortunately is probably gone forever. Rankings usually won't come back. Seen it happen many times. The penalty was probably triggered by having too many link exchanges or randomly.

I recommend getting a new domain and 301 your old domain to a new one.

[FLN]

I guess il just wait and see what happens.. there are many replies that say they bounced back, or at least bounced around... so im hoping for the best

[mountlaurel]

are you aware of GOOGLE Dance or Google Flux? if not here is my own explaination

Google Flux or Google Dance - is an activity of a SEARCH Engine like Google to change ranking of sites constantly. Well If your site is pretty new expect it to the top position because Google really favors new site and also expect it to loose its ranking...

[Ad disengaged]

Google flux is just that-a flux. A penalty lasts much longer..months usually

[mountlaurel]

Google flux is just that-a flux. A penalty lasts much longer..months usually

if you act like a spam .. you might experience penalty -999 too bad for you

[FLN]

I have never spammed my website! Not even using my myspace accounts. The only thing I have done to promote my site is link exchanges, and used a little seo.

[minnseoelite]

could be you have to many link exchanges and not enough one way links

[Ad disengaged]

Link exchanges may trigger a penalty, especially if they are with unrelated sites.

[comfr]

How can we know when a site is penalty?