Google Results Disappearing

John A. Robb

Hello Jill,

I received my High Rankings newsletter today. Enjoyed it as usual. I experienced an odd situation today that I am wondering if you can shed some light on.

I've revamped a site I maintain for alumni of a youth program I participated in many years ago :-) I have been tweaking here and there with the aim of improving rankings and relevancy. It seems to be working. But here is the odd thing - for one of my keyword combos I was delighted to see my placement as number one on Google, I just love Google. Then when I did the SAME search a few minutes later my results were gone! I was back to the old ranking way down 20 or below.

It continues to get odd in that when I perform the SAME keyword search in Yahoo! I get the desired result of being placed at number one!

Do you have any idea why Yahoo!'s Google powered search gives a different result from the main Google site, and why the results would be as you expect and then disappear!

Any light you can shed would be appreciated. Thanks Jill.

Cheers,

John

+++Jill's Response+++

Hey John,

Yep, I've got some light to shed!

At the time you were doing your searches (last week), Google was right in the middle of what some SEOs have named the "Google Dance." [Sorry, I'm not sure who coined this term - if you know who it was, I'd be interested in hearing from you!] The dance is the time of month when Google is updating its entire index. When it's dancing it's vacillating between its various databases. This is why sometimes you'll see your new optimized site, and other times your old site info. The good news is that the high rankings you're seeing are most likely an omen of what is to come once the index settles down! Your position may not be exactly as you saw it during the "dance," but it will probably be somewhere in the vicinity. During this time of the month, you simply have to wait it out and not worry about it too much. Just be happy in the knowledge that eventually, the fruits of your labor will pay off!

As to Yahoo!'s Google results (Yahoo! Web Pages), it seems to take them a bit longer to show Google's latest database. This too will eventually get sorted out when the dance is over. In fact, this week things have settled down a lot, and most likely the results you're now seeing are the ones that should stick until the next major update. It's important to note that Google results can fluctuate at any time during the month, not just during the dance period; however, these changes aren't usually as sweeping as the dance changes. There will probably come a time when Google's results are constantly in a dance state, since they have said they hope to reindex many sites more frequently.

Submitting Limited-Time Sites

Anna Parikh

Hi Jill -

My question is about submitting sites that will only be live for a limited time. We are launching a site for a campaign that we are doing, and we are planning to have the site live for a few weeks before and after the campaign, so a total of about 6 weeks. I am planning to submit the site by paid-inclusion, as I obviously can't wait for it to be included for free. But what do I do when the site closes? - I don't want to have all the search engines still linking to a site that doesn't exist. How do I get the site removed quickly from the search engines?

Anna Parikh

+++Jill's Response+++

Anna,

Sounds like you should simply do pay-per-click (PPC) ads through Overture and Google AdWords Select. You don't need to bother with SEO for short-term marketing, as it's really a long-term proposition. You need some quick ads and that's what you'll get with PPC. Plus, when your campaign is over, you simply stop.

If you do choose to do some SEO and use the paid-inclusion programs, you could substitute different URLs to the programs when you're done with the current site (assuming you have something new in the works!). This way, the old URLs would be dropped and you could begin promoting something else!

Figuring out Which Pages are in Inktomi

Bernero, Andrew

Hi Jill - how can you determine if you have multiple pages in Inktomi? I did a search for "rankwrite" and found only the home page within the first few pages that I checked. I found the same results from our company, and was considering joining their paid inclusion program, but it wouldn't seem worth it if AOL only includes 1 url per domain.

Andy Bernero

+++Jill's Response+++

Hi Andy,

That Inktomi is tricky to check, isn't it? Last week when I was checking the number of pages Ink had listed for Rank Write, it appeared as if they had only two pages of RankWrite indexed! (It actually had hundreds.) Unfortunately, you can't simply type your URL into an Inktomi-based engine and count on accurate results. The good news is that my friend Alan Perkins has a nifty tool which can check this for you. Just click the HotBot box for Inktomi results. You can also check the number of your pages on other engines with this while you're at it.

Hope this helps!

Getting Framed Sites Listed

Jane Muha

Hi!

I am new to web sites creations. I recently had a friend of mine help me write two web sites. She is a developer and I trusted her, however, she wrote my sites with frames. Am I doomed to not getting indexed in the search engines? To my dismay I found out later that just because people "develop" for a living doesn't mean they know anything about writing a search engine friendly web site. Any help would be appreciated.

Jane

+++Jill's Response+++

Hi Jane,

You'd be surprised how many Web site developers know nothing about search engine optimization. If not created properly, framed sites are indeed difficult to obtain high rankings with. However, they can be indexed if you know a few simple tricks. Please read my article on this subject.

Backward Links Disappearing

Mark Goodman

Hi Jill

I have been reading your excellent articles with great interest. I have installed the Google toolbar and have been looking at backwards links.

Our site is getting over 500 visitors per day, and I know that it is listed on a fair few sites including some of my own. However the Google backward links toolbar says that it cannot find any links?

Typing just [Our Company URL] into Google gives a lot of results. I am confused as to why this is and have noticed it on some other sites we run. Can you shed any light on what am I doing wrong?

Any help gratefully received.

Best regards,

Mark Goodman
Accomplish Web Design
www.accomplish.co.uk

+++Jill's Response+++

Hi Mark,

Lately, it appears that those who own a number of sites on similar topics are running into problems like yours. Many people have created multiple domains for just one company in hopes of having an added presence on the Internet, and specifically within the search engines. Google has been cracking down on this type of thing, and has been experimenting with some automatic filters to sniff them out. Those sites that appear to be inflating their search engine presence this way are often ending up with problems such as the ones you're describing. Is it possible that this is what's happening in your case?