2007 Google Dropped Website Checklist

In the past, Google used to be pretty predictable. In fact, you could almost guarantee rankings based on how Google continously ranked leading websites. Now, the job is nowhere near as easy. Pages come and go and in Google. A lot. If you own more than one website, you’re bound to noticed that certain websites drop out of the index often.

After analyzing these sites quite a bit I’ve come to a conclusion: Google is hosed and there’s not much you can do when your site drops. But before making a decision like this, it’s extremely important to double check all of your work. Better yet, triple or quadruple-check it for accuracy.

Take into account that I’m speaking about websites that are configured for “long tail search”. The pages are designed to pick up small-competitive phrases, and when the site is “on” it works completely. When the site is “off” the entire domain disappears for ALL searches. This indicates whatever offends Google happens on a “sitewide basis”.

Since we’re dealing with something “sitewide” the concepts of penalties and bans immediatedly comes to mind, although it’s doubtful that’s the entire truth, either.

Here’s what I look for in the case of sitewide long tail rankings drop.

1) Broken links. This is especially true of a template-driven website. One mistake can multiply dozens or hundreds of times, in effect, poisoning the website.

2) Lack of a sitemap. I use both a website-based sitemap and a Google XML sitemap. Even with such implicit instructions, Google still seems to have a lot of trouble figuring out what site structure is about, so don’t make it harder on them than it needs to be.

3) Mistakes in your .htaccess file. Double and triple check any mod_rewrite rules you use, especially in the area of 301 redirection.

4) What is your URL structure like? A complicated multi-sub-directory structure (especially one with pseudo-directories and subdirectories) can muck up quite a bit if you aren’t careful. For new sites I’ve been using a Unary based URL structure to keep things simple.

5) Have you made wholesale changes to parts of your website? If you have, that could very well be your answer right there. Sometimes changes shake things up, especially when the old and new pages aren’t settled into the index.

6) Make sure you’re not banned. Do a site and link command. See if you’re listed at all. If your site was listed and is now dropped, you might very well be banned. You need to ask for reinclusion if this is the case. Repent and beg forgiveness!

7) Make sure you’re not involved in any linking schemes. If the link made you a bit queasy when you engineered it, perhaps you’ve run afoul of Google’s unnatural linking directive? Any system which promises automated link building will end up with you in trouble. Stick to the well-lit roads when it comes to link acquisition.

Suspect the competition. Sometimes the truth is as simple as you getting your ass kicked. In the case of substantial falls (100s of places) it’s doubtful that competition is why you fell, but you can almost certainly learn something from those sites in first (sometimes).

9) Make changes based on usability only. If your website is dropping and you don’t have any more traffic from Google (and that was your entire revenue source) it’s easy to get depressed. What’s not easy to do is look at your site realistically and assess where it could be improved. But that’s exactly what you need to do be doing. In the end, Google is only source of traffic and repeat visitors are how you’ll really make your money online.

10) Have someone else look at the site. If you can find an experience person to look at the site, perhaps they can find the reason for your woes. Fresh perspective may make a difference because all of us are biased about our own websites, especially if they’re making us money.

If you do all of these things and can’t find the problem, it’s because Google is broken

You can rest easy once you’ve checked for all of these issues. If you haven’t found any problems, then you’re merely dealing with Google having problems. It happens all the time, and it can happy to any of us. But always make sure that your end is right, before you start complaining!