Google fucks things up, ranks the wrong page.

[Buzzika]

I have this website in gaming niche which receives around 12k exact searches. Put up a wp site. Published related content, and one seo keyword targeted page which I set as the website's home page.

Everything is going as planned and soon am around #15-20 for the main keyword. Then it happens, am dropped down to 300, okay nothing to be surprised of, i have had it happen numerous time. The weird thing is:
Instead of my main page, google has started ranking the "about" page of my website. WTF?

I have changed the permalinks heavily, this won't effect my work as all my backlinks are towards the domain. Publishing new content and resubmitting sitemap to google.

Let's see how it goes.

 

[digibing]

Use a sitemap. Put the relevance of your "about me" page to 0.

 

[the_demon]

use meta noindex noarchive on the about page

 

[jb2008]

That won't make any difference, they will just rank another subpage (anything other than the page you're actually targeting). This is very common when linkbuilding is heavy on a new site.

 

[TermsB]

Just be patient, it will work itself out soon enough. Have had it happen many times with newer sites.

 

[axus_auto]

I think they call it the sandbox

 

[ExecutiveCloser]

I think they call it the sandbox

no, they dont.

 

[xpleet]

Make a 301 redirection from the wrong ranked page to the wanted page.

 

[Nuker]

do nothing it's normal, the main page will rank again

 

[fieldinspector]

It's not the sandbox and a 301 redirect is not worth it. This happens all the time with new sites. It takes on average a week to two weeks for it to rank the homepage. In the meantime keep your link building going and don't worry too much about it, it will sort itself out.

 

[Shah_G]

It's definately not sandboxed...keep building links on a slow pace .
This exact thing happened to one of my new wp sites a few months back, but it got sorted out on it's own after around 10-13 days.

 

[csfuk]

I had that happened before. Found out that this was dup content penalty. Changed the content and it went back up.

Regards

 

[PinkyX]

It happens, you just have to wait and google will rank the desired page again.
cheers

 

[something77]

Google is an idiot like the school bully, they boss you around, steal your lunch money, flush your head down the toilet, they control the playground so they decide who is on top, but they are still an idiot.

 

[jon_xx_x]

Just be patient, it will work itself out soon enough. Have had it happen many times with newer sites.

This.

I think they call it the sandbox

Def not this.

Make a 301 redirection from the wrong ranked page to the wanted page.

Def not this.

do nothing it's normal, the main page will rank again

This.

Just keep building quality links to it.

 

[Buzzika]

hmmm... i re-did the whole site structure... noinedex for the about page.... it then ranked my author pages. It is clear that no matter what I do, it will rank the other page. I have now put noindex on every page except posts and content pages. I will wait another 4 days and after that i will rewrite all the content on the site.

 

[jb2008]

If it's a new site then it is the sandbox.

If you hammer the home page, the home page will go to the oblivion. It might dance about for a bit but it will go to the oblivion eventually. And there it shall stay.

Then strangely on page 4-10 you will see your site, but a random subpage, for the home page keyword. The page ranked will change around.

 

[cloakndagger]

Just be patient, it will work itself out soon enough. Have had it happen many times with newer sites.

The most sensible answer on this page.You've probably messed it all up by panicking and changing everything.

Honestly I feel people don't read the forums or simply do not know what they are doing.

So in fact you've fucked things up yourself by panicking.I love when I see a page instead of my site because I know I'm on the right path.

If your site happens to come back after listening to the other advice here about re-directs,changing the sitemap(WHY?) or by you changing so much it will indeed be a miracle,it's possible.

This is what they call the google dance,you are not sandboxed,google finds your site relevant it's just not sure where you're going so it substitutes a page for your site,within days your homepage WOULD have replaced the page showing.

In fact by changing so much ,blocking pages you're telling google your site is NOT relevant.......

 

[domainmadness]

What happened to your site OP?