Google Penalty?

17wyncrest

17wyncrest

Junior Member
Joined
Apr 11, 2013
Messages
103
Reaction score
23
In a matter of two days, traffic on one of my websites dropped 95%. The site had been running for one year and traffic was gradually increasing. In recent months it was doing 800 clicks a day. Now since the drop, it has been doing 20 clicks a day for about one week. There are no manual actions in Search Console. I do work some black hat strategies so I'm not surprised if a "penalty" occurred... although I mostly stay on the "safer" side.

One thing that I did notice is that if I do a google search site:url - the home page of my website (the page that had the highest ranking) is not the first of the results. Typically when I do this on a site, the home page is always on top. The home page is now listed at the bottom of the results.

Could this be an identifier of a google penalty? Has anyone else experience this and/or have any advice?

Thanks!

Screen Shot 2020-10-02 at 11.08.40 AM.png
 
Advertise on BHW
Google had issues with canonical URLs. My site has been raped as well. Slowly returning to normal today.
 
Sounds like a penalty but it's weird that you're not seeing anything in the console.
 
Nargil said:
Google had issues with canonical URLs.
Click to expand...

Hi, thanks for your response. Would you please be able to expand on this? What do these issues look like?
 
17wyncrest said:
Hi, thanks for your response. Would you please be able to expand on this? What do these issues look like?
Click to expand...

It triggered a duplicate content basically. For more details, ask Mueller. My ranking is back already, seems fixed.
 
Check if you have any manual actions or security issues in GSC. Find your top traffic pages, and check if they are not deindexed. These 2 things should clarify what's wrong with the traffic. If both are positive, then you should check rank drops on top pages. I'm sure one of them will be the problem.
 
Pavan Teja 1 said:
Check if you have any manual actions or security issues in GSC. Find your top traffic pages, and check if they are not deindexed. These 2 things should clarify what's wrong with the traffic. If both are positive, then you should check rank drops on top pages. I'm sure one of them will be the problem.
Click to expand...

Thank you for your insight. GSC states "No Issues Detected" for both security and manual actions. If I crawl the specific main pages in GSC, all the boxes check out... "Submitted and indexed." In my original message, one thing that I did notice is that if I do a google search "site:URL" - the home page of my website (the page that had the highest ranking) is not the first of the results. Typically when I do this on a site, the home page is always on top. The home page is now listed at the bottom of the results.
 
Happened to me, worst was on Monday then it slowly recovered, indexing new pages was hugely delayed but it worked in the end, Thursday I thought all is fixed, traffic went back to normal but then Friday and Saturday came, again HUUUGE indexing issues - not canonical issues, just indexing, traffic is -70% compared to last weekend.

I have around 34k indexed, all white hat (should say the whitest white hat in the white hat world) and quality content. Seeing again trouble for my competition, as well.

So my recovery was not really a full recovery. Just a heads up.
 
17wyncrest said:
Thank you for your insight. GSC states "No Issues Detected" for both security and manual actions. If I crawl the specific main pages in GSC, all the boxes check out... "Submitted and indexed." In my original message, one thing that I did notice is that if I do a google search "site:URL" - the home page of my website (the page that had the highest ranking) is not the first of the results. Typically when I do this on a site, the home page is always on top. The home page is now listed at the bottom of the results.
Click to expand...
Seems like the problem is with Google. You need to wait for them to fix the indexing & canonical issues.
 
its happening to a lot of people a guy that i know had 3000 a week now his averaging 40 but his telling me that its growing back so maybe its from google its self
 
For me, the problem isn't restored and my traffic is still consistently 95% down. I am waiting for Google to fix the indexing/canonical issues but still concerned that this may not be the issue. My home page is currently indexed and when I complete a URL Inspection, it does not show a duplicated page issue. The "user-declared canonical" is correct via GSC. According to the tweet below, this issue should be discoverable.

Screen Shot 2020-10-04 at 8.34.12 AM.png

Has anyone experienced a significant drop in traffic, then seen they're home page at the end of a "site:URL" result? I am thinking there's the chance that Google silently penalized my website and removed all the trust from the home page... therefore the home page is at the bottom of the results.

Again, I am waiting to see Google fix their issue from the tweets but asking if anyone has experienced anything like this either now or in the past, or has similar thoughts.

Thanks!
 
Search console and check indexed links. I just sold one and the buyer got a heart attack because top 2 pages were deindexed. But they reappeared just a few days later. 23rd sep this happened
 
Since multiple members keep referring to check GSC, here is the URL inspection.

Screen Shot 2020-10-05 at 7.46.56 AM.png

The user-declared canonical is correct for the crawled page. All the sites pages in GSC coverage are indexed.

Still, the main thing that has caught my eye is the home page at the end of a "site:URL" result. I am thinking there's the chance that Google silently penalized my website and removed all the trust from the home page... therefore the home page is at the bottom of the results. Has anyone experience seeing their home page at the end of a "site:URL" result?
 
Test other pages. Go to coverage->Excluded->Crawled - currently no indexed
If there are pages that are not indexed, and they should be, and if there are lots of them, it might be the reason why your traffic dropped. Google has issues with indexing new pages, plus they deindex some old pages for no reason and they removed the 'request indexing' option. If this is the case (your pages are deindexed) you can find a solution to request indexing using different types of scripts since you can't do that in GSC. If you're not a developer, find one with a decent experience and he/she should be able to help you with this :)
 
Advertise on BHW
You must log in or register to reply here.
Sign up now!

Main Menu

Home Main Forum List Black Hat SEO White Hat SEO BHW Newbie Guide Blogging Black Hat Tools Social Media Downloads

Marketplace

Account Selling Content / Copywriting EBooks / Methods Hosting Misc Proxies For Sale SEO - Link building SEO - Packages Social Media Social Media - Panels Web Design More

Making Money

Affiliate Programs Hire a Freelancer IM Journeys Making Money Pay Per Click Site Flipping Want to Buy

BlackHat World

Dispute Resolution Forum Suggestions & Feedback Introductions Lounge
Back
Top