Site removed from google?

speedracer04

Hello, I am not sure if this is the correct place but I hope it is. Last week for no apparent reason my site was removed and no longer comes up when searching "speed-photos" or something close. All of the other search engines still have it as number one.

I asked on the google forum however the answer does not seem to help, could anyone here help me?

Suggestions I was given

• Add copy to the homepage because I do not have any.
  • I am using the opening slideshow that is posted in the hack forum so there is no copy, should I remove this feature?
• Every page needs attention: http://validator.w3.org/check?verbose=1&uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.speed-photos.net%2F
  • Some of these errors seem related to smugmug not any changes I have made. Is something in my custom code throwing this off?
• Having hundreds of pages using the same title start is not a good idea, make the page title unique and representative of the page content.
  • Does each image count as a page? For example if a gallery had 50 images each image is a new page based on the name of the gallery correct?

Thank you, this is stressing me out and any help would be greatly appreciated.

Phyxius

Hi,

I've checked your account SEO settings and you do currently have visibility set to Yes for both Google search and SmugMug search. If you recently had that set to "No" you will need to wait for Google to re-crawl your page. You do have a meta description set (this is what will display under your link in search results) and meta keywords are set, too.

As you said, your page does come up as the first result in bing and yahoo search.

If you have not changed the search settings is it possible that you had viewing password on the account at one time?

speedracer04

Hi,

Thank you so much for helping, to my knowledge I had not changed the viability section. I changed my location from Ann Arbor, MI to Denver in the description but I would not think it would have to re-crawl the site just because of that. I will give it a few days to see if it starts coming up again.

Maybe I should just look at this as the time to clean it up.

Thanks again.

Phyxius wrote: »

Hi,

I've checked your account SEO settings and you do currently have visibility set to Yes for both Google search and SmugMug search. If you recently had that set to "No" you will need to wait for Google to re-crawl your page. You do have a meta description set (this is what will display under your link in search results) and meta keywords are set, too.

As you said, your page does come up as the first result in bing and yahoo search.

If you have not changed the search settings is it possible that you had viewing password on the account at one time?

AlexWild

Me too!

Last week my site www.alexanderwild.com was Google's #1 hit for "Insect Photography". Now it's not even listed; a "site: alexanderwild.com" search comes up blank.

If this is on Smugmug's end, this had better be fixed and pronto. Most of my business comes in from Google and this will kill me.

mbonocore

Hi All,

I will do some research on my end to see if I can dig up what may have caused this, whether it is on SmugMug's end, or on Google's side.

I will update as soon as I find out some more information.

Michael

AlexWild

Thanks! Let us know what you find out.

AlexWild

I've got an anecdotal report from my blog that this may be a general SmugMug problem:

http://myrmecos.net/2013/02/11/invisible/#comment-61385

AlexWild

I don't know if this info helps, but alexwild.smugmug.com is fine; it's just alexanderwild.com that's invisible to Google.

mbonocore

Alex,

Do you have Google Webmaster tools? http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/

If so, could you please report what you see under the "Health" section, particularly "Blocked URLs" and "Crawl Errors"

Michael

AlexWild

mbonocore wrote: »

Alex,

Do you have Google Webmaster tools? http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/

If so, could you please report what you see under the "Health" section, particularly "Blocked URLs" and "Crawl Errors"

Michael

Alas, I only set up a Webmaster Tools account after I noticed the problem. Thus, it's really new and gives me "no data". I'll let you know as soon as it tells me something.

I've also sent a reinstatement request to Google, but who knows when or if they'll reply.

mbonocore

Thanks Alex!

Speed and Shutter, how about you guys? Do you have Google Webmaster Tools?

Michael

AlexWild

Could be a spurious correlation, but all the affected sites are running a slideshow.

mbonocore

Shawn,

What keywords were you searching that would display your SmugMug on the first page of results?

Michael

mbonocore

Alex,

I noticed you do not have meta keywords set in your account settings. Is this intentional? This as well as Homepage Meta description are vital to SEO. Google is changing all the time..constantly tweeking their algorithms, so having proper keywords and description for your site is vital.

Michael

AlexWild

mbonocore wrote: »

Alex,

I noticed you do not have meta keywords set in your account settings. Is this intentional? This as well as Homepage Meta description are vital to SEO. Google is changing all the time..constantly tweeking their algorithms, so having proper keywords and description for your site is vital.

Michael

While that's a helpful suggestion, Michael, that is NOT the problem. My site is heavily linked from high-profile places like the NYTimes, National Geographic, Scientific American, and others. It was, until yesterday, the #1 hit for "Insect Photography".

Now it's been treated in their index like it doesn't even exist. Even googling "Alex Wild Photography" doesn't bring it up. This is not a small SEO tweak. This is Google flagging something in it like it were spam, or filled will malware, or something.

mbonocore

Hi Alex,

I understand it is not the problem. I just wanted to make sure you were aware.

As I said above, Google is constantly changing, and yes, it does view plenty of sites as suspicious. They never reveal how they come to judge suspicious behavior.

I can verify that we have combed through our code, and nothing has changed on our end in relation to SEO, and we also don't see anything in our code that would cause this.

I think this very witty and truthful page can make you smile for a split second among the Google SEO madness.

http://explicitly.me/robots.txt

Michael

speedracer04

Hello, Sorry I am just getting back to this thread. It is strange that all of use have a slideshow, but don't have any idea if that really means anything. Below is the information that I have from the webmaster tools, I only set this up once the issue happened though.

Site errors
URL:
http://www.speed-photos.net/include/ Error details

In Sitemaps

Linked from


Last crawled: 2/9/13
First detected: 2/9/13
Googlebot couldn't crawl this URL because it points to a non-existent page. Generally, 404s don't harm your site's performance in search, but you can use them to help improve the user experience. More info.





Blocked URL
Blocked URLs


If your site has content you don't want Google or other search engines to access, use a robots.txt file to specify how search engines should crawl your site's content.Check to see that your robots.txt is working as expected. (Any changes you make to the robots.txt content below will not be saved.)
robots.txt file Blocked URLs Downloaded Status http://www.speed-photos.net/robots.txt 23 23 hours ago 200 (Success) robots.txt analysis
Value Result Line 297: Sitemap: http://www.speed-photos.net/sitemap-index.xml Valid Sitemap reference detected# If you're reading this, you belong at a job you love: http://www.smugmug.com/jobs/
# See http://www.smugmug.com/help/emailreal if you'd like to apply to be whitelisted for crawling this site

User-agent: Adsbot-Google
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /date/
Disallow: /hack/
Disallow: /popular/
Disallow: /search/
Disallow: /test/
Disallow: /VIP/
Disallow: /vip/
Disallow: /go/

User-agent: archive.org_bot
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /date/
Disallow: /hack/
Disallow: /popular/
Disallow: /search/
Disallow: /test/
Disallow: /VIP/
Disallow: /vip/
Disallow: /go/

User-agent: baiduspider
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /date/
Disallow: /hack/
Disallow: /popular/
Disallow: /search/
Disallow: /test/
Disallow: /VIP/
Disallow: /vip/
Disallow: /go/

User-agent: ccbot
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /date/
Disallow: /hack/
Disallow: /popular/
Disallow: /search/
Disallow: /test/
Disallow: /VIP/
Disallow: /vip/
Disallow: /go/

User-agent: facebookexternalhit
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /date/
Disallow: /hack/
Disallow: /popular/
Disallow: /search/
Disallow: /test/
Disallow: /VIP/
Disallow: /vip/
Disallow: /go/

User-agent: FunnelBack
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /date/
Disallow: /hack/
Disallow: /popular/
Disallow: /search/
Disallow: /test/
Disallow: /VIP/
Disallow: /vip/
Disallow: /go/

User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /date/
Disallow: /hack/
Disallow: /popular/
Disallow: /search/
Disallow: /test/
Disallow: /VIP/
Disallow: /vip/
Disallow: /go/

User-agent: Googlebot-Image
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /date/
Disallow: /hack/
Disallow: /popular/
Disallow: /search/
Disallow: /test/
Disallow: /VIP/
Disallow: /vip/
Disallow: /go/

User-agent: Googlebot-Mobile
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /date/
Disallow: /hack/
Disallow: /popular/
Disallow: /search/
Disallow: /test/
Disallow: /VIP/
Disallow: /vip/
Disallow: /go/

User-agent: Googlebot-News
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /date/
Disallow: /hack/
Disallow: /popular/
Disallow: /search/
Disallow: /test/
Disallow: /VIP/
Disallow: /vip/
Disallow: /go/

User-agent: Googlebot-Video
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /date/
Disallow: /hack/
Disallow: /popular/
Disallow: /search/
Disallow: /test/
Disallow: /VIP/
Disallow: /vip/
Disallow: /go/

User-agent: Google-Sitemaps
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /date/
Disallow: /hack/
Disallow: /popular/
Disallow: /search/
Disallow: /test/
Disallow: /VIP/
Disallow: /vip/
Disallow: /go/

User-agent: gsa-crawler
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /date/
Disallow: /hack/
Disallow: /popular/
Disallow: /search/
Disallow: /test/
Disallow: /VIP/
Disallow: /vip/
Disallow: /go/

User-agent: ia_archiver
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /date/
Disallow: /hack/
Disallow: /popular/
Disallow: /search/
Disallow: /test/
Disallow: /VIP/
Disallow: /vip/
Disallow: /go/

User-agent: Mediapartners-Google
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /date/
Disallow: /hack/
Disallow: /popular/
Disallow: /search/
Disallow: /test/
Disallow: /VIP/
Disallow: /vip/
Disallow: /go/

User-agent: msnbot
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /date/
Disallow: /hack/
Disallow: /popular/
Disallow: /search/
Disallow: /test/
Disallow: /VIP/
Disallow: /vip/
Disallow: /go/

User-agent: naverbot
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /date/
Disallow: /hack/
Disallow: /popular/
Disallow: /search/
Disallow: /test/
Disallow: /VIP/
Disallow: /vip/
Disallow: /go/

User-agent: ScoutJet
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /date/
Disallow: /hack/
Disallow: /popular/
Disallow: /search/
Disallow: /test/
Disallow: /VIP/
Disallow: /vip/
Disallow: /go/

User-agent: Slurp
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /date/
Disallow: /hack/
Disallow: /popular/
Disallow: /search/
Disallow: /test/
Disallow: /VIP/
Disallow: /vip/
Disallow: /go/

User-agent: Spinn3r
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /date/
Disallow: /hack/
Disallow: /popular/
Disallow: /search/
Disallow: /test/
Disallow: /VIP/
Disallow: /vip/
Disallow: /go/

User-agent: Teoma
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /date/
Disallow: /hack/
Disallow: /popular/
Disallow: /search/
Disallow: /test/
Disallow: /VIP/
Disallow: /vip/
Disallow: /go/

User-agent: twiceler
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /date/
Disallow: /hack/
Disallow: /popular/
Disallow: /search/
Disallow: /test/
Disallow: /VIP/
Disallow: /vip/
Disallow: /go/

User-agent: Twitterbot
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /date/
Disallow: /hack/
Disallow: /popular/
Disallow: /search/
Disallow: /test/
Disallow: /VIP/
Disallow: /vip/
Disallow: /go/

User-agent: Yandex
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /date/
Disallow: /hack/
Disallow: /popular/
Disallow: /search/
Disallow: /test/
Disallow: /VIP/
Disallow: /vip/
Disallow: /go/


User-agent: *
Disallow: /


Sitemap: http://www.speed-photos.net/sitemap-index.

AperturePlus

Hi Michael

I don't want to hi-jack this thread, but where would I ask for some help setting up Webmaster Tools?

Regards
Clive

mbonocore wrote: »

Alex,

Do you have Google Webmaster tools? http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/

Michael

mbonocore

Hijack away Clive!

Check out this page. The forum help is really valuable.

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/webmasters

Michael

AperturePlus

Thanks! My question is a Smugmug related one, though. I am battling to put the Google verification code into the head on my site.

BigRed

My site seems to be experiencing the same problem. A Google search for "Janice Browne" or "Janice Browne Photography" used to bring up my SmugMug home page in the 1st or 2nd position, but now there's just one odd keyword page way down. I haven't changed any metadata. Bing & Yahoo are working normally.

Google Webmaster Tools report no new messages or recent critical issues, but data isn't up to date. Under Health:

• Crawl Stats -- Normal numbers up to Feb. 9.
• Blocked URLs -- Robots.txt blocked 1,119 URLs on Feb. 10.
• Fetch as Google -- Just ran successfully on home page and /galleries
• Crawl Errors -- No site errors as of Feb. 9. A handful of URL errors 2/9-2/11 on odd pages (not home pages).
• Index Status -- Indexed 10,002 pages Feb. 10.
• Malware -- None detected.

Any ideas yet?

BigRed

AlexWild wrote: »

I don't know if this info helps, but alexwild.smugmug.com is fine; it's just alexanderwild.com that's invisible to Google.

Good news for Alex -- I just noticed that your custom domain is already back at the top of Google search results. Congratulations!

After experiencing a bug with my Google+ streams last night, I'm starting to suspect that Google is having some isolated hiccups. (How's that for scientific?!)

mbonocore

Alex had an issue with his custom URL I believe, that may not have been related to this. I would continue refreshing the searches over the next couple days, as I think (and hope) that Google changes their algorithm or fixes the issue that is preventing you from being displayed.

Thanks for the info Jan!

Michael

mbrady

I've noticed that in my referrer stats that the last few weeks Bing has jumped to the first spot with Google pushed down to second. And along with that, my daily hits have dropped significantly. Keep in mind that I just run a person site and don't promote in any way and on a good day only get 100-200 hits. But lately that's dropped to around 5-20 hits per day at most.

speedracer04

Hmm, mine seems to be back also. Next time I will wait a little longer before panicking.

Thanks for helping to look into this though.

BigRed wrote: »

Good news for Alex -- I just noticed that your custom domain is already back at the top of Google search results. Congratulations!

After experiencing a bug with my Google+ streams last night, I'm starting to suspect that Google is having some isolated hiccups. (How's that for scientific?!)

mbonocore

Glad to hear everyone is back up. Shawn, we have no control over how Google crawls and populates their results. Our user's SEO results are up there as the best in the industry.

But in case anyone wants to further their SEO rankings, check out this page

http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/84519-how-can-i-maximize-my-search-engine-relevance-

And also download this ebook for free with the coupon code SMUGMUGSEO

http://www.photographers-seo.com/seo/reviews/smugmug-seo-tips/

Michael

BigRed

Hooray! I'm back in Google too. While it's frustrating not to know what happened, at least all is well now. Thanks for your support, Michael.

mbonocore

You are most very welcome Janice! Glad to see everyone is back up!

Clive, can you post the very specific question you have regarding how to integrate the Google webmaster tools as a new thread here in the Support forum? Also, you can always email help@SmugMug.com

Thanks everyone!

Michael

Darter02

I just stumbled onto this thread. Curious, I did a google search for "photographer" in my town. I used to appear as number 2. I now don't appear at all!!!

I went to Google Webmaster Tools and found this:



The server errors all say this:

Googlebot couldn't access the contents of this URL because the server had an internal error when trying to process the request. These errors tend to be with the server itself, not with the request.

What the heck?

And yes, my main page has a slideshow. The stock one that comes from Smugmug.

rainforest1155

What are the specific errors you're getting? They should be displayed below the graph for the different "url error" categories.

Darter02

Sorry I didn't reply over the weekend. We had family stuff that kept me offline.

Here are today's crawl errors. There has been a sharp rise too!