High ranked web site on Google GONE - but webspam team says nothing wrong
-
We purchased several weeks ago a .org blog that has been highly ranked (number 1 on competetive keywords) for at least a year.
it is a blog
We moved the blog to our IP range and it went from #1 on top keyword and first page on another to the home page just gone.
Now there was a secondary page indexed that stayed on page 5 for the keyword the home page was ranked #1 but the home page (which was high ranked page is just gone)
We wrote the Google Webmaster team for reconsideration but they wrote back and said the web spam team said nothing wrong.
A contact of mine who works for one of the most well known SEO compaines in the world says because we moved it the site could disappear for a week or so but the "algos would realize" and return it to that top spot soon.
Does anyone know anything about moving a site to new IP and issues that can result?
-
Glad I was able to help - Can you kindly close out the question by marking my answer "Good Answer" - Thanks
-
Keri
Back at #1 after a few weeks just gone....crazy! I dont get it but glad to see it back where it was
Thanks for the help and great forum
-
Thank you Irving! I don't always get a chance to go back to the older posts, but I do like to do this when I have time available. It's often interesting to get the follow-up report and see how things turned out.
-
U guys are really great - following up on old posts and trying to help out. Just sheer amazing.
-
Hi! I'm following up on older questions. Did Irving's answer help you? How is the site doing now?
-
Here is an article I wrote a year ago. Not all the bullet points are applicable in all circumstances. Your site can undergo a new evaluation by Google and it may not have enough muster to survive the new world.
It is the general understanding that the “trust” for a domain is reset if any domain registration info changes. Even changing an IP address will cause the search engine to reevaluate link counts and other aspects of the web site. This document provides best SEO practices for changing an IP address and DNS server. Following all these steps will not guarantee that a site will not be impacted after the change, since as noted above there are some factors that are out of our control. The location of the new IP address also might impact Google rankings as Google sometimes like to show results based on locality matching.
Steps for Moving to a new IP address and DNS Server
- Clean up all existing internal site link errors. Many errors found on a fresh crawl may trigger a bad reaction by the search engines.
- Freeze any content changes one week prior and one week after the changeover.
- Inform contacts at Google and Bing when exactly changes will take place to the IP and DNS records.
- Check the new IP address and research if it has been blacklisted in any country whether it will be neighbor to black listed websites. Google does indirectly associate websites which reside on same class C IP address.
- If possible, it is best to ask the hosting provider for a fresh IP as opposed to a recycled IP address. Check on the history of IP addresses using a tool from ip-details.com.
- Test on local machines. Change the local dns to point to the new ip’s before going live, to verify the new servers are working.
- Make sure that all monitoring services are up and running and very thoroughly tested. Also, some services maybe tied to the old site IP addresses, make sure to check if you have any and update the IP address.
- Change the TTL (Time To Live) value of the DNS configuration to something short, like five minutes (300 seconds). This will tell web browsers to re-check the site IP address every five minutes.
- Copy site content to the new hosting environment, and make sure it is live on the new IP address.
- Test to make sure new server is working correctly. Check internal linking at the new location to make sure there aren’t any broken links. We will use crawling tools Xenu’s Link Sleuth and Screaming Frog that will crawl the website and make sure everything is in order.
- Change the DNS settings so the hostname points to the new IP address. DNS propagation is usually very fast in most locations. (approximate 30 minutes)
- All web pages need to be reachable during the whole process by Googlebot and users of course.
- Keep the old server on until cached DNS records expire. The reason to do this is because DNS records are cached for varying times at various points all over the internet. You can tell the old server is no longer needed when traffic drops to zero. Check the logs of the old server to get a clear indication when the crawling process is terminated by Googlebot.
- Check the logs of the new server to see when Googlebot starts crawling the site on the new IP address. Log into Webmaster Tools and monitor any crawl errors. Once Googlebot is happily crawling on the new IP address, you are all set as far as Google is concerned. (Errors in Webmaster can take 24-48 hours to display)
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How to rank a page on established site quickly
Hi, I'm looking for information about how I can rank an e-commerce category page quickly from a link building perspective. It usually takes me 6-12 months to rank these pages within the top 3 spots with link building, but I would like to get results faster. My site is established for more than 10 years and performs well in Google organic search. Here is what usually works over a 6-12 month time span: 15-40 links within articles on DA 15-60 sites, built within 6-12 months More than 75% of the links are from blogs Variety of anchor text Combination of follow/nofollow Deep links to product pages within the category we're trying to rank Might be important to note that it was easy for us to get category pages listed in DMOZ categories, when it was still around but it didn't seem to play any role in getting ranked faster. Note: We only build links on real sites with real traffic and decent performance metrics. No PBNs or other crap sites. I'd sincerely appreciate it if anyone can make any suggestions or point me towards helpful info. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Choice0 -
Irrelevant Landing Pages are Ranking on Google SERP
Hi, I have noticed that Google likes to rank random pages on my site higher in the SERPs than the actual relevant content page for that service. Please let me know why it is happening?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RuchiPardal0 -
Two Similar Profile Pages: One Ranks 2 in Google - The Other 150
My client's site has a directory of doctors on it's site and they are targeting weight loss surgery patients. The problem is that when searching "weight loss surgeon richmond va" one of the doctor's profiles ranks 2nd in Google organic results while the other is not even in the first 10 pages. Both have very similar link profiles and I have checked all the technical things like noindex tags, canonicals, etc to see if that might be the problem but it all checked out. The second doctor's profile IS indexed in Google, just not ranking. We have done a lot of work to push his profile page up in the rankings but all efforts seem to have fallen short. Here are the profiles: http://advancedsurgicalpartnersofva.com/physicians/profile/Gregory-L-Schroder-MD - ranks 2 in Google http://advancedsurgicalpartnersofva.com/physicians/profile/Matthew-Brengman-MD-FACS - does not rank Any ideas would be much appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | chrisvogel0 -
Can Google penalize your site without sending you a Manual Spam Action?
I had a massive drop in traffic in Mid 2013, and a slow reduction since then. It has sort of leveled off now, but it's not exactly climbing I've never received a manual spam action. The answer to my question seems pretty obvious, now that I write it out... but have you heard of anyone getting penalized, without specifically receiving a warning? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DavidC.0 -
Infographic Google’s 200 Ranking Factors by Backlinko
Wow, I just found this awesome Infographic created by Brian Dean of Backlinko. It's really nice share by him, putting all efforts together into creating this Top 200 Ranking Factors what everybody wants to know now. I am just right now seeing and observing the whole things and points mentioned in this infographic and like to want you all of Moz members to discuss over this. 069581c30c35cb5a6294cfc6e3799db4.jpg
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Futura1 -
How do you achieve Google Authorship verification on a site with no clearly defined authors?
Google Authorship seems to be the current buzz topic in SEO. It seems perfect for people who write lots of articles of blog posts, but what about sites where the main focus isn't articles e.g. e-commerce sites? Can the website as a whole get verified?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | statman870 -
Web site Migration from one server to another does cause any impact in SEO rankings?
Dear Seomoz members, We are going to migrate our website to different server location(new data center). does this impact on our SEO rankings? If so what and all checklist i have to do....to retain my SEO rankings. Regards, kathiravan subbiah Caratlane.com
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kathiravan0 -
Does having many 302 redirects on a site hurt rankings?
I am working with an affiliate website which has many product listings but the "Buy Now" button on each product listing is an external link (affiliate link) to the appropriate product page on the actual website where the product can be bought. Each of these external links passes through an internal redirect, which is implemented as a 302. Consequently, when SEOmoz crawls that site, it gives me a warning that there are hundreds of 302 redirects on the site. Do you think this will hurt the site's potential to rank? Should I remove the redirects and leave them as direct links to the external site?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AlexFusman0