Ouch! Page Dropped By Google!

Traffic Generation

There are many reasons why a page could be dropped from Google. The key for you is to figure out why and whether you should do anything about it. Let's start with these general possibilities...

• Pages have duplicate content. This could be from using an article from an article directory, without reworking and adding lots of original content to the page. Or it could be from affiliate products, where the same wording about the products is found on dozens of other affiliates' pages.

• A site has copied another site's content. That duplicate content may affect the latter's rankings.

• Google doesn't trust the links into the site. They may come from spammy neighborhoods, link farms, or from sites known to sell links.

• Google doesn't trust the links out from the site. These links are going to sites unrelated to the content of the page or site.

• Pages are orphans (pages that have lost all links in to them), or are very far from the home page, with just one link to them, likely from the next higher level. If Google has to do a really deep crawl to find a page, it is more likely to get dropped (if it ever lists it, that is).

• The site is new. Expect a higher percentage of pages to get dropped from time to time. As the site grows in size, the number of inbound links increases and the overall reputation with Google goes up, that will stop.

• The site is huge with lots of similar pages that don't add a whole lot of value. Don't expect to get them all listed. For example, let's say that you have a tour of Anguilla where each page is very similar, with a small amount of unique content on each page. Don't expect Google to list them all. And don't worry about that, either. The overall tour is still of value to your visitor.

The reason behind a delisted page is not always obvious. What if an important page (ex., high demand keyword or high CPC-value keyword) has been dropped? Remember, that it is "important" only in your eyes. Google is "seeing" something that tells it that this page is not very valuable (or that it's not well done).

There are some things that you can do to truthfully change Google's perception...

1) Double-check that every page has a Description in the source code, and that it adequately, and uniquely, describes the page. Don't use the same Description for several pages. Also make sure that the first paragraph of every page is unique.

This applies particularly to sites that have pages about the same topic, but with different subjects (for example, a page for every hockey team in the NHL). Using this example, you would create a unique Description and a unique first paragraph for each team's page.

2) Add more content. The more unique, quality content on each page, the better is your chance of moving into Google's main index.

3) Double-check that you don't have duplicate content on your pages. Also check that no one is duplicating your pages.

If you have pages that have a lot of duplicate content that you can't change (ex., affiliate pages) or orphan pages that you need (ex., for PPC campaigns), consider adding a Robots Meta tag (NOINDEX) on those pages. That specifically tells Google not to index them.

4) Make sure that every page on your site has at least two links to it. One should be from the level just above it. The second one (or more) should come from other related pages.

5) Don't link to unrelated sites, link farms, or spammy sites. Linking to them will lower your page's or site's value in Google's ranking calculations. Link only to sites that you would want to click to if you were a visitor to your site.

Top tip...

Once you've made the changes above, you can switch your focus back to adding quality relevant content to your site. As long as every page is original, you'll be providing what Google wants... a high-value experience for its users. And it won't be long before your pages get picked up by Google.

Also see this related post, "How Google May Knock You Out This Year, And What To Do About It."