Bing rank drop off for multiple sites

[rosstaylor]

Hi Mozzers,

Seeing some wacky stuff going on on some sites I manage. In more than a few, the ranking on bing has dropped basically overnight from page one spots to not being found on the first 100 positions.

Anyone else seeing similar results?

Some of the sites are fairly new, some have been around for ages, some are wordpress, some are not. I've been searching for some news of a big change on bing, but keep reading about bing dropping the thin sites during black friday.

In one example, I had the site set up in BWT for a while, and had a look at the data. The reports show that the pages are crawled, the index summary shows pages indexed, and there seems to be no crawl errors, but rankings are absolutely gone. Also, I can't see the sites in bing if I search "site:example.com" in bing.

Here's 2 examples, the first would make sense since it's pretty thin as I havent added much content yet:

http://homewindowtint.org

but this one doesn't make sense to me. Sure there's a few errors, but to be dropped like a rock seems weird

http://www.ahmedandsukaram.com

[mariella]

Dan,

Thanks for your reply.  I have enabled the XML Sitemap via Yoast SEO.

I also wanted to share with you the below note I received from Bing Customer Service.

Could you please let me know what a webserver log is, where I can find it, and if I should be concerned with sharing that type of information?

Best regards,

-David

|

| Microsoft Customer Support |

	4:35 AM (5 hours ago)

| to me |

|

Hi David,This is Manny from Bing Technical Support.Since you verified that nothing is blocking Bing bots from visiting your site, may we request for your webserver logs so we can investigate further. Kindly attach the logs on your next reply to us.Regards,Manny
Bing Technical Support

---

--- Original Message ---
From : "David Rachelson"  
Sent : Sunday, June 24, 2012 1:19:17 PM UTC
To : "Microsoft Customer Support"  
Subject : Re: SRX1179171626ID - Bing:Other

Manny,Thanks for your note and quick reply.We had not done anything to block the bingbots.Could you please let me know what can be done to resolve this problem?Best regards,-David

On Sun, Jun 24, 2012 at 12:55 AM, Microsoft Customer Support <SERCH.SRCH.WW.00.EN.NCO.QUE.TS.T01.SPT.00.EM@css.one.microsoft.com> wrote:

Hi David,Thank you for contacting Bing Technical Support. My name is Manny.I understand that your site is no longer ranked in Bing. Your site, www.onlinemathcourses.org, was ranked number 5 for the phrase online math courses on 6/08/12 and then, on 6/15/12 we were no longer in the top 50. I know the urgency of this issue. Allow me to help you.Investigation shows that your site was being crawled and indexed by Bing but lately, we could not connect to your site and getting fetching error. Could you please verify that the bingbots are not being blocked by you? I further checked on your site and it is showing up okay.Once you verified that Bing is not being blocked, kindly get back to us and we will see what we can do. If you have other details that can help us in our investigation, please include them on your next reply.We look forward to hearing from you soon. Thank you for contacting Bing Technical Support.Regards,Manny
Bing Technical Support

[evolvingSEO]

David

It seems the error has been corrected in Google. However it remains in Bing. One huge thing I'd recommend would be the addition of an XML Sitemap. Bing has been known to say they follow it strictly, as long as there's no errors in it.

You're using Yoast SEO, so simply go into the Yoast settings and turn it on. Perhaps the addition of the XML sitemap will give a clear directive to Bing to index your homepage.

I didn't really check a lot further, but the sitemap is good to have in any case, so you may want to start there.

-Dan

[mariella]

Dan,

Thanks for your note and advice.  I'm new to SEO and SEOmoz, so any input is much appreciated!

I will take a look at Bing Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics to see what I find.

Thanks again,

-David

[evolvingSEO]

David

Just an FYI - if you open a new question you're more likely to get a response. Not that we mind so much, but I only saw this question because I received an email since I'd already replied to the thread. No worries, just an FYI

Anyhow... just taking a quick look here...

I ran a site: search in Bing, and it appears your home page is not in the index.

It IS in Google's index, but ranks 3rd when I do a site: search.

The short of it is, something is causing both Bing and Google to devalue the index page.

This could be for a variety of reasons, but I suggest you perhaps check out the new Bing webmaster tools as well as check for any errors/warnings in Google webmaster tools.

A quick look and I don't see anything - but when I get more time to check it out, I'll take a better look.

-Dan

[mariella]

I am having this problem as well.  My website, www.onlinemathcourses.org, according to SEOMoz, was number 5 for the phrase: online math courses on 6/8/12.  One week later, the same phrase left the top 50, along with virtually every other targeted keyword/phrase.  Even if you type our url into the bing search bar we don't show up.  This seems very bizarre and is disconcerting because we generate business via our website.

Any ideas on why this may be happening?

Thanks very much.

[mariella]

I am having this problem as well.  My website, www.onlinemathcourses.org, according to SEOMoz, was number 5 for the phrase: online math courses on 6/8/12.  One week later, the same phrase left the top 50, along with virtually every other targeted keyword/phrase.  Even if you type our url into the bing search bar we don't show up.  This seems very bizarre and is disconcerting because we generate business via our website.

Any ideas on why this may be happening?

Thanks very much.

[rosstaylor]

OK so whatever it was seems to have righted itself now for the most part. Nothing has changed on my end, can't explain at all why I was seeing what I was seeing.

However, thanks to Dan Shure for doing his best to provide some direction.

Ross

[rosstaylor]

OK so rank tracker uses your local ip settings to make the search. So I connected to a remote vpn, did the same search, and the rankings came back!

So I did the site:search, I see the full list of indexed url's, but if i disconnect from the vpn, then refresh, gone!

So let's say for instance bing is somehow serving me different results.. how does it know which sites to hide from me?

So crazy.

[evolvingSEO]

Ross

Bing could be doing something wonky... see where I show you on that search - http://screencast.com/t/2KGmi5gWO

I just did a post on my site this week about some weird Bing results, so I wouldn't be surprised if there is something weird happening.

The big question is, how is traffic? Did you check analytics? Its not impossible it could be a rank tracker error.

-Dan

[rosstaylor]

Image added to show what I'm seeing.

Both are showing? Hrmmm... I can now see ahmedandsukaram.com on site search, but it's only 1 inside page showing, and homewindowtint.org still doesn't show....

OK so check this out, the reports using ranktracker from SEO power suite show a ranking of 8 on 1/12/2012 and zero rank on 1/13/2012 for the search term san mateo dui lawyer. So what changed between the 12th and 13th?

Well, one thing changed... I did a fresh install on my pc... but what's that got to do with it? So thinking maybe my install of rank tracker has an issue, I search manually on bing with chrome. No ranking. Then I look on SEOMOZ ranktracker.... it's ranked page 1 position 10!

This is ludicrous but is something affecting the way I see bing's results based on my computer? Is it showing me different results because of my ip? Is bing just mad at me because I installed Chrome first? Will keep exploring to see what's going on.

2co0l6x.jpg

[evolvingSEO]

Hi

Both sites are showing for me in Bing on site: search, searches for the domain and brand name searches.  What are the other searches/keywords where ranking has dropped?  At quick glance I didn't see anything out of the ordinary in Bing.

-Dan