New content cause for drop? Still showing old cache though...

[SamCUK]

About 10 days ago I added about 750 words of new text to a homepage as it was simply a sign up landing page and rather sparse. I presumed that by adding content it would help google understand the content of the site as it is a single page on the root domain (as soon as users sign up they go to a subdomain). Yesterday though the site recieved a huge drop in traffic and now recieves almost no organic traffic at all from google. I've done the obvious like checked WMT for messages but I'm not sure as to what caused the drop. As far as I'm aware there were no confirmed google updates on 7/6/13.

The strange thing is that when I check the google cache its about 3 weeks old so I'm guessing google is using the old cache to reference my site content against search queries. Does that mean the changes I made are not the cause for the drop in rankings? The title tag however has changed when the site is showin in the SERPS. How can that be if google has an old cache?

[Everett]

Samuel, I'd like to start over fresh in answering your question because there are too many thoughts going on here at once. Let's start with the obvious: Can you provide a link so we can have a look at the content you wrote? It is possible that you have crossed some sort of content overoptimization threshold if it seems to be keyword-stuffed.

Regarding timing, Google has a lot of databases and they don't all update simultaneously. It isn't uncommon for the title tag to update in the SERPs before the page content updates in the cached snapshot. Furthermore, algorithmic calculations, including whether or not to apply a filter or penalty, do not always happen at the same speed that indexation happens.

All of this is to say that just because a drop in traffic happened after you updated content doesn't mean the content was the cause of that drop. Post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this) is a logical fallacy. But there does seem to be a strong temporal correlation so it is the obvious place to start ---> Can you share a link to the content?

[BlueprintMarketing]

Hi Sam, Here is info about this from Matt Cutts

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MswMYk05tk&feature=youtu.be

I hope this helps,

use Google Web master tools fech as a google bot then add to index all links

Hope this help,

Tom

[SamCUK]

I only added the subdomain yesterday with a wordpress blog. The main site is html only. The rankings drop were before I added the blog on the subdomain.How I instruct google to recoginise the subdomain as part of the main domain. Is that what you're saying?

Thanks.

[BlueprintMarketing]

Please accept my apology I'm doing this on a cell phone and trying to Doug in a couple other things.

It is definitely because you are using a subdomain is your master site like www.
and if you were to change that then you'll will lose Rank Unless you instruct Google to recognize the root domain as part of the same URL as the sub domain the site is subject to being treated as a new URL with out the subdomain for what ever you use as subdomain this case www. Or not maybe? Regardless what you done is tell Google that this URL is not on the fully qualified domain name which could include www. .is no longer your homepage so it gave it what it we give any brand-new website homepage you need to add the subdomain then it should work.
If you use OSE on a subdomain like test. Example.com it is going to be less powerful check using Moz rank, trust

Until google is made to understand that this is part of the fully qualified domain and simply there to be part of the FQDN and put to index and treat it like its part of the Subdomain that was ranking well already it will not rank just like

I would not want to use some of my subdomain that I use for other purposes like video.Example.com domain it gets low rank It's not relative content wise to my primary domain.

There are exceptions with content delivery networks ranking very well

So

Please do not confuse what I said about CDN being bad for ranking at all. CDN's help rank and having a subdomain that is a CDN.Example.com will. Help rank your site  very highly depending on the CDN and the cookie configuration it gets much more technical regardless I am not saying anything negative about CDN's and ranking it is simply a popular way of creating a subdomain and will most likely boost your ranking I was just using it as an example as it is a very popular way of adding a subdomain

all the best,

tom

[BlueprintMarketing]

Sorry your home page is a sign up only page?

And the news homepage coming up the root domain then you made a change to the structure of it which I'm sure was indexed by Google. Or should be if it's not. It sounds to me as if you should tell Google Webmaster tools that your homepage is a gateway and you do not consider it your actual homepage or to the traditional thing it allows sign-ups along with creating content

[BlueprintMarketing]

3 week old cache could be nothing or could be slow server and bad site design java, too many links on pages , PageRank  you can do wonders with a site audit and a fast host what type of website EG WordPress , just HTML who do you host with?

[BlueprintMarketing]

In google Use site: then whatever your new page is not just your home page to see if its been indexed. If not fetch it in GWT.

Your server sends the changes to your site changes they will show up when the DNS + server say not google.

Google will then index as it likes.

If you took a loos I would look at what you added.
Audit the page then the site.

Some change is normal use Moz with
authority tools or SERPS.com to see SERPS changes.

Use Moz tools with http://marketing.grader.com

To see what you can do to better your site.

Hope this was of help,

Thomas