Fetch as Google temporarily lifting a penalty?
-
Hi, I was wondering if anyone has seen this behaviour before? I haven't!
We have around 20 sites and each one has lost all of its rankings (not in index at all) since the medic update apart from specifying a location on the end of a keyword.
I set to work trying to identify a common issue on each site, and began by improving speed issues in insights. On one site I realised that after I had improved the speed score and then clicked "fetch as google" the rankings for that site all returned within seconds.
I did the same for a different site and exactly the same result. Cue me jumping around the office in delight! The pressure is off, people's jobs are safe, have a cup of tea and relax.
Unfortunately this relief only lasted between 6-12 hours and then the rankings go again. To me it seems like what is happening is that the sites are all suffering from some kind of on page penalty which is lifted until the page can be assessed again and when it is the penalty is reapplied.
Not one to give up I set about methodically making changes until I found the issue. So far I have completely rewritten a site, reduced over use of keywords, added over 2000 words to homepage. Clicked fetch as google and the site came back - for 6 hours..... So then I gave the site a completely fresh redesign and again clicked fetch as google, and same result. Since doing all that, I have swapped over to https, 301 redirected etc and now the site is completely gone and won't come back after fetching as google. Uh!
So before I dig myself even deeper, has anyone any ideas?
Thanks.
-
Unfortunately it's going to be difficult to dig deeper into this without knowing the site - are you able to share the details?
I'm with Martijn that there should be no connection between these features. The only thing I have come up with that could plausibly cause anything like what you are seeing is something related to JavaScript execution (and this would not be a feature working as it's intended to work). We know that there is a delay between initial indexing and JavaScript indexing. It seems plausible to me that if there were a serious enough issue with the JS execution / indexing that either that step failed or that it made the site look spammy enough to get penalised that we could conceivably see the behaviour you describe - where it ranks until Google executes the JS.
I guess my first step to investigating this would be to look at the JS requirements on your site and consider the differences between with and without JS rendering (and if there is any issue with the chrome version that we know executes the JS render at Google's side).
Interested to hear if you discover anything more.
-
Hey, it’s good to have a fresh pair of eyes on it. There may something else as simple that I’ve missed.
Rankings check on my Mac, 2 x webservers via Remote Desktop in different locations, 2 x independent ranking checkers and they all show the same... recovery for 12ish hours, along with traffic and conversions. Then nothing.
When the rankings dissapear I can hit fetch as again straight away and they come straight back. If I leave it for days, then they’re gone for days, until I hit fetch then straight back.
cheers
-
Ok, that still doesn't mean that they're not personalized. But I'll skip on that part for now.
In the end, the changes that you're seeing aren't triggered by what you're doing with Fetch as Google. I'll leave it up to some others to see if they'll shine a light on the situation. -
Hi,
Thanks,
They’re not personalised as my ranking checkers don’t show personalised results
-
Hi,
I'm afraid I have to help you with this dream, there is no connection whatsoever between the rankings and the feature to Fetch as Google within Google Search Console. What likely is happening is that you're already getting personalized results and within a certain timeframe, the ads won't be shown as the results will be different as Google thinks that you've already seen the first results on the page the first time that you Googled this.
Fetch as Google doesn't provide any signal to the regular ranking engines to say: "Hey, we've fetched something new and now it's going to make an impact on this". Definitely not at the speed that you're describing (within seconds).
Martijn.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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
-
Google not show results for my domain as keyword
Hello seomoz! The problem My issue is that from around 28-7-2014 when i search on google "domain.com" it doesn`t return any webpages of my website. What is working as it should I get results for the homepage if i search any other keywords. For example if i search "site:domain.com" i get many results including the homepage. Other helpful information On Google webmaster tools i didn`t receive any message regarding this, or a penalty.
Technical SEO | | vatraxos
Also at manual actions there is nothing. The traffic coming from google didn`t dropped. Actually the last weeks i have an increase on visits Any idea what could be wrong ? Any solution for this? Thanks a lot for your time!0 -
Google showing wrong title
Hi, Can anyone assist a newbie please? My keyword 'Security Systems' is giving me position 1 on page 1, but the title it is using is not the page title. I am assuming for some reason it has made it up, please see below. The actual title tag says - <colgroup><col width="420"></colgroup>
Technical SEO | | DaddySmurf
| Security systems | wireless | battery powered | Police Approved | CSS | Google is showing - Compound Security Systems: Wireless Security Systems | Battery ... <cite>www.compoundsecurity.co.uk/</cite>Manufacturers & suppliers of The Mosquito Device & Professional industry compliant and Police recommended battery powered wireless security systems.Contact us - Mosquito Anti-Loitering Devices - Security Equipment - Installers<iframe class="SEOmoz-iframe" src="chrome-extension://eakacpaijcpapndcfffdgphdiccmpknp/html/serpbar.html#{" settings":{"dmr":false,"dmt":false,"mr":true,"mt":true,"serp-overlay":true,"toolbar-enabled":true,"subdomain-metrics":false,"serp-panel-open":true,"toolbar-position":"bottom"},"lsdata":{"feid":1245,"fipl":315,"fmrp":4.717881718426137,"fmrr":3.169235978744307e-9,"ftrp":5.245402699173709,"ftrr":8.283399271183101e-8,"fuid":15756,"pda":47.20670031521297,"peid":1266,"pid":315,"pmrp":4.634793943915049,"pmrr":1.137485303730264e-7,"ptrp":4.949510322693934,"ptrr":1.6938187788875737e-7,"puid":15777,"ueid":510,"uemrp":4.693787066897207,"uemrr":2.520503065617982e-10,"uid":1060,"uipl":191,"ujid":1038,"umrp":4.96103855611017,"umrr":5.477715129904515e-10,"upa":55.929113684261466,"utrp":6.066855084050327,"utrr":2.1655670926371268e-10},"user":{"level":"pro","options":{},"proenabled":true,"aclurl":"http:="" moz.com="" users="" level?src="mozbar","loginURL":"https://moz.com/login","logoutURL":"https://moz.com/logout","apiRequest":"url-metrics","cols":"133146078688","expired":false,"accessId":"pro-RGFkZHlTbXVyZg%3D%3D","expires":1374249469,"signature":"M%2Bh%2FXh4OS%2BAMtT2j6kuntWSTvNI%3D","displayName":"DaddySmurf"},"serp":1,"host":"www.compoundsecurity.co.uk"}"" scrolling="no"></iframe> If anyone can tell me how to correct this, i would very much appreciate it. Regards, Si0 -
Another 301 redirect question - penalty?
Good Morning, We have 2 sites have images and minimal text on them. The images have links that point to a 3<sup>rd</sup> site that facilitates eCommerce. Question: If we 301 redirect these sites permanently to yet a 4<sup>th</sup> site… 1) Does it violate any G’s guidelines 2) Should we delete the links embedded in the images (as they point to the 3<sup>rd</sup> site) Thanks
Technical SEO | | Prime850 -
Site being indexed by Google before it has launched
We are currently coming towards the end of migrating one of our retail sites over to magento. To our horror, we find out today that some pages are already being indexed by Google, and we have started receiving orders through new site. Do you have any suggestions for what may have caused this? Or similarly, what the best solution would be to de-index ourselves? We most recently excluded anything with a certain parameter from robots.txt - could this being implemented incorrectly have caused this issue? Thanks
Technical SEO | | Sayers0 -
Site being indexed by Google before it has launched
We are currently coming towards the end of a site migration, and are at the final stage of testing redirects etc. However, to our horror we've just discovered Google has started indexing the new site. Any ideas on how this could have happened? I have most recently asked for robots.txt to exclude anything with a certain parameter in URL. Is there a chance this, wrongly implemented, could have caused this?
Technical SEO | | Sayers0 -
How to Find all the Pages Index by Google?
I'm planning on moving my online store, http://www.filtrationmontreal.com/ to a new platform, http://www.corecommerce.com/ To reduce the SEO impact, I want to redirect 301 all the pages index by Google to the new page I will create in the new platform. I will keep the same domaine name, but all the URL will be customize on the new platform for better SEO. Also, is there a way or tool to create CSV file from those page index. Can Webmaster tool help? You can read my question about this subject here, http://www.seomoz.org/q/impacts-on-moving-online-store-to-new-platform Thank you, BigBlaze
Technical SEO | | BigBlaze2050 -
Google Search Parameters
Couple quick questions. Is using the parameter pws=0 still useful for turning off personalization? Is there a way to set my location as a URL parameter as well? For instance, I want to set my location to United States, can this be done with a URL param the same way as pws=0?
Technical SEO | | nbyloff0 -
Google plus
With a single Google search, you can see regular search results, along with all sorts of results that are tailored to you -- pages shared with you by your friends, Google+ posts from people you know. **Does pages shared by friends ** Does this mean pages shared by friends on Google plus ?
Technical SEO | | seoug_20050