Huge drop in googles indexed pages????

[Celeste]

From 12/21-12/26 we dropped from close to 600 indexed pages on google to less than 300 pages.

we always see it go up and down by smaller margins, but to see it drop that much in that amount of time and not go back up, we can't understand as we did not make any major changes to our site recently.

I do know google was re-doing the way they indexed sites in the past weeks, but I have not noticed others go down as much as ours did.

Does anyone know what could have caused this or has this happend to anyone else recently.

our site is www.soldbyceleste.com

thanks

a

[RussReynolds]

From 12/21-12/26 we dropped from close to 600 indexed pages on google to less than 300 pages.

we always see it go up and down by smaller margins, but to see it drop that much in that amount of time and not go back up, we can't understand as we did not make any major changes to our site recently.

I do know google was re-doing the way they indexed sites in the past weeks, but I have not noticed others go down as much as ours did.

Does anyone know what could have caused this or has this happend to anyone else recently.

our site is www.soldbyceleste.com

thanks

a

Usually when Google gives a slap like this it is because the content is not unique.

How many of those pages have relevant unique content (or are they all pages full of listings).

Do you have a blog? If not perhaps you should consider one.

Good luck,

Russ

[Eric Blackwell]

Hi Celeste;

There was a previous thread with the same issue a couple of months back.

http://www.realestatewebmasters.com/thread30281.html

The conversation there should be helpful. Some of those sites dropped by much more than yours...to my knowledge they came back over time.

Anyone have further feedback?

Best;

Eric

[Celeste]

Russ- thanks for the response.....a number of pages were listings as we took up REW on that snippet offer a bit ago, though I assumed those pages never got indexed to begin with ......we were not able to tell which pages specifically were dropped as I always looked at the number of pages rather than which actual pages were indexed.....i think I need to start tracking the actual pages

Eric- thanks so much for the link to that conv., it didn't seem that any of them knew why their pages were dropped, but it was right around the same time frame and it is just nice to know we are not the only ones (though I don't wish for anyone to get 7K worth of pages dropped!!!)

thanks to both of you

[webmaster]

They are listings yes

Russ- thanks for the response.....a number of pages were listings as we took up REW on that snippet offer a bit ago, though I assumed those pages never got indexed to begin with ......we were not able to tell which pages specifically were dropped as I always looked at the number of pages rather than which actual pages were indexed.....i think I need to start tracking the actual pages

Eric- thanks so much for the link to that conv., it didn't seem that any of them knew why their pages were dropped, but it was right around the same time frame and it is just nice to know we are not the only ones (though I don't wish for anyone to get 7K worth of pages dropped!!!)

thanks to both of you

[RussReynolds]

Google focuses on original content and I would too.

Put up a simple blog in conjunction with the rest of your site and let your personality shine through.

Cheers,

Russ

[Celeste]

if it is only listings we are not too concerned with those not being indexed, but before I go adding content to those pages I wonder;

if we add original content to a snippet page will the page still not be counted because of the snippet? How much original content needs to be added to counter this?
We are wanting to add additional (unique) info for each of our neighborhood snippets, but if those pages won't be indexed regardless of what other content is on it, then we will add new pages separate from the snippets so we can capitalize on the content more.

(Russ, thanks for the suggestion we are in the processes of moving our blog to the rew site now and I'm excited to see what difference it makes)

A

[RussReynolds]

if it is only listings we are not too concerned with those not being indexed, but before I go adding content to those pages I wonder;

if we add original content to a snippet page will the page still not be counted because of the snippet? How much original content needs to be added to counter this?
We are wanting to add additional (unique) info for each of our neighborhood snippets, but if those pages won't be indexed regardless of what other content is on it, then we will add new pages separate from the snippets so we can capitalize on the content more.

(Russ, thanks for the suggestion we are in the processes of moving our blog to the rew site now and I'm excited to see what difference it makes)

A

NP...keep in mind that a blog in and of itself won't help that much unless you are posting new content regularly.

Best of luck,

Russ

[jamesww]

I recently went from 1600+ pages indexed to only around 580. And my stuff does not contain listings other than my own as my IDX is framed.

[rvolk75]

Don't worry about the number of indexed pages. I don't think it's accurate anyway. I went from about 800 pages to about 300 as of today and my SERPs did not change. Actually I've seen an increase in traffic and leads.

I wouldn't worry too much about that number, just like a PR, it has no real value.

Concentrate on traffic, leads and conversions, and don't worry about all these numbers. They can drive you insane. Been there, done that.