home page dropped completely

[Chad1971]

(let me preface this by saying that I have spent an hour, unsuccessfully, looking for the answers in prior posts but haven't found what I'm looking for...sorry if this is redundant)

Hey guys, it's been a while since I've been here because things have been almost perfect with my rankings....until the other day.
All of a sudden, after being in the top 10 for all the most popular real estate related terms in Charlotte NC, my home page is no where to be found...no where.

Okay, if you'd like to stop reading here and give suggestions, please do...

I'll continue with an explanation of the simple change I did recently(in the past 3 weeks or so) that may have had an influence or maybe even have gotten me booted....i don't know.

My home page is optimized for "Charlotte real estate" and all the search terms that go with it. On that page(my home page), I also mentioned that I specialize in Charlotte, Lake Norman, Cornelius, Concord, etc.
Well...I came up with this bright idea...since my HOME page ranked so well, I duplicated it and named the new page(s), "lake norman real estate", "Cornelius real estate", "Concord real estate", etc. and then, everywhere it had said Charlotte, I changed it to "Lake Norman", "Cornelius", "Concord", etc. thinking that It would be optimized for those cities as well as it had been for Charlotte...without changing anything but the names of the cities.

Did I create duplicate pages(according to google's terms)? Could that have gotten me booted?
If so, how long am I booted for? By the way, I totally deleted all of those added pages yesterday.

My disappearance here is costing me a minimum of 4K/month so, needless to say, you guys are lifesavers if you have an answer.

I can't express my thanks to all of you for reading this.
Chad

[polarmate]

Hey Chad, the first thing you need to do is get rid of that second domain that you are promoting. Park it at the same web site and be done with it. Also think of your users! Spiders may not understand your content but humans do. I would be very offended if I saw near identical pages with only names of cities changed.

That said, I can't believe the price of houses out there! Wow! We hardly get anything for those prices around here these days!!

[Chad1971]

I see...you mean the one at the bottom...yeah, I will get rid of that. It can't possibly help me like I thought it might months ago when I put it/them there.(it was for link popularity before I truly understood its concept)

Going back to my original question, do you think Google booted me? do you have any idea?

Thank you.

[Chad1971]

and oh...yeah, one is parked against the other already....I'm currently deleted both links which are at the bottom of all my pages since it makes no sense to have them there.

I'm dying to know if you or anyone thinks I got booted though and why that may have been....and what to do about it.

Have a good night,
Chad

[polarmate]

You're very much in Google's index:
http://www.google.com/search?q=allinurl:www.housesincharlotte.com&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&c2coff=1&filter=0&num=100

And you're #27 for charlotte real estate if you see the results 100 at a time, #25 if you see them 10 at a time
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=charlotte+real+estate&num=100

You haven't been 'booted' :)

[Chad1971]

You're very much in Google's index:
http://www.google.com/search?q=alli...ilter=0&num=100

I appreciate your research...that's very generous.
however...your results(and your link)confirm what I was saying/seeing...i have pages within my site still listed but not my HOME page. A cached home page(a very old one) is still listed somehow but not my current home page/index page that has been in the top ten of so many terms. That's what concerns me the most.
Very appreciative,
Chad

[Chad1971]

and you mentioned #27 and #25 for a certain search term depending on how I searched. Well, when I pull that up, I'm no where near that because I'm not in there at all.
Those results correspond to www.m**********y.com
I'm not sure how that happened.

there's no doubt whatsoever that the same search terms that I was once in the top 10 on, I'm no longer in the top 200 if at all.

pretty confused here...
Chad

[polarmate]

You are in at least one of Google's 9 datacenters. You can keep track of your ranking over various servers through this site:
http://googledance.seochat.com/search.php?by=www.google-dance.com&q=charlotte+real+estate&servers=datacenters&rpp=30&alignment=vertical&mode=compact
I saw your site on two datacenters at #25 and then when I refreshed the page, your site was only on one for 'charlotte real estate.'

It looks like they switched the datacenter serving the results on us. Cos I can't see your site either now on the regular SERPs. Google is obviously doing something at their end and the update is apparently not over.

When you see 0 results for the allinurl: query is when you can start worrying that your site is out of Google's index. Other than that, you need to work on adding more content to your web site and developing quality backlinks.

[TanyaLivemercial]

Chad,

It may just be a temp thing. It looks like google is getting close to giving out new PR's. Give it another week then look again. And see if your site PR goes up.

Tanya

[Chad1971]

Thanks Tanya...it just seems wierd.
For the most searched terms in google for charlotte real estate

charlotte, nc real estate
charlotte, nc homes for sale
charlotte real estate for sale
charlotte, north carolina homes
and several more

I was in the top 10 on all of them and so were 2 or 3 of my top competitors.
None of us have ever had a page ranking higher than 4...which is what mine currently is and has been for months.

Now MY site is not in the top 100, if at all, for any of them. My competitors rankings haven't changed at all.
I can understand the google dance shifting me around a few spots here and there and maybe even my page ranking shifting me around but I can't understand why I would be nowhere in sight.
That's why I pondered over the thought that I may have gotten penalized or something. And if I have gotten penalized, I'd like to know if that means I'm screwed or if there's something I can do about it. That's the one area I know NOTHING about.

Either way, like you said, I'll give it a week or so and check back. I don't have a choice anyway.

Thank you Tanya, Chad

[bigDugan]

since my HOME page ranked so well, I duplicated itNEVER A GOOD IDEA.

[Chad1971]

Well, this is interesting.

What I've found is that google is taking many realtor sites off and leaving various directories in the rankings.
I discovered this after someone informed me it was happeing to them as well in a different city.

There are still a few personal realtor sites scattered here and there but many of them including my biggest competitors are dropping off.

Anyone heard of any news regarding these types of changes that google is making?

If it keeps heading this direction, the only way realtors(not companies) can get at the top of search engines is by paying to get on the many directories that are being left in the rankings.

Try it....in google, type in "Charlotte, NC real estate" (one of the two most searched terms for real estate in charlotte).
What you'll see in the first 2-3 pages is many directories...not personal sites, except for a few scattered around.

any ideas?

[g1smd]

http://www.ihelpyouservices.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=12371

[luvdavy]

Google has never been so screwy. It is now almost 2am on Thursday. Someone said earlier in the week that Google Guy had told them last weekend that it would be over yesterday. Not even slightly is it over.

Myrtle Beach real estate is nuts too, Chad. A site called (wouldn't you know) MyrtleBeachrealestate.com has been the number one site for 6 mos or a year. Why, I don't know...it is so totally unoptimized, and only has 7 links...but it was.

My Mr. Condo went and spent a bunch of money and leased this website....and now it is GONE...it's still cached, but I checked as far as 230 and it's still nowhere. He's losing it.

Unfortunately, after finally obtaining and enjoying a nice #3 for that term, we've dropped to 31. We also lost about 5 other phrases too, although we moved to number one on MB condos.
At this moment, our page rank is jumping from a 4 to a 5 about every 15 minutes. That other site did reappear back at number one for about 5 minutes several hours ago after having been missing for days. Our links on Condolux are fluxing between 58 and 29, back and forth, back and forth. Once it even said Google's server was down! So it's not over...the fat lady hasn't sung yet.

Oh, and what IS in the top 10 for MB real estate right now?
Numbers one and two are our local newspaper. 3 is a Century 21 that will never die because they have such a wonderful (and legal, apparently) link farm for all C21 agents. 4 is a local homeowners association (?) and the rest are golf sites that have a tad of real estate in their stuff.

Jan
(very pee'd off right now....):mad:

[qwerty]

Someone said earlier in the week that Google Guy had told them last weekend that it would be over yesterday. Not even slightly is it over.
Remember the update about half a year ago, when GG said that everything would be stabilized by June or July? It took a bit longer than he said that time, too.

I think that while he may know when something like this is going to happen, nobody knows how long it's really going to take to get the changes straightened out. He's just giving estimates based on what he knows, but there are bound to be unforseen complications.

[ihelpyou]

Hi Chad, First:

GET RID of the second domain. Very dumb idea off the get-go. Why would any engine wish to index the same content in two domains? Why would any searcher wish to find the same content in two domains in the SERPS? Answer?........ they don't!

Aside from the obvious,...... be patient and look again in one week or so. Google is shuffling, etc and NO ONE knows how things will shake out until they shake out.

[luvdavy]

Originally posted by qwerty
Remember the update about half a year ago, when GG said that everything would be stabilized by June or July? It took a bit longer than he said that time, too.

I think that while he may know when something like this is going to happen, nobody knows how long it's really going to take to get the changes straightened out. He's just giving estimates based on what he knows, but there are bound to be unforseen complications.

He was way off base this time.

This morning the search results for MB real estate are quite interesting. The entire first two pages are nothing except directories of one type or another. Newspaper listings, real estate directories, DMOZ, Yahoo, even pages of links. One that is particularly nuts...about number 5...is a directory in Arizona...and guess what the listing is? It's our LINK. The link text to Condolux from an RE directory....but Condolux is nowhere to be found.
The only normal website on 2 pages is a Century 21 site.

Our page rank is back up to 5 but our links are gone again....sigh....

Jan

[g1smd]

>> At this moment, our page rank is jumping from a 4 to a 5 about every 15 minutes. <<

Which datacentre are you looking at?

[Chad1971]

Hey Doug, nice to hear from you...you mentioned my second domain. Well, I don't completely understand the concept behind it myself.
I bought www.housesincharlotte.com (i'm not advertising here so please excuse me if I'm breaking a rule), and then my original web guy suggested I buy a domain that started with an "A" so we chose "www.ahomeincharlotte.com"...this was about the time he suggested I buy a spot in Yahoo and the LookSmart network.
It is "parked" against housesincharlotte.com. I don't understand the theory behind it really...it was 2-3 years ago.
Ever since then, I have been marketing housesincharlotte.com ONLY and that's the domain that I've been optimizing and trying to get a good PR ranking from.
There aren't really 2 sites..just one. The thing is...ahomeincharlotte.com is the domain that is registered in Yahoo, which I know is important...I don't want to lose the Yahoo exposure by completely dropping that domain, yet, that's not the domain that I've been marketing.
What should I do?
If you don't want to answer that question in this particular forum, Is there a good thread for questions that address this?

Back to the original subject matter...yeah, I think we should all wait a bit and be patient. Of course this google thing is important to all of us. Hopefully, it will work out because the "little guy", no matter how hard he/she works at it, is losing out right now.
Thanks Doug.

Thanks Jan for your input...it's always comforting to know that you're not the only one experiencing something so unique to your field.

[ihelpyou]

Okay. Then that is why. You need to contact Yahoo and get the url changed to the one you use online and promote. Unless Yahoo changes that url in their listing, you don't have a chance. You might have to pay them again.

Just remember you cannot promote online two url's that lead to the same site.

[luvdavy]

Originally posted by g1smd
>> At this moment, our page rank is jumping from a 4 to a 5 about every 15 minutes. <<

Which datacentre are you looking at?

I was just going by the toolbar.

Today it's stablized on the 5 page rank, seemingly...but the backwards links are gone again. On the search for MB real estate, nothing shows at all except directories and that C21 site.
I've never seen such a shambles. Someone looking for a real estate agent in Myrtle Beach right now would go to Microsoft Search in disgust, I think. Or maybe most people "like" directories? I don't, personally.

Here's a real kicker....if you type in MB web design, my little Tripod page is now in the number 1 position. It has been all week. I'll bet all these professional companies in Myrtle Beach are nuts about that....LOL.

Jan
PS to Chad...You're welcome! I'm just glad to find someone else to commmiserate with!