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Google problem

  1. lonman06
    Member

    Hey guys, this is kinda weird, but I have noticed a trend of this happening to me. My blog, which deals with TV and video games has had some problems with indexing in google. About a week or so ago I as getting a lot of traffic from google and I was on the front page for many search terms including this one: prison break photo finish.

    My blog adress is http://lonman06.com

    My page used to come up number one for that search, but now when I search for the same phrase this is number one: wordpress.com/tag/prison-break-photo-finish/

    So basically all my links have been replaced by the wordpress links which just link to my page anyways. Any reason why this would happen?

  2. markljackson
    Member

    Have you checked your site in webmaster tools on Google?

    As for why it would happen, maybe Google wised up? Have you used the direct links in your blog?

  3. markljackson
    Member

    Also it's possible you lost google juice due to links changing, however it could be that you were pushed down due to an algorithm change.

  4. mymyspacelayouts
    Member

    Google pagerank was just updated recently. Maybe that has something to do with it. And also buying a new domain name makes it like you're starting all over again on search engines. You didn't buy links or buy traffic did you?

  5. timethief
    Member

    Is it possible that this could be happening because all tags and categories are pointing to the wordpress.com global tag pages rather than directly to your blog posts?

  6. lonman06
    Member

    I didn't buy any links or anything. I bought the domain about a month ago, but after a few days all the links on google were updated to my new domain name.

    How can I have the tags go to my posts instead of wordpress when you click on them, is that even possible?

  7. lonman06
    Member

    What is direct links exactly?

  8. timethief
    Member

    What is direct links exactly?

    The way I understand it direct links are links that go directly to your posts.

    How can I have the tags go to my posts instead of wordpress when you click on them, is that even possible?

    I'm sorry to be th bearer of bad tidings but the answer is "you can not", unless you have private blog, in which case all categories and tags assigned direct only within the blog and not to the wordpress.com global tags pages.

    You see the way our wordpress.com categories and tags have been set up is to direct to the global wordpress.com tag pages. And this has been a very contentious issue so you can use the forum searchbox to locate threads were this was discussed with staff.

  9. options
    Member

    > So basically all my links have been replaced by the wordpress links which just link to my page anyways. Any reason why this would happen?

    it must be because of .com's global tags pages bloated PR. those Global Tags pages said just outranked your own posts.

    unfortunately, this is inherent "feature" of blogging on the werdpross.com

  10. lonman06
    Member

    So does this mean I am better off not putting in any tags so they don't steal away my google links?

  11. raincoaster
    Member

    No, the opposite. Someone out there is going to be using the tags, so the tag pages will probably always outrank individual blogs for the most part. But they do give google juice as well as take, so use them.

  12. lonman06
    Member

    But google seems to only want to link to the tags not my page. Won't this just take away from possible direct links on google? Am I wrong?

  13. raincoaster
    Member

    If you're not getting direct links from Google, not using tags isn't going to change that; it's going to eliminate the only way Google leads to your blog at the moment. The Google ranking tag pages highly issue is somethign that's not going to change; the problem here is that they're not counting you at all, and the first issue hasn't caused the second; they are independent. And every tag page for a tag you use counts as a link to your blog from that page; the more, the better.

    I don't know why Google would suddenly not be counting you, but you can try re-registering with Google Blogsearch and see if that helps. The recent re-working that Google went through was meant to downgrade tag pages and such, actually, and boost individual blogs. They could well appreciate hearing that it hasn't worked that way for you.

  14. raincoaster
    Member

    Also: have you compared a search for a term on your OLD URL to a search on your new one? Technorati, for instance, gives completely different results. Google could well expose a discrepancy there, which would be another piece of the puzzle, since it's not supposed to be any different.

  15. mymyspacelayouts
    Member

    I bought the domain about a month ago, but after a few days all the links on google were updated to my new domain name.

    What I've mostly heard from others that have bought a new domain that their pagerank did drop right after buying a new domain. It's like starting over and might take a couple of months to regain their previous pagerank.

  16. lonman06
    Member

    The thing I don't get is about a week ago almost every article on my blog was on page 1 of google, now those are 90% gone and have been replace by page 1 tags from wordpress instead.

    mymyspacelayouts: When I did the switch over I did lose a lot of my indexed pages on google, but after a week or so then all came back until about a week ago when they were replaced by the wordpress tags instead.

    I just don't get why all of a sudden google would decide to change the way it was indexing my site. I'm confused :(

  17. mymyspacelayouts
    Member

    Google has a mind of its own. My other blog of almost two years, name wise, only has my avatar image on Google Image. And my new blog only has one image on Google Image. I dunno.

  18. lonman06
    Member

    Am I better off making by blog private and having all the tags go to my site? I was getting more traffic before the wordpress tags started outranking my front page posts. if I go back to private would I go back to being back on the front page instead of the wordpress tags being on the font page?

  19. lonman06
    Member

    Actually I just looked around, I'm assuming private means I have to invite people to see my blog? There is no way of being off the publically listed wordpress but still available to search engines?

  20. mymyspacelayouts
    Member

    You can email support at support@wordpress.com and ask to have them label your blog as "adult/mature". I had my other blog labeled as that but it's not mature in anyway. This will take you off all WordPress tags and the Next feature and off the Growing Blogs list and Top Blogs lists. You'll still be seen on search engines. A few things might go wonky at first because my first blog started acting weird on Alexa and on Google's similiar pages lists. But that blog is okay now and has a pagerank of 5.

  21. options
    Member

    hello nosy/mmsl,

    I'm sorry but your suggestion is kinda misleading -- I'm pretty much sure the OP wouldn't like to have his visitors sent off into global tag page that says "Sorry, we don’t have any posts here with that tag."

    > This will take you off all WordPress tags

    not exactly -- it does not take .com global tags off your blog, though, as one would expect!

    you seem to forget that so called "mature" blogs are still forced to link into .com global tags pages, despite the fact that such blogs don't benefit from this system at all.

    but on the top of all that, and what makes that even worse, their Tagegory links lead into absolutely blank global tag page, which does not even contain a post that sent you there!

    I drew attention to this issue on multiple occasions here on this forums, but it looks like you took no notice of that, don't you?

  22. options
    Member

    hello lonman06,

    these are some excerpts from Google's own "Quality guidelines - basic principles":

    • Make pages for users, not for search engines. [...]
    • Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. [...] Another useful test is to ask, "Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn't exist?"
    • Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. [...]

    as the issue you've concerned is clearly a direct consequense caused by violating those basic principles of Quality Guidelines,

    and since it's very unlikely that Automattic Inc. will ever

    Use robots.txt to prevent crawling of search results pages or other auto-generated pages that don’t add much value for users coming from search engines.

    to adjust their global tags pages along with Google guidelines policy,

    I'm afraid that if you want to continue stick your blog with wordpress.com, then you'll have take this issue with Google itself.

    otherwise I cannot see any other meaningful way to resolve your problem, except deprivng yourself from tagegorizing your posts or moving to another free bloghosts, which are not that big into SEO gaming.

    .
    and since so everyone reading this post is on the same page, please let me add the following just to finally dispel any possible doubts or apprehensions related with alleged "google-juice" from GT, induced by so many BS tales around here.

    so I think you should know that all of the so called "Top WordPress.com blogs today" you can see on your dashboard everyday (which are in effect so called "VIP blogs") have they tag links all go local. they don't participate in the wp.com global tag system, despite they are obliged to even.

    I bet since those .com-hosted blogs are running ads of their own (not the ones automattic is plastering on yours), they don't have any reason to give up a google-juice they earned into global tags system.

    that's so just because this particular google-juice of theirs is the *real* one, not that an entire fabrication squeezed out of your blogs or may be even from a mythical camel cheese ;-)

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