The other day I received a request from someone who thought his website had disappeared from Google and he was concerned his site had been sandboxed.
He had put in a fair amount of work on his site recently and enjoyed a first page rank for a popular keyword. His site was fairly new and receiving a decent amount of traffic from search, but suddenly the site no longer showed up when he typed his keyword into the search engine.
Upon reviewing his URL though I discovered that it still showed up in the search results, just not in the position he desired. His site was actually doing the Google Dance.
It’s important to understand that when you make a large move on your site such as doing a large blacklink blast or post a ton of new content, search engines can take a period of time to figure out how to best catalog the new content.
This could result in your site doing what is typically referred to as the Google Dance. The good news is, it’s usually harmless, temporary and trivially simple to check your sites status.
A Google dance can last anywhere from a few days to a few months, but more typically in the range of a couple of weeks.
What is happening is the search spiders are giving Google conflicting information about where to place your website in the search results, and they are consequently bouncing you up and down to find the place they think your site is best suited for. The URL will eventually settle in a more permanent position.
How to check if your site is doing the Google Dance, de-indexed or sandboxed?
Now that we understand the Google Dance, let’s expore the difference between the sandbox and de-indexing When your site is doing the Google Dance it is still listed in Google’s search index. This means it will still show up when searching with the site: operator, though it may not show up in the first 100 results for your desired keyword.
When your site is sandboxed, it does not show up in the search results at all for your keyword, but can still be found using the site: operator.
When your site is “de-indexed” it is completely removed from Google’s search index. This means it will not show up at all when searching with the site: operator.
Example: search Google using the query site:http://example.com
If there are results then example.com is either doing the Google Dance or sandboxed. If there are no results (but there were before) example.com is de-indexed.
Even If your site has been de-indexed, don’t panic. You can fix the offending material and submit a reconsideration request. If you had an autoblog, for example, you could remove the offending duplicate content and replace it with original quality content and then request reconsideration.
To request reconsideration of your site:
- Sign in to Webmaster Tools with your Google Account.
- Make sure you have added and verified the site you want reconsidered.
- Request reconsideration of your site.
Many site’s have even have been shown to come back stronger (including my friends). Keep building!
Great website. Plenty of useful info here. I am sending it to a few pals and also sharing in delicious. And naturally, thank you for your effort!