Google PR disaster

Our business training site was hosted on a free Domain at http://www.learningsolns.freeuk.com and achieved a modest PR4. The site, even at PR4, was proving very successful and we achieved #1 rankings for some key training phrases in Google searches; until I decided to update the site and make it look a bit more professional. It used to use Frames, but I decided that there was too much screen space consumed by the top Nav-Frame. So, I removed the frames and put together a more screen-efficient version. Since the bottom main body Frame bottomfr.htm of the old frames site was found in some Google searches and was not used in the new non-frames site, I decided to re-direct (using Java) visitors to that page to the new index.htm non-frames page. At the same time I made the old frames pages top_fr.htm and bottomfr.htm disallowed by robots.txt and put NOINDEX NOFOLLOW meta robots statements in them, keeping them on the hosting web server.

Well, the result was a total disaster! Site ranking quickly went to PR0 and we disappeared from all meaningful Google searches altogether. PR0 seems to totally trash SERPs rankings. The site was still spidered though.
This carried on for a while so I thought I would purchase a brand new Domain (on since Feb 04) and phase out the Free Domain. We purchased www.ksl-training.co.uk and I uploaded the same site onto that Domain. PR0 on the new Domain has been PR0 since day one. I then deleted the site from the free Domain and just put a hyperlink stating it had moved at that location. The free Domain now has a robots.txt 'disallow all' and the page has NOINDEX NOFOLLOW. Very strangely, PR on the free Domain jumped up to PR5 on the last PR update last month (with just one backlink) but this site has absolutely no text content and it has NOINDEX NOFOLLOW and a DISALLOW all robots.txt! How can Google put a PR of 5 onto a site with no content and leave my new Domain with more backlinks at PR0?! Still, PR on the new Domain remains at PR0 even though Google has found three backlinks at the last March 2004 PR update. This is very concerning. Is this because it's still a new Domain in Google's eyes (on since mid-Feb)or have I got more to worry about?

First... abandon the old domain entirely.

Second... allow some time for your situation to rectify. Search engines issues are not instanteous to resolve.

Third... I assume that the PR0 is temporary, and it may have to do with shifting the site around so much. If page names changed, and links changed, that could effect everything too.

Fourth... read this forum about duplicate content. Having two sites with exactly the same content is not a good idea. You did the right thing in taking down the first site, but its content may be in cache.

But you've come this far... you're gonna have to see it through. Once the domain issue is resolved, you will no longer have to worry about the free host and the no index issue. Check then to see if you are still appearing in the search engines. I assume that submitting the new domain to the search engines has been done. If not, hop on it.

Even PR0 can still come up in positioning for some search terms. As long as you're in the engines, the situation will rectify itself. Keep working on back links. Actually having a back link from a forum can help a little too. Then be patient... by that, I mean don't get anxious about any of this for 2 months as the situation resolves. Shifting stuff around, file name and link changes, etc., can only do more harm than good.

I am, of course, assuming that you haven't been a "bad boy" and tried to trick the engines or participate in link scams that have got you banned. You'd be surprised the crap people try, and the whining that follows.

Settle down. Be patient.

Regards,

Agalychnis

Thanks, your tips and information are very helpful. Unfortunately, when I first put the new Domain on, I made lots of page and formatting changes (that have settled down now). This may not have helped at all and you're absolutely right to say about being patient. I guess I am peeved that I have gone from high up in Google to nowhere after weeks of hard work. This always hurts. I have also learned from this not to submit sites to Search Engines until they're fully completed.

As far as I know, I haven't done anything bad or wrong. Whilst I have spent lot of time optimising ksltraining, there's no link schemes, spamming and no mirror site as the Free web site content has gone.

As for duplicate content, the pages of the new site all have similar HTML table and border images to give them consistent visual style, but there is no content text duplication between them. I am hoping that image and table structure similarity between pages does NOT constitute duplication and banning, but it would be interesting to get some feedback on that from this Forum. I can't see how Google or any other search engine could ban or PR0 a site based on using the same page by page styling tables and image elements?

The really weird and annoying thing is Google giving the old (Free Domain) a higher PR of 5 (it used to have 4) now that all the content has been removed and the only remaining page is just a "This site has moved to ..." notice. This Free site went to PR0 when I removed the frames structure, recovering only when all the content was removed.

Anyway, once again thanks for taking time to right me with your ideas. I will sit tight and hope that there's a PR update this month and I'll get off the PR0 pile. I am not sure whether it is a worrying sign that KSL Training already has three identified backlinks according to the Google toolbar and is still PR0. Just one backlink from the same site moved the old Free domain to PR5....

Thanks for your help.
Steve
Frustrated Webmaster!

Just went through the posts on this thread. Only one conclusion: Give it some time. Let everything settle a bit, then determnine intelligently what needs to be tweaked. During that settling period (and forever)... get quality backlinks to your site containing keyword text. That, more than anything, will make the difference.

I have read that if google finds duplicate pages it will only list in the SERPS the one with the highest PR.

Since you disallowed your free page from being spidered G doesn't know it has changed. Is the cache for your free page still showing the original page?

I have found that pages that used to be listed in search results that I have deleted still show up in "allinurl:" after 3 months.

I believe the best thing to do would be to let Google crawl your free page again and set up a redirect on it to show the page has been moved, I believe it is called a 301 redirect.

Not to clued up on these myself so hopfully someone else will give you some more detailed advice.

Good luck


.

Thanks for your useful message. I checked "allinurl:www.xxxxx" both for the Free Site and the new site. The free site is only archive listed (Google has no cache of it at all). But the new Domain site has had each of its pages spidered which is great news. It appears that the old domain has been wiped so presumably can't be considered as a duplicate. The free site doesn't contain any text from the new site just a hyperlink to it.

I tried to put a 301 re-direct in the root of the web server on the free site and files with no extension (like .htaccess) or with the name .htaccess are not allowed. The FTP client said 'file name denied'. So, 301 doesn't appear possible on their web server types, which is a shame.

Thanks once again,
Steve

Don't worry about the redirect, treat it as someone else's domain or site (It's a different server, DNS, Nameserver, domain name...), if G* is to punish any site it'll be the old site, it'll look at it as foreign to you (and I highly doubt if they bother checking the WHOIS domain owner)...as far as G* is concerned you have not broken any rule with the old domain!

Another thing: <title>UK Business Training and Development Consultants</title>, I recommend moving the title right to the top, just after the <head>, as it is now at the bottom. G*, Y* and others expect it to be the first thing before any metatags, then you desc, Kw...
I am not saying that's the reason for your trouble, but most SEOs use things this way.
If this is a confort, I had a site dropping to PR0, took 2 months to go back to original PR.
I also had a similar situation, except the old domain was not freely hosted but in the same server (ours), was PR5, then a week later PR0, a month later PR6, so you can't even know the exact time it takes, it all depends on many relative factors.

Understand that is festprints OPINION as my post is my OPINION.

Duplicate content is duplicate no matter who owns the site.

Read a lot more before making a decision.

:smile:

right on wormo.

.

try to write to google as well and tell them the story
/BP

One further query....Can anyone clarify whether 'duplicate page content' means JUST duplicate text, or do pages which have very similar graphic content and table structures (BUT ENTIRELY DIFFERENT TEXT) still run the risk of being classed as duplicates? The reason I ask is that my site uses same border and table structures throughout, but with different page content. There are a fair few images needed to build up each page's visual style and these images must, of course be duplicated between pages to retain the page style.

Thanks for all the advice. I assume there will be a PR update later this month and if the new Domain stays at PR0 then I may contact Google.

Regards...

I don't believe there is any way a search engine could penalize for having the same template throughout a site. Otherwise, quite a few million pages would be dropped. Certainly mine would be - and they aren't - so I wouldn't worry about that.