Where have the backlinks gone?

[jaldridge]

We have a site that got heavily hit during Jagger. It started coming back recently but all of a sudden Google isn't indexing the site any more. The site is http://www.sunseekerhomes.com.

It still shows PR5 but there are no backlinks showing for the link: command. Also, the cache for the home page has a date of 5 January 2006.

Anyone any idea why the backlinks have gone and google is not longer indexing the site?

[cspelts]

The cached page I get is dated 9 Jan 2006 - if that helps?

Google only shows a selection of the backlinks it knows about - so if it shows less or more links than it used to, does it really matter?

Has your traffic coming from Google been affected? Have your positions in the rankings dropped? If those two areas are stable, I'd ignore the disappearing backlinks.

[jaldridge]

Rankings haven't really changed post Jagger....the site was flying before then.

The problem is now that we are making changes to the site but they are not getting picked up as Google isn't spidering...

Bit confused as to why really....

[greeneagle]

jaldrige,

Don't panic. I am showing the 9th also. Showing later cache dates on my site after major update (16th). That's a sure "re-cache in my books"...

The GOOG always gets preocupied at update time, don't they?

Why panic? - Surely you have presented the updates you want counted. If you haven't been playing "gray" or "black", why worry? Ride the girations!, but you are in a highly competitive arena...

Ken

[williamc]

A PR5 site should get crawled daily by googlebot, and cached each crawl, so you should not be seeing a date older than say jan 18-19 on your cache. I am seeing a date of the 9th for it. I am also seeing that over half your indexed pages have no descriptions in the listings.

These may be signs of trouble, and if you did anything recently that you are not sure of, you may wish to correct that. i would especially check on new link partners to see if you may be linking out to someone you prolly should not be. You also seem to have a overabundance of footer links right on the front page which may be seen as "spammy" if reported by a competitor (a more and more common occurence perpetuated by lame SEO's who cant rank their clients the right way).

I would suggest asking matt cutts if he would mind checking the site out and seeing what he says on his blog, or in an email. But not sure how fast that may be answered, if at all.

[jaldridge]

Thanks for your replies guys. We haven't done anything bad on the site. I'll reduce the number of links in the footer as I suppose it does look a little spammy!

Googlebot has been crawling the site every day, it just doesn't update the index....

We'll just sit it out I think!

[greeneagle]

williamc:

"A PR5 site should get crawled daily by googlebot, and cached each crawl..."

My PR4 Site gets crawled many times a day by multiple Google bots from different IP addresses around the world. They just do not re-cache with every crawl!

In fact, I usually don't see immediate re-cache unless significant changes are made.

Ken

[sandis.viksna]

Some say that google recashe if about 1kb is changed, however, you're right imediate cashe is not the way google works, maybe imediate rankings for the best case.

[David16]

My site has the same topic "Spanish Property" and we are crawled thousands of times a month by google. Our cache is varying between 6th and 9th at the moment also. Somthing odd with the cache at the moment anyway. If you do a google search on almost anything and click on the cached page option google cant find the page. This has been happening to me over the last couple of days, sods law if you try it now it will be back to normal.

[nipplecharms1]

These type of posts scare me. Now I have to go check my site. Last cached on Jan 11, 2006 6:24:09 GMT, today is 1/27. Is that good, bad or ugly?

I have to think that my site is still influx. Getting help but still in flux.

WILLIAMC you mentioned linking to a questionable site. How can you tell?

thanks and I really do love this place.

Michael

[mike]

Have you made any significant changes to your site since the 11th?

[Tim]

According to Google.co.uk there are 17,500 sites that refer to your domain. The link: search finds nothing. Their cache is now dated 19 Jan 2006.

According to another 'Big Daddy' data centre search only your own site links to yours and the same 17,500 refer to your domain. That cache is 26 Jan. The cache shows PR2 but your site nothing.

As williamc suggested, I'd be worried about the footer links that look like a doorway farm.

[jaldridge]

The footer links were put in place after the problems started to try and get some more of the internal pages spidered. Surely there's nothing wrong with that?

[Tim]

I realise it's just navigation but that many links, all together at the bottom of pages looks unnatural to me. It's not user-friendly. The links refer to places and topics that are barely mentioned, if at all, in the text of the pages. Take for instance 'Golf Resort', on your first page, your descriptive introductory page, the only mention of golf resort/s are in the footer links and there are seven of them. Seven links to pages with information about golf resorts but no descriptive text in the page that refers to them. Even when I go to a golf resort page like Los Jardines de Alhama there is scant information and only one reference to golf in the main content.

I think you have too few words altogether, both for human beings and search engines. Content is everything.

I'm also confused why every page is enclosed within a form. What's that about? Do search engines actually bother with the contents of forms?

[jaldridge]

I have removed a lot of the links in the footer now to see if that helps....

But, if you thought we had a lot of links in our footer then check out www. thinkspain .com....how many links do they have in their footer??!! And they actually rank quite well.

Tim, the reason for the forms on the pages is due to the .net server controls. I have no problems indexing sites with forms.