Disappeared after adding Analytics?

spiceboy · #1 (**permalink**) 10-13-2006, 01:24 PM

Hi
I have a fairly stable serps ranking on Google UK - been number 1 or 2 for most keywords for the last 2 years or so. The site is very clean ie no spam, adsense etc and I follow the rules as well as possible (url is in sig link.)

About 8 days ago, I added Google Analytics coding to my home page and most of the other pages and then when checking positions for keywords we had from the serps for the home page. All my other main keywords had also dropped a few positions and only secondary pages eg my links page were showing for my key search term "Indian food".

Are the two related? Have I done something wrong when adding Analytics? Is it just a glitch?

I have not added anything else new to the site (apart from product changes).

Any advice/opinions appreciated.

Webnauts · #2 (**permalink**) 10-13-2006, 06:25 PM

Google is moving ahead. Your markup not.
That is the first thing I looked at, and I was shocked.

visio · #3 (**permalink**) 10-13-2006, 06:42 PM

Anyway I would not think that any changes made 8 days a go could have influenced Google so quickly. I'm sure you have noticed that we are still going through a Google update, it is 2 weeks and it is not yet finished.

Wait a few days more...

Webnauts · #4 (**permalink**) 10-13-2006, 07:00 PM

Are you talking about the green bar?

Then I got something wrong. Sorry.

Irishjim · #5 (**permalink**) 10-13-2006, 07:14 PM

The same thing happened to us, Spice.

We were ranked on the first page for most European countries when searches for Italian hotels, German hotels, etc. were conducted and suddenly all of them fell off the radar.

We also lost ranking for our Irish counties, all of which were on the first or second page and now have suffered.

At the same time we began bouncing back and forth from a PR4 to a PR5 (I know PR is a joke so no cards and letters, please).

Ironically, none of our Irish villages and towns lost ground which probably means very little.

Within a couple of days we noticed our pages were regaining some strength but, as of yet, they haven't fully recovered.

I suspect it is as Visio suggests and Google is going through yet another skin shedding episode.

Doncha get tired of dancing on the strings sometimes?

Webnauts · #6 (**permalink**) 10-13-2006, 07:21 PM

I think that everyone forgets here, that Google is improving day by day their algos and requirements.

But if you are all so sure that it is just an update issue, please bookmark this thread, come back when Google is done with his updates, and post here how things are for you.

I would be very interested to hear your new results and conclusions about all this.

Thanks. :)

visio · #7 (**permalink**) 10-13-2006, 07:22 PM

Does anyone recall a Google dance which took this long?

Webnauts · #8 (**permalink**) 10-13-2006, 07:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by visio

Does anyone recall a Google dance which took this long?

Honestly I can't tell. If we have luck, then maybe Google will provide us daily with their ongoing internal calculations.

That would make PageRank seriously interesting! ;)

Irishjim · #9 (**permalink**) 10-13-2006, 07:35 PM

Webnauts said: "But if you are all so sure that it is just an update issue, please bookmark this thread, come back when Google is done with his updates, and post here how things are for you."

I'm reporting to you, lad, we are almost back where we were a week ago... almost is the keyword here.

We have done little in the way of adding or deleting content so this must have something to do, Webnauts, with a Google update rather than their imporvement of their algorithm.

Although I'm not sure what the difference can be. They do say they are updating constantly. I think they call it "baking in" a site.

Anyway, the PR jumps back and forth are a mystery to me. We were PR4 for over a year and now we are bouncing back and forth from PR5 to PR4 as I said before.

My understanding was they came out with the new PR numbers over a week ago. The fluctuation on our site is occurring hourly.

Webnauts · #10 (**permalink**) 10-13-2006, 07:43 PM

Jim as I said, lets wait until Google calms down first.

And any way, I am not so hot about what is going on now. ;)

I will be hot, when google will rebuild his index, as many of us SEOs predict to be next month. :)

Irishjim · #11 (**permalink**) 10-13-2006, 08:10 PM

Fairplay to you, Webnauts.

Perhaps someone at the throttle in the Google headquarters is shaking his hand too much and yelling, "You paid 1.2 Billion for what!!!!!????"

grobar · #12 (**permalink**) 10-13-2006, 08:31 PM

probably has nothing to do with analytics. Just a coincidence that you saw changes in your serps at the same time you added the urchin tracker.

looks like its time for you to start an seo campaign.

Webnauts · #13 (**permalink**) 10-13-2006, 10:15 PM

Last two posts approved! :)

khurramali · #14 (**permalink**) 10-13-2006, 11:42 PM

a few days back, some one posted something on a thread, I had my guesses but I did not want to cry Wolf, then everyone jumped in.

checkout this link, http://livepr.raketforskning.com/ it will check many google servers for the PR that they report.

And I see my sites getting 2 and 3 there.

So update is in progress.

You also need to learn something about using clean code.

pixiestreasures · #15 (**permalink**) 10-14-2006, 02:49 AM

I have written a php script that does it by the second via mysql; one of which I clear every once and a while one being "stats", I never erase "record" containing which page the client viewed great if u want to display how many pages have been viewed sitewise as well as the page currently viewed. The "stats" sql sub database logs hostname, IP, referer, including the terms searched for, browser, date/time, page they viewed and number of visits via IP (great for ecommerce) if you are intrested please email / message me.

spiceboy · #16 (**permalink**) 10-14-2006, 05:23 AM

Thanks for the feedback, comments as follows:

Webnaughts - No I am not talking about the green bar - I have litte interest in the green bar. I am talking about my position in Google organic listings.

My PR rank for that page is 5 (consistent across all data centres) and has been for around 2 years now.Site is 3.5 years old). Dont know what you are shocked about.

I dont know what you are inferring by Google improving their algorithim? My site does everything it should to follow Google guidelines and as a result has benefited from high positions - any "improvements" in the algorithim should surely benefit honest sites like mine at the expense of all the spammers wearing black hats surely? Isnt that the point of "improvements"?

IrishJim - Sorry to hear you are having similar problems - although not sure its anything to do with a PR update either. As I said above, my PR has not changed and has been constant for some time now.

Grobar - You may be right its a coincidence but why would the page drop out of serps altogether from being number 1 - remember there are no dodgy tricks being used on this site that Google would penalise for and no changes made to the site other than adding Analytics? As for starting an SEO campaign, whaddya think I've been doing to get top Google listings for the last 3 years?

Khurramali - I'm not talking about PR, my PR is fine. AS for clean code, its not done me any harm for the last few years and I'll clean it up when Google get around to doing theirs.

Thanks for the input everyone.

grobar · #17 (**permalink**) 10-14-2006, 10:39 AM

But you must be questioning WHY on earth google would peanalize you for adding one of their free tracking services? It just does not make any sense.

If you are adament that this is the cause, a possible explanation might be this:

google may think that only commercial sites would use analytics, (as opposed to a personal site, or blog) and we all know how google loves blogs and the like. With this assumption, they may say "oh - site has analytics, must be commercial, lets de-value it.

who knows L)

spiceboy · #18 (**permalink**) 10-14-2006, 02:43 PM

Grobar - you are absolutely right, it doesn't make any sense. I am going to give it a week and see what happens. If nothing I will delete Analytics and see what happens then.

Interesting theory about Google penalising commerce sites - perhaps this is how they intend to increase their Adwords spend - no SERPS position means you have to spend more on Adwords to stay visible?

IrishJim - did you remove Analytics or did it just go back to normal of its own accord?

visio · #19 (**permalink**) 10-14-2006, 03:20 PM

Although with google anything can happen, I think this theory is a little farfetched.

Just wait until this latest google dance ends, before you make any decision. Also check when was the last time Google cached your site.

nametaginc · #20 (**permalink**) 10-16-2006, 12:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spiceboy

Interesting theory about Google penalising commerce sites - perhaps this is how they intend to increase their Adwords spend - no SERPS position means you have to spend more on Adwords to stay visible?

I am the webmaster for a commerce site and have been using Analytics to track our web stats for quite some time now.

I don't recall it affecting our rankings/traffic when I implemented it -- I believe it has been about half a year -- so as some of the others have suggested, it could simply be that Google is in the middle of an update, and if this is the case your ranking could certainly be impacted.

In any case, based on personal experience, I doubt that adding the Analytics coding would impact your rankings -- commercial site or not. Just continuing optimizing and improving your site, as you have been doing, and I'm sure that it will balance itself out soon enough.

lunartcorp · #21 (**permalink**) 10-16-2006, 01:45 PM

I does not make sense to be penalized by adding our Google Analytics to our websites.

But something weird is happening in Google because my website jumped from PR0 to PR3 in a matter or days and my position for "Hand Painted Clothing" searching words got higher by doing nothing.

It might be the upgrade.

lunartcorp · #22 (**permalink**) 10-16-2006, 01:46 PM

I does not make sense to be penalized by adding Google Analytics to our websites.

But something weird is happening in Google because my website jumped from PR0 to PR3 in a matter or days and my position for "Hand Painted Clothing" searching words got higher by doing nothing.

It might be the upgrade.

nametaginc · #23 (**permalink**) 10-16-2006, 03:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lunartcorp

I does not make sense to be penalized by adding our Google Analytics to our websites.

But something weird is happening in Google because my website jumped from PR0 to PR3 in a matter or days and my position for "Hand Painted Clothing" searching words got higher by doing nothing.

It might be the upgrade.

There have been other threads created with regards to the changes to the page rank; plus Matt Cutts, who works for Google, also has posted in his blog about PR as well. As for the site I work for, our pages have gone from PR of 3 to 4 almost site wide, so certainly there has been a lot of PR activities.

As for the ranking changes, if I understood Cutt's