Comments on: Trulia SERP Drop: More to the Story?

By: Javier Carrillo

Javier Carrillo — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 16:25:37 +0000

I’ve seen search results in Google that warns you about the site being shown in the results, that it can hurt your computer. Why would Google display such a result as opposed to taking it out of the index altogether? Is this to give a chance for the site owners to correct things? Or is it a way to further demote a site? Wouldn’t this be against Google’s policy of ‘Do no evil’?

Thanks for any response. This is a great thread for ope discussion.

By: Casey Stubbs

Casey Stubbs — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 15:08:11 +0000

I hope that they can put a stop to this kind of malicious behavior.

By: Mickey Kick

Mickey Kick — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 17:24:33 +0000

Engines are always changing and it’s hard to follow up everything they do, i also had some drops in the past i did not understood why happen.

By: Eric Bramlett

Eric Bramlett — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 22:57:34 +0000

Hey Rudy –

Thanks for stopping by again! Like I said, these things are always so speculative. Personally, I have never seen Google deindex a specific naming structure of a sites’ URLs as simply a glitch, and I’ve never seen a “glitch” that deindexed a site for that long. I have seen pages (as in one page at a time) disappear for 1-2 days as a glitch, but never 5-7 days, and never multiple pages. In my experience, anything longer than 3 days means on-site problems, or a penalty.

Anyways, just going on past experience here. Congrats on the reinclusion!

By: Rudy

Rudy — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 17:45:32 +0000

Hi Eric!

In the last couple of days we did notice that some of our cities were getting re-indexed just as quickly as they
were de-indexed. We didn’t make any changes on our side. So, like I said before, it really looked like a technical issue and not a penalty.

Thanks to all who have chimed in over the last week.

Best,

Rudy
Social Media Guru at Trulia

By: Eric Bramlett

Eric Bramlett — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 17:32:39 +0000

@Brad –

Rudy’s stopped by a couple of places and basically said it wasn’t a penalty. Unless we know what they did to correct the problem, there’s really no way we know if it was a penalty or an on-site issue.

By: Vic

Vic — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 05:31:32 +0000

I almost wonder if there is some fluctuating going on because I had taken over a lot of their #1 positions and have now reverted back to where I was prior in the South Florida market and I have not made any significant site changes.

I’m surprised no one has mentioned their PPC $$$ and the way that enables you to get access to specific people when necessary. I only speak from experience from when I was at a high ranking health site whose developers made a critical mistake which greatly impacted Google’s crawling of our site. I was able to pick up the phone to my reps who were able to pass the call along to proper channels…

By: Brad Carroll

Brad Carroll — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 03:15:55 +0000

Has anyone heard from Rudy about this? I would love to hear if Trulia took any actions. I haven’t compared the pages, but at a quick glance, I didn’t see anything that changed. Have you noticed anything?

By: Ryan Ward

Ryan Ward — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 01:18:24 +0000

Interesting. I've been following this from the sidelines. Watching. LAW, this isn't my blog, but your comments did seem somewhat hostile to me as a reader. I've been known to do this myself a few times - even directly mean to Rudy, I think. I apologize if that is the case Rudy. Anyway, 30 day, 60 day, whatever, this looked like a penalty, but, it doesn't mean we would ever know why. Such is the case with Google. Often times, they can place a defined time length penalty on a website and the webmasters can correct the problem, request reinclusion and find themselves out of the penalty in much less than the length of time the penalty was originally set for so that argument is not a valid argument. Ask John Sabia who has spoken about his penalty and quick reinclusion in the past. He was definitely part of a 60 day penalty. I should know. I sat out the entire 60 days. LAW, your arguments are not substantiated by known facts of other cases.

By: Wayne Long

Wayne Long — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 22:48:12 +0000

It is always tough for me to take anyone seriously who will not give their real name or information.

I am not sure what caused it as I am not nearly as accomplished in the SEO department as the Erics are but I do know that they disappeared in major markets and are now back. It seemed too long for just a normal Google shuffle so I think I would be inclined to listen to SEOs who know their stuff and are willing to acknowledge who they are.

What say you??