Google blacklist?

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grandad

grandad

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My apologies for not being around for the last couple of years, but I finally retired from the Webmastery game. Bet you all thought I had kicked the bucket?

I have a wee problem that I have been trying to resolve for the last little while, and hoped someone may have an idea or two.

Background: I have a blog [A Pipe and a Keyboard] where I post solutions to technical problems that I have encountered. It serves as a reference for myself and for anyone who may have had similar problems. It gets a steady trickle of traffic from Google searches and apparently has the resolution to a couple of major problems - installing Abobe Air on Linux 64 bit, and a fix for a common problem in Wordpress.

The Problem: On the 26th September last, traffic to the site effectively ceased. The site itself is perfectly OK and is running normally, but hasn't received a single visit from a search, where normally it would receive a couple of dozen a day.

So far:
I have checked the site thoroughly for malware [I was once caught by a hacked .htaccess file that caused similar results].
I have run WP-Security and it comes up as clean as a whistle.
I checked the site on Vebtools.com and Onlinealley.com and both say the site is blacklisted. However, when I analyse the site from Google's Webmaster area it throws up no problems at all. I have tried all the Diagnostics and it gets a clean bill of health.

Has anyone any ideas?

Help!
 
M

MOH

New Member
I just googled "pipe and a keyboard" and your site comes up, and for "install adobe air linux 64 bit" your site is coming up 5th.
So it's not blacklisted, it's coming back in the SERPs.

Maybe try checking other search terms that usually give you a lot of traffic and make sure you're still ranking for them?
(And make sure you're not seeing personalised results - make sure you're not logged into google, stick &pws=0 on the end, use a different browser, etc.)

If you've stats available for the same period last year, check against those, just in case it's a holiday in one of your main visitor countries or something like that.

[edit]
Is it just search that's not recording any visits? Are analytics showing anything at all?
Make sure your GA tracking is working correctly, check that you have the correct tracking ID.
Maybe visit the site yourself from a search and check that that's being recorded correctly.

[edit again]
I notice your first blog post is about moving a blog to a new server - did you recently move this blog? Maybe on September 26th?
Could be that the DNS changes hadn't propagated, and people were being directed to the old server and getting a 404. Should be OK by now though.
 
grandad

grandad

Member
Many thanks for that MOH.

I meant to update this but [due to lack of replies *cough*] I forgot. Mea culpa. The site mainly attracts search engine traffic as it isn't constantly updated. This traffic ceased entirely around the 25th September. For no reason [that I can fathom] traffic suddenly returned around four days ago, and it is now getting its constant stream from Google.

Yes I did move the site to a new server but that was in the middle of "the blackout". Maybe the old IP was blocked? I don't know. From older records, I pulled a load of search terms and tested with them. During the blackout all terms returned very poor results but now they are back up in the rankings and are appearing on the front page every time.

The only possible reason I can think of for the problem is that the old IP was in some way restricted. I had intended to move the site for some time, and seeing as I was getting no traffic, that seemed the ideal time. Two or three days later the traffic suddenly returned.

Weird?
 
G

gavinh

New Member
Did you verify that traffic ceased to your website, did you check your log files for that period although its possible you were blacklisted there maybe another answer i took a look at your site and seen several references to the GA tracking code and 2 of them seem to be either modified or different to "standard" tracking code and your tracking code in the footer of your page so potentially another script stopped it from executing the GA JS.

Although it is possible that your visitors just disabled JS for a few days for fun "just because your paranoid doesn't mean there not out to get ya"!

Nice site btw
 
grandad

grandad

Member
Traffic didn't actually cease; just the traffic from Google which made up a large chunk. During the problem period, there were a couple of visits from Bing but that's all [apart from direct traffic, of course].

One of the reasons I moved the site was that it had been sharing a webspace with six other sites, and their logs were all thrown together into one large logfile. This meant that there was no simple way to examine the log for one particular site. That is now rectified.

I don't think it can be the GA coding as the site as it stands now is an exact replica of the original. I haven't changed the coding in the site for some considerable time, so that can't be blamed.

There are three problems that drive traffic to the site - The Iomega iConnect, Adobe Air on Linux and a bug in Wordpress, If it had been driven by just one subject I would say that others sites just got a better ranking for that subject, but the fact that there are three areas rules that theory out.

The only theory that would make any sense is that for reasons best known to themselves, Google blacklisted the site and then whitelisted it again two weeks later.

And thanks for your last line. :rugby:
 
M

MOH

New Member
Maybe one of the other sites got up to something naughty and the IP got blacklisted.

Still, good to hear your traffic is back to normal.
 
grandad

grandad

Member
Hah! I have just noticed - not a single hit from Google yesterday [Wednesday]. The day before, there was a screenfull of them. I use Woopra [donno if you've heard of it?] and the search results panel is a complete blank.

Damn!

Update: Just checked on vebtools.com and onlinealley.com. Both are saying that the site is blacklisted.

Bother and damn!
 
grandad

grandad

Member
addyj672 said:
Your website theotherfellow is ban, i think according to vebtools. So the solution to this problem is purchase a new domain and redirect the old website traffic to new website, may be some traffic can easily be covert to your new purchase domain. Its is best solution to your problem, i think we have deal with problem. As we advice client to purchase a new domain and redirect the old domain....
Click to expand...

That is one way out of the problem but starting off with a fresh new domain would mean losing the rankings I have when the site is working. And what's sto stop the new domain being blacklisted in the future? After all, it's presumably the site that caused the blacklisting and not the domain name?
 
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