Webmaster Tools Problem

n_touch · Share | #1 (**permalink**) 02-20-2012, 08:48 AM

Hello how is everyone doing today? I recently saw a drop in all of my rankings. I have found the problem and it is that Google is showing a 404 error for my homepage. I have been through webmaster tools and looked at the pages that are linking in and checked the links. All of the links are correct and go to my home page. I did a fetch with googlebot and it shows that my home page is fine.

Anyone know the turn around time for them to realize that the page isn't down and get the page reindexed?

Thanks

**HTMLBasicTutor** · #2 (**permalink**) 02-20-2012, 02:13 PM

Are you sure the page has been removed from the index?

n_touch · #3 (**permalink**) 02-20-2012, 05:36 PM

I cant find it in there. I did the whole site:url and it doesnt show up. I am sure something happened just not what yet since not only Google lost it but so did Bing.

shakir · #4 (**permalink**) 02-20-2012, 07:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by n_touch

Hello how is everyone doing today? I recently saw a drop in all of my rankings. I have found the problem and it is that Google is showing a 404 error for my homepage. I have been through webmaster tools and looked at the pages that are linking in and checked the links. All of the links are correct and go to my home page. I did a fetch with googlebot and it shows that my home page is fine.

Anyone know the turn around time for them to realize that the page isn't down and get the page reindexed?

Thanks

Are you submitted sitemap?, like this issue is normal but for a period of time... better is update the content, re submit sitemap .. do for a period of time

n_touch · #5 (**permalink**) 02-20-2012, 07:28 PM

Ok, so it is getting worse every time I check. Now I am getting redirect errors, and more still not finding the main page in Google. Here is a screenshot of what I am seeing. I am using a wordpress site, and wondering if this could be a problem. Anyone know how to determine if someone has hacked into my site and is doing this in somewhat shape or form?

Crimson Penguin · #6 (**permalink**) 02-20-2012, 07:55 PM

On closer inspection I think your problem is actually with the url. Your homepage should be houstonlawyerlistings.com not houstonlawyerlistings.com/

I think the trailing / in the url could be causing the problem.

Crimson Penguin · #7 (**permalink**) 02-20-2012, 08:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crimson Penguin

On closer inspection I think your problem is actually with the url. Your homepage should be houstonlawyerlistings.com not houstonlawyerlistings.com/

I think the trailing / in the url could be causing the problem.

Mmmm. Scratch that, the trailing slash doesn't seem to be the problem now that I've re-checked. I can tell you that I doubt your site has been hacked. If you have the latest version of wordpress then you should be fine.

At this point I probably wouldn't rule out a Google penalty.

n_touch · #8 (**permalink**) 02-20-2012, 08:42 PM

I do not see that I would get a penalty. If so it would be to the whole site and not just a page or two. The other problem is the minute that the redirects and errors started is the exact same time that the rankings dropped.

Turkey Property · #9 (**permalink**) 02-21-2012, 12:04 AM

I went to your home page just now from the url and had no problems, and was able to go to other pages and return from them to the home page. However, I did a quick rank check on the keywords in your meta tag and only one of them was in the top 40, was that how it was before?

n_touch · #10 (**permalink**) 02-21-2012, 12:11 AM

Depends on the words that you are looking at. I am not targeting the ones that I have listed there. I did get the issue resolved though.

I spoke with godaddy and they said that it is their servers that are having issues. They were having attacks and put up a block on the servers. It will still allow traffic to go through, but it slows bots down to a point that they think that there is an error. They use redirects during attacks to make sure that it slows it down enough that they can tell if it is real traffic or someone looking for a way in. He said it was only happening on a few servers and in fact he was able to tell me I should watch another site of mine since the server was doing the same thing last week. After looking back over the errors in Google, it did the same thing but did not last as long.

Thanks to all that responded.

chizcurlz · #11 (**permalink**) 02-22-2012, 05:58 AM

Then that's the problem. I hope you already solved it. Server issues are suspects in this crime! lol!

n_touch · #12 (**permalink**) 02-24-2012, 03:29 PM

I did. After a few days of dealing with Godaddy, I am switching to hostgator. After 7 days of my site having issues they can still not say when their server will be back to normal. Their suggestion was to get a different hosting plan on a different server. So i did. I am not sure if he meant with them or not but they just lost all of my sites and my clients sites. Ranking sites is hard enough when you are striving for big keywords, and to loose your work due to hosting is unacceptable in my book.