Website rankings lost (1 Viewer)

[Jon]

Following my hosts upgrade of this server, I have now found out that they messed up the DNS settings. Consequently, Google could not find this site for 7 days and we are down to about 30% of previous traffic levels. I am not happy. They denied it was their fault, but its strange since it changes one day after they upgrade their server for the first time in years. They claimed it was to do with my domain registrar. After I said it was not the case, they came back and said they fixed it. No apology, nothing.

So, at least now Google can find the site again. I keeping my fingers crossed that we don't get a long term penalty here for the outage.

I just hope we can restore this site to its previous position as the top Access forum destination on the internet.

Rant over.

 

[Minty]

If we keep searching on google and selecting the site based on our searches I guess this will help? Or is it bit like pushing water up hill...

 

[Frothingslosh]

Looks like it's going to take some work - I just ran a few basic searches for common MS Access issues and for the most part didn't see AWF results until the third page.

I can say that the instant the server upgrade happened, I found myself completely unable to access the site from home until I manually changed DNS servers.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

I'm not sure why, but I never had a big problem. I'm using the BellSouth.Net DNS (whatever they use) and Firefox. Now, I recall that once or twice, it claimed it could not find the server, but in each case, on clicking the "Favorites" the second time, it worked immediately. So that COULD have been a search timing out and having to work with secondary Name Service sources.

 

[Frothingslosh]

It went on from the time the site was updated until Sunday, when I finally switched to a designated DNS rather than the one Comcast uses. Reloading, clicking on favorites, clearing my cache, etc didn't do a thing from the time the changes went live until I did that on Sunday.

Even Google's public DNS at 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 didn't help; they insist that the AWF links no longer resolve. Same with 2001:4860:4860::8888 and 2001:4860:4860::8844 for the IPv6 version.

This also appeared regardless of browser. And it was limited to this single site.

I'm pretty sure that whatever the issue was, it was NOT a simple random timeout. As Jon said in his original post, it absolutely had to be an issue with Google and its DNS settings.

 

[Jon]

Quick update: looks like Google is starting to crawl the site again. Traffic is up, concurrent users are up. Not quite at pre-upgrade levels but I feel optimistic things should get back to normal. I feel like I have aged about 50 years recently!

 

[Sofiella]

From what i know.. Google is continuously changing search algorithms. Many websites lost good amount of traffic. You should Google Webmasters to see if there is any problem with your site. You should check for penalties and mobile usability. You can always reverse by undoing what you did on your website.

 

[daniel.smith.10]

Maybe it is because of Google algorithm update

 

[Frothingslosh]

Both of you should, perhaps, actually read the thread. The issue happened because the site's host upgraded their servers and screwed up their own DNS settings in the process, causing the site (which normally dominates Access-related Google searches) to vanish from Google results entirely.

 

[RHarron]

If you want Google to crawl and index your site quickly in future sign up to Google Search Console and submit your site there

 

[cigarprofiler]

For what it's worth, this site will always dominate the search results for me because I have bookmarked it. As an Access/VBA noob, I found this site the best by far (like lightyears) in terms of clarity and helpfulness.

I'm a firm believer that content is still king on the internet and this site will soon be up there in the search results.

Thanks to everyone who devotes their time to this forum!

 

[Gasman]

Already there is you Google 'access forums'