Google ranking disappears for certain phrases

[andym]

Hi

I've always been fairly high for my two most popular search phrases ('electric fencing' & 'horse clippers') but over the past few days I have been dropped completely. Initially I wasn't too fussed as I'd only checked 'electric fencing' and thought it was a Google blip as there were a couple or results on page 1 that were newcomers and I thought that it'll all sort itself out in a day or so.

With my second main phrase now showing no results (I was a steady 4th all year) this is making me wonder whether I have have done somethig to rattle Google.

Any ideas appreciated.

Andy - ukcountrystore.co.uk

[Owen Drumm]

Just did a search on both keywords and you are top ten on both

[andym]

Hi Owen

Thanks for looking but are you not seeing countrystoredirect and mistaking them for me (ukcountrystore) as I've just checked again and am not listed for either.

Is there some sort of filter on Google that displays only sites other than ones you choose not to display. If I've activated that then that would explain it but not for other search phrases.

Andy

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

Hi Andy,

I see you at position 11 for 'horse clippers' and 34 for 'electric fencing'

[Owen Drumm]

I searched for you, admittedly I searched for UK sites only. You are now on page two for electric fencing but still page one for horse clippers

[Mark H]

We have seen our rankings suffer recently, particularly in Google Product Search. This might be due to the recent Google "brand" algorithm change. Nobody seems to have much info on this at the moment.

The only suggestion I have (apart from Googling "Google brand algorithm change" etc) is to see which others have appeared from nowhere to be on the first page for those keywords and see if you can figure out why and how you can change to fight back.

[Darren B]

i was about to say the same Mark

[Mark H]

i was about to say the same Mark

Great minds etc

Andy - if you do have a look for info about the algorithm change, you will see a lot of references to Feb/Mar 2009. This is when the change happened in the US, it has only happened in the UK in the last week.

[EdHarrison]

I find that my keywords can completely disappear from Google from time to time then mysteriously they are back usually within 24 hours -

Ed

[andym]

Hi

Thanks all for your ideas. I'll look further into this Google Algorithm thing and see why it should have such an effect. Funny thing is my rankings for seaches for particular types of fencing and clippers hasn't budged at all. It seems only themore general phrases, which so happen to be my most popular search phrases, are the ones to get a kicking.

It's not the end of the world as the phone is still ringing and the orders are still coming in but I do see these phrases as an indication as to how well the site ranks. Thankfully I'm coming into a slightly quieter time of year (and my wife is away all next week) so I had intended on adding extra things to the site and beefing up the text anyway.

I think this will be a blip as I've noticed that sometimes all my competitors have a turn to get shuffled around during Google updates but normally within a couple of weeks we all settledown to roughly the same positions as before. I suppose the best thing for now would be to update the site over the coming week and sit tight for a bit.

Cheers

Andy