Vanished from #1 Google Position Overnight

[peteny]

My first blog, that I put up two weeks ago, hit the #1 spot on Google for my key-phrase and held that position for well over a week. It had 50-130 visitors per day. Then last night, my blog completely vanished from google's search.

I'm nowhere to be found in the search for my key phrase. Even doing a google site search for "site:www.mysite.com" brings up nothing. I guess Google no longer indexes my blog?

Originally, I only had 2 Amazon Affiliate Widgets on the page and a bunch of Youtube Videos and related news text. A few days ago, I added a new page (off of my homepage) that had affiliate links to a lot of iTunes products. I linked to that page from my main navbar and 1st blog post.

I'm removing the iTunes affiliate links page. My guess is since that was the last thing I added, that's the reason I disappeared overnight from google?

The only other thing I changed was adding "2009" to my page title.

Any thoughts? If I remove the iTunes affiliate links page, how long until I rank again? Will I ever rank again? Do you think the extra links page was the reason for my blog vanishing from google?

Or am I missing something else?

I'll keep everyone posted on my progress.

Thanks! PeteNY

[martinsbca]

don't panic. What google is doing is "re-valuating" your content. Simply, your change was so large "according to google" that it keeps your site "hidden" or you may have heard the term sandbox. Your site will come back and either shows you a new ranking or it will come back where it was.

I just multiple times this happening to me and actually one of my sites is still missing dues to adding youtube video. My site usually come back in about 2 days.

So leave everything as is and google will return your site.

[peteny]

Thanks Martin! I'll take a deep breath and not panic. Inhaling...

What does everyone think I should do now?

A) Continue adding content, and getting backlinks so google doesn't think my soul purpose for the site is to get ranking and sell stuff.

B) Leave the rank-less site alone until it comes back into google ranking. And, move on to adding content and backlinks for my next sites.

Thanks again,
PeteNY

[billmcintosh]

I'd suggest you do "A" and keep building out the site. Ignore the shifts up and down in ranking and see if they settle out. While you're doing this read the Google Webmaster Guidelines and see if you've done anything to violate them:

Webmaster Guidelines - Webmasters/Site owners Help

Here's another good resource:

Requesting reconsideration - Webmasters/Site owners Help

If you did: fix these violations, let Google know you fixed them by following the instructions in link #2 above and file for a reinclusion request.

Good luck!

Let me know what happens.

[loyalknight10]

There are two possible possibilities that Google may be reindexing your blog or it might have marked your site as spam if it had too much of keywords or links. The second point is not much possible as it happens rarely.

[peteny]

I think my problem was that I changed the names and structure of my blog's categories. So, some links were temporarily not working on the site. They pointed to the old category names. It's now working. I submitted a sitemap and a request for reconsideration as Bill recommended.

Here's a good video from google on the issue...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntJhr...layer_embedded

[jimbo]

It seems to me that you are the victim of the infamous Google sandbox. You should wait a few weeks or even months before you can see your site rank again.