
Help Google just nerfed us out of the blue - useflyer
http://blog.safeshepherd.com/post/23218902229/google-just-nerfed-us-a-venture-backed-startup
======
pierrefar
Hi

I work at Google helping webmasters like this.

As far as I can tell, there are a couple of interacting issues we're seeing on
the site that can be causing what you're seeing. It's a bit technical, but
it's easy for you to implement a fix.

Firstly, our algorithms recently have been picking one of the following URLs
as the canonical URL for the homepage:

<http://www.safeshepherd.com/> <https://www.safeshepherd.com/>
<https://safeshepherd.com/>

For example, I see that the non-HTTPS pages redirect to the HTTPS pages (e.g.
<http://www.safeshepherd.com/> to <https://www.safeshepherd.com/>), but the
non-www pages do not redirect to the www pages (both
<https://www.safeshepherd.com/> and <https://safeshepherd.com/> return
content). When we find the same content on multiple URLs like this, our
algorithms pick one representative URL, and over the past few weeks the choice
has been changing. As of 3 days ago, the current choice is
<https://safeshepherd.com/> .

As it stands, our algorithms are trying to figure out the right canonical URL
format, but it's difficult in this kind of situation. You can help by
redirecting to your preferred URL format (say
<https://www.safeshepherd.com/*>), and our systems will pick up this signal,
and that will be reflected in the search results and reporting in Webmaster
Tools.

Secondly, Webmaster Tools treats these as different sites. For example, you
would need to verify and check the statistics of both
<https://www.safeshepherd.com/> and <https://safeshepherd.com/> (as well as
the HTTP versions) as they're separate sites. It may be that you're checking
(say) the stats for <http://www.safeshepherd.com/> but if our algos have
picked the <https://www.safeshepherd.com/> URLs as canonical, the search
queries of the former will suddenly be closer to zero but the latter will be a
more accurate reflection of the site's traffic.

Hope this helps, Pierre

~~~
Matt_Cutts
Pierre, thanks for stopping by to confirm these issues. I often see sites be
inconsistent between www and non-www, or between http and https. It looks like
safeshepherd.com was doing both. More consistent redirects and adding
rel=canonical should definitely help us figure out which url you prefer.

Just to confirm what I said elsewhere, this site doesn't have any manual spam
actions or anything like that. It's just a matter of Google trying to pick the
correct canonical url when you have a lot of different (www, non-www, http,
https) urls you're showing. If you make things more consistent, I think Google
will stabilize on your preferred url pretty quickly.

~~~
jeebus
Matt & Pierre, thanks for your thoughts and sorry that this ended up being a
rookie mistake. I have a rel canonical good to go. Thanks again for your time.

~~~
Matt_Cutts
No worries at all--glad it turned out to be easily fixable.

And now I know what "nerfed" means. :)

~~~
kayge
FYI - Another fairly common usage of "nerfed" these days (especially in the
gaming community) refers to something being toned-down. E.g. if many players
are complaining about a character ability being too powerful, the developers
may consider "nerfing" that character.

------
TomAnthony
Hopefully I can help some. :)

I see a couple of problems with your redirects:

1) <http://www.MelonCard.com> uses a 302 redirect to the https version. You
have inbound links to that domain pointing to the http version, so the 302
negates the following 301.

2) Furthermore, your 301's seem to be implemented incorrectly. It works for me
in Safari/Chrome, but if I use curl on the command line, or any crawling
software I see an infinite redirect:

www.MelonCard.com/?from=shadow&from=shadow&from=shadow.....

This is likely interrupting Googlebot's crawl too. Certainly worth a fix!

A couple of other bits to note:

1) The redirect in Chrome sends me to:

www.safeshepherd.com/?from=shadow

which Google believes could be different to:

www.safeshepherd.com/

You should add a rel=canonical meta tag to the page to help Google out.

2) Your internal links point to safeshepherd.com without the www., but your
MelonCard redirect redirects to the www. version. You should probably make
this consistent, and also 301 one version to the other.

This latter points may seem picky, but Google can be troublesome with this.

Hope this helps! :)

~~~
epoxyhockey
Since the OP is using nginx, here is how you properly do a 301 redirect
straight from nginx.conf (in the 'server' section for meloncard.com):

    
    
            rewrite  ^/(.*)$  http://safeshepherd.com/$1  permanent;

~~~
k33l0r
That's actually more complicated than it needs to be, see
<http://wiki.nginx.org/Pitfalls#Taxing_Rewrites>

Bad:

    
    
        rewrite ^/(.*)$ http://domain.com/$1 permanent;
    

Good:

    
    
        rewrite ^ http://domain.com$request_uri? permanent;
    

Better:

    
    
        return 301 http://domain.com$request_uri;

~~~
epoxyhockey
Awesome - thanks!

------
j_s
> We just completed the transition [301-ing from MelonCard.com to
> SafeShepherd.com] yesterday

Clearly, your definition of 'out of the blue' is not the same as mine... good
luck figuring out if the problem was on your end or theirs (hitting the front
page of HN usually helps).

Edit: clarified transition per comment below

~~~
savories
Yup. It took us several months to get our page rank back. We did everything
"by the book" too.

Also: did you request a change of address in Webmaster tools? You have to
control both domains, and request a "Change of Address" from old to new.

~~~
useflyer
I should clarify. We've been ranking for "Safe Shepherd" and SafeShepherd.com.
A 301-redirect from MelonCard.com shouldn't bring DOWN our rank for "Safe
Shepherd" on SafeShepherd.com. Unless I'm missing how the algorithm works..

~~~
MiguelHudnandez
If MelonCard was the primary source of "google juice" for SafeShepherd.com,
then the change would certainly affect your rank.

~~~
Danieru
301 redirects are supposed to transfer the link juice so that couldn't have
been the issue.

------
ericabiz
I hit this issue when I owned a .us site. After my site started making money,
I arranged to buy the .com.

When I made the switch, I did everything by the book (my background is in SEO)
including properly 301 redirecting the .us to the .com and alerting Google in
Webmaster Tools.

The site _completely disappeared_ from the Google search results--same
symptoms as yours, with site: returning valid info but the site not showing up
in search queries at all for the site's name.

This went on for 3 weeks.

Finally, after 22 days, it came back up in the rankings. Where previously it
had been #4 for its keyword, it came back at #1.

No explanation from Google or in Webmaster Tools.

(If I may do a brief plug--our rank tracker will help you see if your site is
ranking somewhere lower than the first few pages now, and will send you daily
email updates so you'll know right away when you come back:
<http://whooshtraffic.com/rank-tracker/> )

Anyway, I'd have to say that this is par for the course for Google. It will
likely come back in a few days or weeks. Time to play the waiting game, and
develop some good links from your blog to your main site!

~~~
motherwell
>Finally, after 22 days, it came back up in the rankings

That is EXACTLY what is supossed to happen. Google runs a SE with over 5
billion URLs - if anyone tells you, or told you, that a transition was
seemless and instantaneous, they lied.

To explain why, Google has this flow:

1\. Crawl the old site - once it finds 301 redirects, it kills the old site
and has no data on the new site yet.

2\. Google crawls the new site, and starts to apply the old sites criteria -
this is NOT, repeat NOT instantaneous.

3\. All the "pre processed" signals are applied from the old to the new site.

22 days is a pretty short time to see things come back better, and I'd thank
my lucky stars!

------
ApolloRising
Not my site but this may help you:
<http://www.sxw.org.uk/computing/robots/check.html>

\------------ Results for <https://safeshepherd.com/robots.txt> Error at line
number 1:

User-Agent: * Capitalization. Field names are case sensitive - the User-agent
field should be written with that capitalization Error at line number 2:

Allow: / No User Agent. An Allow line must have a User-agent line before it.
As records are delimited by newlines, there cannot be new-lines between the
User-agent and Allow lines. Warning at line number 2:

Allow: / Allow is not widely supported. The Allow field was a late addition to
the robots.txt standard, and is not currently widely supported by crawlers.
You should consider alternative ways of constructing your robots.txt file

Error at line number 3:

Disallow: /login/auth No User Agent. A Disallow line must have a User-agent
line before it. As records are delimited by newlines, there cannot be newlines
between the User-agent and Disallow lines. Error at line number 4:

Disallow: /users No User Agent. A Disallow line must have a User-agent line
before it. As records are delimited by newlines, there cannot be newlines
between the User-agent and Disallow lines. Error at line number 5:

Disallow: /signin No User Agent. A Disallow line must have a User-agent line
before it. As records are delimited by newlines, there cannot be newlines
between the User-agent and Disallow lines. Error at line number 6:

Disallow: /upgrade/submit No User Agent. A Disallow line must have a User-
agent line before it. As records are delimited by newlines, there cannot be
newlines between the User-agent and Disallow lines.

------
epoxyhockey
Also, your redirection is weird.. You have a 302 on <http://meloncard.com>,
that forwards to <https://meloncard.com> which then 301 redirects to
safeshepherd.com

If I were moving a domain, I would have 301'd <http://meloncard.com> to
safeshepherd.com right out of the gate.

Too add to everyone's anecdotal experiences, I 301'd a domain last week and
the new domain only took a couple of days to show up in search. I was a happy
customer.

------
atticusfinch
You're still number one when I search for you. Proof:
<http://i.imgur.com/HnTCn.png>

~~~
chmod775
Same for me using ze German Google

~~~
cocoflunchy
Same for me in France.

------
temphn
Google should consider auctioning support time. Make it into a profit center
rather than a cost center. No guarantee of a successful outcome, but it takes
the situation out of the press.

------
AznHisoka
"Build for users, and don't worry about search engines".

I guess situations like this shows the absurdity and lunacy of people who say
things like that.

But I do see your blog as the first result. As for why your main landing page
isn't #1, I suggest you just stay calm, and wait a few days. Google has a
knack for bouncing results, especially these past few weeks with the Penguin
update and all. And if you just recently did the 301-redirect, those things
take time to get sorted out. (Since MelonCard was still a relatively young
brand, a 301-redirect was harmless, but if you had an old brand/domain, a
301-redirect would be SEO suicide)

You're still in the index. Your blog is ranking for your brand. You haven't
been nerfed out of the blue, so stop worrying and be patient.

------
unreal37
Great to see Google responding here. Looks like the confusing 301/302
redirections are the problem. I love HN for this type of community stuff.

~~~
lnanek
Agreed. Was very impressive seeing Googlers respond, and respond helpfully
which is not always easy in tech esp to outside parties, and have forums and
regular G+ hangouts so it isn't a one time thing. Not to mention other people
with similar problems point out the delay in reapplying the signal, etc..

------
nhebb
I get their blog as the first search result, but at least their blog links to
their home page. I'm surprised by how often I see company blogs that don't
link to their main site or make to hunt around the side bar for a link.

------
readme
I just signed up for your service. Hope it helped. Your service will certainly
help me.

The infographic about beenverified was alarming:
(<https://www.safeshepherd.com/beenverified>) and I have actually tried to get
my stuff off of there before and failed.

I'm not even worried about my own information. What I'm worried about is the
accuracy of it! How can I trust a third party who doesn't even know me to
provide an accurate background check when it references PRIVATE databases that
I can't even verify the integrity of? My biggest worry is that some day I will
be screwed out of an opportunity because of a company like this that simply
provides inaccurate data because they confused me with some other John Doe.

It would be one thing to provide public records as a service, but been
verified seriously ticks me off. To think they have the authority to 'verify'
people irks me.

Then again, it may be a good thing, because I sure as hell wouldn't want to
work with anyone stupid enough to use a service like beenverified.

------
nicksergeant
Um, still #1 for me: <http://cl.ly/371t2b0z1S1C0A170y2e>

~~~
nicksergeant
I'm in the US, also (Rochester, NY)

------
jrockway
For me, all but one result on the first page of "Safe Shepherd" is them.

~~~
useflyer
Are you in the US? We were told that changes roll out in the US first and then
elsewhere. A friend in Japan said he sees as as #1 in Japan, and nowhere from
a US search

~~~
jrockway
Yes.

To be fair, their landing page is nowhere to be found. The first result is
their blog. The second result is safeshepherd.com/beenverified. The rest are
their blog or the press talking about them. But all in all, they've hardly
disappeared from teh intarwebs :)

------
drone
Ok, so I thought, let me check on ours. Boom. Went from #1 when searching for
our company name to not even present in the results.

What gives? We had perfect placement, built not through any SEO, but just a
lot of people talking about us - had the proper config and everything,
recently had a site overhaul that was handled properly, using webmaster tools,
and everything was updated in google indexes within a day.

------
robdwoods
I have to add my kudos to Matt and Pierre for taking the time to respond to
these threads. They could clearly just refer users to the Google Webmaster
forums rather than answering in detail here. For all the flack Google takes, I
have to say that I'm encouraged that two senior engineers take the time to
answer questions in a 3rd party discussion forum.

------
jstanley
Sadly, stories like this are getting more and more common.

~~~
useflyer
The black box is getting more complex...this is a problem I hate to see
ourselves and any other startups have...

------
DanBC
I'd be interested to know how Google protects trusty-worthy sites from the SEO
equivalent of joe-jobbing.

------
andrewhillman
If nothing else works, remove the domain from google webmaster tools -
completely. I had two sites that lost top serp positioning and once i removed
the domains from google webmaster tools, they went right back up to first 3
results on page 1.

Google webmaster tools is more or less designed to help google, not you.

------
Monotoko
Still number 1 in the UK too

------
sevenstar
You are number one on duckduckgo.Use social marketing if you really need the
traffic.

------
SpiderX
Buy ad words or quit complaining about it. You act like you are entitled to
search ranking. You aren't.

------
quangv
sounds like you got slapped?

------
keltex
I think you've been hit by the "penguin" update, which is probably the biggest
SEO embarassment from Google in a long time.

Unlike other updates which attempted to remove "web spam" from the search
results by tweaking some of the parameters, this update (according to many in
the SEO community) is an active attempt to catch people doing black hat or
over SEO optimization. Unfortunately many legit sites have gotten caught in
its net.

You can read about it in the WSJ among other places:

[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230350550457740...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303505504577406751747002494.html)

~~~
sixQuarks
I've been following the Penguin update and this doesn't sound like the cause.
The OP said they did not do any crappy link building.

~~~
jeebus
I've even gone in to Alexa to start verifying all of our back-links. All of
our links are from blogs / news / twitter , et al. That said, it doesn't mean
Penguin didn't hurt us. Algorithms have corner cases.

~~~
keltex
Use Open Site Explorer to start on your bad link search:

[http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/domains?site=safeshepherd.co...](http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/domains?site=safeshepherd.com)

~~~
sixQuarks
OpenSE and Majestic SEO databases are not really going to find the spammy
links that penguin is targeting:

[http://www.branded3.com/seo/penguin-update-renders-seomoz-
ma...](http://www.branded3.com/seo/penguin-update-renders-seomoz-majestic-
link-data-unreliable/)

