High ranked web site on Google GONE - but webspam team says nothing wrong

[TBKO]

We purchased several weeks ago a .org blog that has been highly ranked (number 1 on competetive keywords) for at least a year.

it is a blog

We moved the blog to our IP range and it went from #1 on top keyword and first page on another to the home page just gone.

Now there was a secondary page indexed that stayed on page 5 for the keyword the home page was ranked #1 but the home page (which was high ranked page is just gone)

We wrote the Google Webmaster team for reconsideration but they wrote back and said the web spam team said nothing wrong.

A contact of mine who works for one of the most well known SEO compaines in the world says because we moved it the site could disappear for a week or so but the "algos would realize" and return it to that top spot soon.

Does anyone know anything about moving a site to new IP and issues that can result?

[irvingw]

Here is an article I wrote a year ago. Not all the bullet points are applicable in all circumstances. Your site can undergo a new evaluation by Google and it may not have enough muster to survive the new world.

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It is the general understanding that the “trust” for a domain is reset if any domain registration info changes. Even changing an IP address will cause the search engine to reevaluate link counts and other aspects of the web site. This document provides best SEO practices for changing an IP address and DNS server. Following all these steps will not guarantee that a site will not be impacted after the change, since as noted above there are some factors that are out of our control. The location of the new IP address also might impact Google rankings as Google sometimes like to show results based on locality matching.

Steps for Moving to a new IP address and DNS Server

• Clean up all existing internal site link errors. Many errors found on a fresh crawl may trigger a bad reaction by the search engines.
• Freeze any content changes one week prior and one week after the changeover.
• Inform contacts at Google and Bing when exactly changes will take place to the IP and DNS records.
• Check the new IP address and research if it has been blacklisted in any country whether it will be neighbor to black listed websites. Google does indirectly associate websites which reside on same class C IP address.
• If possible, it is best to ask the hosting provider for a fresh IP as opposed to a recycled IP address. Check on the history of IP addresses using a tool from ip-details.com.
• Test on local machines. Change the local dns to point to the new ip’s before going live, to verify the new servers are working.
• Make sure that all monitoring services are up and running and very thoroughly tested. Also, some services maybe tied to the old site IP addresses, make sure to check if you have any and update the IP address.
• Change the TTL (Time To Live) value of the DNS configuration to something short, like five minutes (300 seconds). This will tell web browsers to re-check the site IP address every five minutes.
• Copy site content to the new hosting environment, and make sure it is live on the new IP address.
• Test to make sure new server is working correctly. Check internal linking at the new location to make sure there aren’t any broken links. We will use crawling tools Xenu’s Link Sleuth and Screaming Frog that will crawl the website and make sure everything is in order.
• Change the DNS settings so the hostname points to the new IP address. DNS propagation is usually very fast in most locations. (approximate 30 minutes)
• All web pages need to be reachable during the whole process by Googlebot and users of course.
• Keep the old server on until cached DNS records expire. The reason to do this is because DNS records are cached for varying times at various points all over the internet. You can tell the old server is no longer needed when traffic drops to zero. Check the logs of the old server to get a clear indication when the crawling process is terminated by Googlebot.
• Check the logs of the new server to see when Googlebot starts crawling the site on the new IP address. Log into Webmaster Tools and monitor any crawl errors. Once Googlebot is happily crawling on the new IP address, you are all set as far as Google is concerned. (Errors in Webmaster can take 24-48 hours to display)

[KeriMorgret]

Hi! I'm following up on older questions. Did Irving's answer help you? How is the site doing now?

[irvingw]

U guys are really great - following up on old posts and trying to help out. Just sheer amazing.

[KeriMorgret]

Thank you Irving! I don't always get a chance to go back to the older posts, but I do like to do this when I have time available. It's often interesting to get the follow-up report and see how things turned out.

[TBKO]

Keri

Back at #1 after a few weeks just gone....crazy!  I dont get it but glad to see it back where it was

Thanks for the help and great forum

[irvingw]

Glad I was able to help - Can you kindly close out the question by marking my answer "Good Answer" - Thanks