Confused about canonicalization

[abbeylinks2002]

Hello Guys,

I have just started to use SEOMOZ and I am trying as much as possible to follow the advise from the initial scan and suggestions I received from SEOMOZ. However, it appears that the first changes I made has somehow made my website to disappear on Google and other search engines.

Canonicalization The first changes I made was "Canonicalization" of my domain name (redirecting to a single dominant version) from the instructions here: http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/canonicalization.

So I redirected and changed my domain name from "domainname.com" to "www.domainname.com" I did check my listing in Google before these updates and Google have my website down as "www.domainname.com"

My keywords that were previously performing well before these recent updates have now disappeared which is causing me some great level of frustration and I am really not sure weather to continue with the instructions from SEOMOZ or not.

However, it could be that I am being impatient or checking too soon. I'd appreciate some form of advise on what to do?

Many thanks.

[DarinPirkey]

If you haven't done so already I would recommend setting up Google WMT.  In there you can set your "preferred domain".  This way all links that go to the non www version of your site will be considered to have the www.

I can tell you from experience that the SEOmoz tools are excellent for rankings.  I swear by them but remember these are guidelines and not specifically guided towards your site.  Just for the record, there has been some questions today about ranking drops so it may indicate a Google update.

Have you run report cards for your pages yet?  Its a great place to start and will give you some guidance on where the best places to make changes.

If you need help walking through them you can run one and post it and we'll all be glad to help you out with it.  If you can provide your domain name we can do some research for you and see what's up.

[abbeylinks2002]

Thanks for the feedback Darin. I have Google WMT set-up and will follow your instructions. I will also run a SEOMOZ report card as you have suggested, and get back to you with the results. Thanks again for the prompt answer to my question.

[Dr-Pete]

Is the www version of your site being indexed. You can check with:

site:www.domainname.com

...or you could search something like:

site:domainname.com intitle:"some title keywords"

...with part of your home-page title and make sure that only one version has been indexed. Step one is to make sure that only the "www" version is being indexed and you haven't created duplicates. I'd also run a header checker - often, redirects get set up and don't work as planned (maybe they're taking more than one "hop" or the 301s are really 302, etc.). It's also worth that check, because mistakes happen more often than you'd think.

If everything is working properly and it's a very recent change, it could just be a matter of time to sort it out. Sometimes, any major change (even a positive one) can cause some short-term bouncing in rankings. Unfortunately, these situations can get technical pretty fast, so it's hard to speak in generalities.

[abbeylinks2002]

Thanks for the info Peter. I tried both options as you have suggested, and they both revert to my site:www.domainname.com So it seems the redirection has kicked in.

However, the only issue right now is the disappearance of my site when searching under my keywords.

[Dr-Pete]

Unfortunately, if your site is being indexed (and the duplicates are gone) but it isn't ranking at all, this may have nothing to do with the redirection. You could be looking at a more classic penalty, for various reasons.

Have you run a header checker, like:

http://tools.seobook.com/server-header-checker/

It's always good to make sure the redirects are doing what you think they're doing (they aren't multi-hop, 302s, etc.). Next step is to try very targeted searches - brand queries and long-tail queries in quotes. See if you can rank for anything - is it a total ban or just targeted? At this point, you've got to isolate the problem.