The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • My Q&A
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. SEO and Digital Marketing Q&A Forum
    2. Categories
    3. White Hat / Black Hat SEO
    4. Site dropped suddenly. Is it due to htaccess?

    Site dropped suddenly. Is it due to htaccess?

    White Hat / Black Hat SEO
    27 4 344
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
    • semoney
      semoney @BlueprintMarketing last edited by

      Cloudfare doesnt seem to serve my purpose. It seems to be able to detect hackers and spammers but my concern is on telling Google to index my site and put me back where I am originally was.

      I have checked that on this site, there is no malware and no no-follows. The strangest thing is why did it suddenly go back to where it was and one hour later, it dropped?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • semoney
        semoney last edited by

        On Google Webmaster Tools, the last updates was 6th April. Today is 9th April. Why did it stopped updating? Is there something wrong?

        BlueprintMarketing 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • BlueprintMarketing
          BlueprintMarketing @semoney last edited by

          I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is you show up fine in Yahoo and Bing unfortunately you have to click one more button to show perfectly in Google. However I'm using the tool that I strongly strongly suggest that you use

          Screaming frog spider SEO

          http://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/user-guide/

          100% free for windows, Mac and Linux up to 500 pages per domain it tells you everything listed in the URL above. And will actually check your index status if you right-click on the a link that you want checked.

          I believe that it is a matter of time however I would adjust your robot text to suit the information found at yoast.com below and in addition to that I would add your site map

          so your robot text looks like this.

          I would change my robot text to

          User-Agent: *
          Disallow:

          Sitemap: http://www.example.com/sitemap.xml

          In addition I have to go to work honestly or I am dead however I believe the frog spider will help you very much and if you add the site map to the robot text that never will hurt.

          I will private message you regarding one other issue I don't know if you want talk about here.

          your robot text is giving me some issues. But it may not be this.

          http://tools.seobook.com/robots-txt/analyzer/

          Your current robot text is this below I hope this is okay to share I don't think it'll violate any trust or anything like this it's not showing the site

          User-agent: *
          Disallow: /wp-admin/
          Disallow: /wp-includes/

          try out this tool as well

          http://phpweby.com/services/robots

          I would change my robot text to

          User-Agent: *
          Disallow:

          Sitemap: http://www.example.com/sitemap.xml

          having the site map in helps a lot and if you have a /

          Google tends to block more things. That are not listed below such as the site map

          I also believe what this has to say is correct

          http://yoast.com/example-robots-txt-wordpress/

          also see

          http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13527529/robots-txt-is-blocking-wordpress-site-from-google?rq=1

          semoney 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • BlueprintMarketing
            BlueprintMarketing last edited by

            PS This

            http://www.seomoz.org/q/google-webmaster-says-0-pages-indexed

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • semoney
              semoney @BlueprintMarketing last edited by

              Hi

              Thank you!

              I have changed robots.txt as suggested and as mentioned, I have no choice but to wait 😞

              Im really praying that this goes back up

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • semoney
                semoney last edited by

                Its strange! How can my website dropped suddenly in ONE hour?

                1. Site was de-indexed due to .htaccess . It was resolved

                2. Site was back up on the first page within two days

                3. Site was de-indexed within an hour.

                What happened? How did it get de-indexed so quickly? I don't think Google's penalty even worked so fast? What is happening man?

                Cyrus-Shepard 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • Cyrus-Shepard
                  Cyrus-Shepard @semoney last edited by

                  Hi Eada,

                  There's 2 things you want to do here to "help" Google re-crawl your site.

                  1. Submit a new sitemap via Google Webmaster Tools. Make sure the sitemap is up to date. If your sitemap hasn't changed, resubmit it.

                  2. Do a "Fetch as Googlebot" - also in Webmaster Tools. Fetch your homepage. Then chose the option that says "Submit to index and all linked pages"

                  An engineer at Google suggested #2 to me after my own site was hacked and I cleaned it up. It's a signal to Google to take another look at those pages.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • Cyrus-Shepard
                    Cyrus-Shepard @semoney last edited by

                    Hi Eada,

                    Sorry to hear you're having trouble. I won't go over the same ground that the others have already covered here, but let me offer these suggestions.

                    Google often serves results from different data centers, and those data centers refresh at different times. Also, rankings can fluctuate greatly even throughout a single day. For this reason it's not unusual to occasionally see huge swings in rankings from hour to hour as the SERPs adjust. But let's try to get to the heart of the problem.

                    1. If you're site was hacked, this could be a strong signal to Google to not show you in search results.

                    Check in Google Webmaster Tools under "Health > Malware" to see if they have detected Malware on your site.

                    (I stated the next 2 earlier, but here they are again)

                    2. Submit a new sitemap via Google Webmaster Tools. Make sure the sitemap is up to date. If your sitemap hasn't changed, resubmit it.

                    3. Do a "Fetch as Googlebot" - also in Webmaster Tools. Fetch your homepage. Then chose the option that says "Submit to index and all linked pages"

                    If Google has trouble fetching your homepage or any other page, it could indicate other problems you need to address.

                    4. Finally, we need to consider the possibility that this has nothing to do with hacking or .htaccess files, but instead there is the possibility that you have indeed been penalized and Google has dropped your rankings.

                    Have you done any questionable link building? Recieved any messages of unnatural links? If so, this may be another area you want to explore.

                    Hope this helps! Best of luck with your SEO.

                    semoney 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • semoney
                      semoney @Cyrus-Shepard last edited by

                      Hi

                      1. There is no malware on my site. I have triple checked on Succuri and in GWT

                      2. Sitemap was re-submitted yesterday. No point in re-doing it. I even changed my robots.txt as per comments above.

                      3. I re-did a Fetch as Googlebot . No issues here

                      4. If i have been penalized, I wont even be able to see my site when i googled my site name. Additionally, i did not receive any messages from Google. Whatever SEO methods I did for this site, i used on my other sites and the other sites are all sitting on the first page. Only this site! Damn, why am i so unlucky?

                      semoney Cyrus-Shepard 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • semoney
                        semoney @semoney last edited by

                        Is it possible to call Google?!?!

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • Cyrus-Shepard
                          Cyrus-Shepard @semoney last edited by

                          There are many types and degrees of penalization. Very very few penalties result in total de-indexation.

                          Most of the time, if you are penalized, your rankings will simply drop for most keywords, but Google will often keep most of your pages in it's index.

                          Additionally, Google will only send messages about unnatural links via webmaster tools if it's a manual penalty. Algorithmic penalties, like Panda and Penguin, usually are not accompanied by manual notices.

                          Here's a really good article from Ryan Kent about the topic:

                          http://www.seomoz.org/blog/identifying-link-penalties-in-2012

                          There's one final possibility: Nothing is wrong with your site, but for some reason Google is devaluing your backlinks. This sometimes happens when your site is fine, but the sites linking to you get hit with a penalty. Happens more and more these days.

                          semoney 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • semoney
                            semoney @Cyrus-Shepard last edited by

                            How can i verify if it's penalized or a Google dance? Because its too coincidental that the entire site got de-indexed after the site got hacked. What can i do now? I still believe that it is still getting indexed by Google but GWT told me that Google have already indexed it. Maybe its because i just refused to believe the hard truth. What can i do now?

                            semoney 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • semoney
                              semoney @semoney last edited by

                              Any help will be good?

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • 1
                              • 2
                              • 2 / 2
                              • First post
                                Last post
                              • Sudden drop in ranking
                                Hurf
                                Hurf
                                1
                                5
                                103

                              • My site just dropped significant!
                                BlueCorona
                                BlueCorona
                                0
                                4
                                125

                              • Sudden Recent Drop in Impressions in GWT - WTF?
                                kimmiedawn
                                kimmiedawn
                                0
                                2
                                174

                              • Rank drop ecommerce site
                                BlueprintMarketing
                                BlueprintMarketing
                                0
                                2
                                176

                              • My Site having a drop in traffic with eash passing month
                                MarieHaynes
                                MarieHaynes
                                0
                                7
                                206

                              • Big Rank Drop - Is My Site Spammy?
                                smckenzie75
                                smckenzie75
                                0
                                13
                                874

                              • Sudden drop in rakings for a keyword.
                                marcusuk-304105
                                marcusuk-304105
                                0
                                10
                                830

                              • Would linking out to a gambling/casino site, harm my site and the other sites it links out to?
                                Getz.pro
                                Getz.pro
                                0
                                7
                                9.8k

                              Get started with Moz Pro!

                              Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                              Start my free trial
                              Products
                              • Moz Pro
                              • Moz Local
                              • Moz API
                              • Moz Data
                              • STAT
                              • Product Updates
                              Moz Solutions
                              • SMB Solutions
                              • Agency Solutions
                              • Enterprise Solutions
                              • Digital Marketers
                              Free SEO Tools
                              • Domain Authority Checker
                              • Link Explorer
                              • Keyword Explorer
                              • Competitive Research
                              • Brand Authority Checker
                              • Local Citation Checker
                              • MozBar Extension
                              • MozCast
                              Resources
                              • Blog
                              • SEO Learning Center
                              • Help Hub
                              • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                              • How-to Guides
                              • Moz Academy
                              • API Docs
                              About Moz
                              • About
                              • Team
                              • Careers
                              • Contact
                              Why Moz
                              • Case Studies
                              • Testimonials
                              Get Involved
                              • Become an Affiliate
                              • MozCon
                              • Webinars
                              • Practical Marketer Series
                              • MozPod
                              Connect with us

                              Contact the Help team

                              Moz logo
                              © 2021 - 2026 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                              • Accessibility
                              • Terms of Use
                              • Privacy