Newish site dropped out of rankings - is this normal?

[damoncali]

I've got a small, 3 month old site that was ranking for a few low-competition keywords. Then, yesterday, it dropped out of the rankings almost completely. The only way to find it is to google the URL/site name, and then it does come up. There are pages in the index, they're just not ranking like they did two days ago. I'm not doing anything black hat or even slightly shady - just writing articles and clean link building.

Is this a normal part of the Google process? I've never seen it happen on any other sites I've been involved with.

[alexhoug]

This is just Google likely testing the site, you may have heard of the term "Google Dance" this is likely what it is, but also, Google tests their SERPs immensely, so you may just be wrapped up in the test. Hopefully you don't get the shaft. I'd say, just wait a few days and see what happens.

[KeriMorgret]

On Monday Google announced they're taking the Panda update to English-language Google searchers worldwide, not just in the US, and that they've also made other updates that affect about 2% of US queries. http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/04/high-quality-sites-algorithm-goes.html

New sites can fluctuate, usually getting an initial boost then settling out a bit. In your case, launching right before a couple of major algorithm changes may have made for even more fun.

Can you give us any details about your site? If not the URL, can you give us location of the site and type of site? Is it a forum? A blog? A small business? Original content? User reviews? etc.

Have you looked in Google Webmaster Tools to see if there are any messages or information for you there?

[damoncali]

It's an online magazine/blog sort of site (not on a blog platform, but same sort of content). All original content (articles of about 700 words, plus some downloadable pdfs) related to the shooting sports industry. Vistors would be predominantly from the US, plus a smattering from New Zealand, Austrailia, and western Europe. Most any traffic form a part of the world without liberal gun laws would be suspect. Going on two days now with no ranking. No messages on Webmaster tools.

The only other thing I can think of is that there are a handful of Amazon affiliate links on the site, but nothing major. Literally about 3 links on the entire site.

I am hosting DNS on Cloudflare, but other sites I have hosted there have not been hit like this.

I'm hoping this is just a blip that will be corrected soon, but I want to make sure I'm not missing something obvious.

[KeriMorgret]

Check in Open Site Explorer. If I guess your site correctly, it looks like you have only five linking root domains, and one of those is a site-wide footer link from an unrelated site. More links from on-topic sites would certainly help. With OSE, you can add in a competitor's URL and look at their backlinks and find good places to start your link building campaign.

Again, if I guess your site correctly, it does look like a nice site, good content that hasn't been scraped elsewhere, etc. I don't see anything headsmackingly obvious there.

And as a side note, I sympathize with you on the gun laws. Our business involves RC warships that shoot BBs and ball bearings at each other, and there are many countries that just can't be involved in our sport.

[damoncali]

Thanks - sounds like you found it. Since the last OSE update, I've been getting quite a few more links, all from relevant sites, but they're from small, low authority sites and a handful of big on-topic message boards (none are astroturfed- they're legit links).

That's what's so frustrating - as the content  and backlinks were increasing, google traffic was as well - quite predictably, in fact. And it seemed like good legit traffic. Then bam - nothing.

Hopefully it will clean up soon.

[KeriMorgret]

Anything change in the past week?