Member Avatar for turker

I had 43.000 indexed pages and 50.000 unique visitors per month a few days ago. But now, On google I have only 1000 pages majority of which are too old. (about 1 year!)

Now I have very few visitors as you can guess.

Is there any similar occasion you have/had.

Is this situation temprorary?

Please help!

  • 4 Contributors
  • 8 Replies
  • 205 Views
  • 2 Weeks Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by alphinho

Dani AI

Generated

A sudden fall from ~43,000 indexed pages to ~1,000 is scary but not automatically permanent. Google’s visible “site:” counts are rough estimates and can swing; as pointed out, index totals and actual Google traffic don’t always move together. Before chasing link fixes (the long game mentioned by ), the immediate priority is to diagnose crawlability, URL duplication and server behaviour.

Concrete diagnostic checklist:

  • Use a few previously indexed URLs and confirm their HTTP status (200 / 301 / 404). Watch for “soft 404s” (pages that return 200 but show “not found” content).
  • Verify robots.txt and any X‑Robots‑Tag or meta robots directives aren’t blocking indexing.
  • Inspect the sitemap output: it must list only the canonical, pretty URLs (or the canonical targets), not duplicate query-string variants like showthread.php?t=123. Mixed URL sets in sitemaps/internal links cause consolidation and loss of indexed count.
  • Check server logs for Googlebot access and for repeated 4xx/5xx responses. Large forums can exhaust crawl budget; unimportant parameterized pages should be excluded.
  • Use Search Console / Webmaster Tools coverage and URL inspection to see exact exclusion reasons and any Manual Actions.

Practical fixes and priorities:

  • Make the canonical URL consistent sitewide: 301‑redirect query variants to the pretty thread123.html pattern, or ensure the sitemap and internal links only reference the preferred form.
  • Add rel=canonical where appropriate and remove duplicate/thin pages. Consolidate content instead of creating many near-duplicates.
  • Clean up server errors, stop-serving debug output, and remove accidental noindex rules. After fixes, expect reindexing to take days–weeks on large sites; monitor the Coverage report and server logs for Googlebot activity.

Cautions and monitoring:

  • Don’t flip between URL schemes or submit both variants in sitemaps. Avoid quick, low-quality link schemes; technical correctness and content consolidation recover indexation most reliably. Track changes, document fixes, and use Search Console evidence when requesting reviews if a manual action was present.

Recommended Answers

All 8 Replies

Member Avatar for jewboy

Hello,

I feel your frustration. Here are a few suggestions I would try.

1. Use Google Sitemaps, to help Gbot find and index your pages.
2. Create fresh new links. Typically, a drop in page indexing means your external linkage has slipped. Get yourself included in some new directories. Pursue text links. Buy text links. Write a press release. You get the picture. You need new link juice to keep your pages in the index!

Member Avatar for turker

Thanks.

I Use VBulletin with Dani's seo hack which makes urls in html format. And I'm also thinking of using site map hack which is available on vbulletin.org and said to be really good. Yet it isn't compatible with dani's hack. So it sends google the showthread.php?t=123 style URLs.

Which one should I choose?

- thread123.html style without sitemap

or

- showthread.php?t=123 style with sitemap


Which one?

Member Avatar for jewboy

Option #1 with sitemap would be best. Although I can't see any potential problems with option #2.

Member Avatar for Dani

Currently, we have 3 million pages indexed in Google (down from 8 million, actually) and I have never even touched the Google sitemap. :) Does that answer your question? :)

Member Avatar for turker

Currently, we have 3 million pages indexed in Google (down from 8 million, actually) and I have never even touched the Google sitemap. :) Does that answer your question? :)

Yeah, Good answer :)

Yet I wonder one thing, as i mentioned in the 1st post. Is my situation (losing my indexed pages) temprorary or permenant.

If not permenant, when will I hug my visitors ?

Member Avatar for alphinho

im having the same problem , now i have only 98 page indexed and im using Dani's seo hack too , and by the way daniweb.com have only 766000 page indexed in google !!

what is the problem?;)

Member Avatar for Dani

I'm not quite sure what's up. Pages indexed suddenly drastically declined for us and yet this past week was awesome for us in terms of traffic received from Google. This weekend is slow, but all weekends are, so I can't compare until Monday.

Member Avatar for alphinho

and by the way if i go to my cache in google i c an other page and some codes i dont know why ..:S

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.