SE's and i-frames

[Lemmy]

So I had this static page that I put up and "optimized" some years ago. It sat there quietly and did nothing, then about 6 months ago it started climbing on Google until I had 3 listings on the first page for some very nice keywords/-terms, traffic was flowing in quite nicely and I was making sales too.

Then I thought I'd exploit this some more and I put up an i-frame ad. Literally overnight my traffic drops to a trickle and my listings are nowhere to be found. Coincidence or do the SEs hate i-frames?

[virgohippy]

Google views "fresh" different from "historic." Google also intentionally mixes different "types" of pages in their SERPs.

My guess is that Google decided a static page that had not changed in 6 months was viewed different as soon as something did change, and so now the page is competing with other "fresh" pages rather then competing with other "historic" pages.

Yahoo and MSN... I've no idea.

[Lemmy]

Well that sucks! Google is a hard master to please. Maybe if I leave it alone it'll climb back up in another 6 months time. It sure was nice getting all those sales without having to work for it.

[virgohippy]

Originally Posted by Lemmy

Well that sucks! Google is a hard master to please. Maybe if I leave it alone it'll climb back up in another 6 months time. It sure was nice getting all those sales without having to work for it.

Uh oh... someone heard me think out loud and paid attention. |badidea|

/* Hippy on Damage Control */

Don't take my words as absolute fact. Try removing the i-frame to find out. If you were right about your initial suspicion, problem solved. If my pathetic attempt to understand the great empire of G was right... well, what's another day to add to that 6 month waiting period?

Where's halfdeck anyway? Shouldn't he be here by now?

[Lemmy]

Originally Posted by virgohippy

Uh oh... someone heard me think out loud and paid attention. |badidea|

/* Hippy on Damage Control */

Don't take my words as absolute fact. Try removing the i-frame to find out. If you were right about your initial suspicion, problem solved. If my pathetic attempt to understand the great empire of G was right... well, what's another day to add to that 6 month waiting period?

Where's halfdeck anyway? Shouldn't he be here by now?

I removed the i-frame right away, but of course the damage was already done. Being a total ignoramus when it comes to SEOing I think what you said about G detecting a change makes sense, but fuck, did they have to be so brutal about it?!? What do they have against me making a little easy money?

[Halfdeck]

It's hard to say without looking at your page and the search term. Off the cuff my guess is its coincidence.

Google also sometimes "pulls" a URL temporarily from search results I'm guessing for re-evaluation if you make major changes to the URL (e.g. completely rewrite the TITLE tag, etc).

If your ranking drop isn't -300~900 range you can regain it; just do some smart, "natural-looking" link building (getting direct backlinks to the ranking page with varied anchor text leveraging links on your other domains instead of adding outbounds on this site of yours), and internal anchor text tweaks.

[LowryBigwood]

Originally Posted by Lemmy

Then I thought I'd exploit this some more and I put up an i-frame ad. Literally overnight my traffic drops to a trickle and my listings are nowhere to be found. Coincidence or do the SEs hate i-frames?

It's just like adding another outgoing link as far as I know. Meaning... you give it some PR and change your page enough to where it's not the same which could possibly shift your ranking for those terms almost overnight. That's just a guess, no way for me to know. But, then again, the listings are constantly changing it seems. So, maybe it's a coincidence.