Google "Site:" Search Results Constantly Dropping

Alfuzzy

Well-known member
If I do a site search in any browser (site:www.website.com)...the total number that's returned keeps getting smaller & smaller.

I check this maybe once/week (and have been doing this for a long time...6 months to a year)...and it's disheartening to see the number get smaller & smaller...when the site is very active...with lots of good/new content added on a daily basis.

I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions why this is happening...or what I can check to make sure all is good. Robots.txt & server .htaccess files are not restrictive/blocking at all...thus Google crawler shouldn't have any problems viewing all content on the site.

Wondering if something is setup incorrectly...that I need to fix ASAP!

Thanks
 
I'm experiencing the same thing. Perhaps Google is changing the way it is indexing forums. Not sure.
 
I've been experiencing this for 1-2+ years (maybe more). Unfortunately seems to be more than Google algorithm changes.
 
welcome to the club.

we're getting de-indexed at record speed.
traffic looks like \ for the past 10 years.


kids don't forum any more.
 
Definitely understand forums aren't what they used to be.

Everyone says no one really knows what the Google crawler likes & dislikes in terms of good content/bad content (pages getting indexed or de-indexed). The old advice has always been...produce good content on a daily basis...and site should be good to go.

But good forum content doesn't seem to be "winning the day"...with all of the de-indexing that's going on. I can do a (site:www.website.com) on a weekly basis...and week after week after week...the number keeps getting smaller & smaller.

Very disheartening when you work hard managing the operations of a forum...producing good content...dealing with good/bad members...dealing with spammers...financially operating in the red...just to have Google constantly de-indexing pages (or never indexing new pages in the first place)!!!:(
 
1. I have setup some wordpress pages with same content as my forum and google still returns my forum thread instead of my wordpress page. Google still can value a similar xenforo forum thread topic more than a wordpress page.

2. Also google sees clearly if there are fewer updated new threads - it is so easy to see in the sitemap.

3. Last but not least there are lots of empty "content" posts like "great, thanks" which are not part of any cms page. The like system helps to reduce that "noise" but its not enough. A tree structured discussion like reddit might help there.
 
1. I have setup some wordpress pages with same content as my forum and google still returns my forum thread instead of my wordpress page. Google still can value a similar xenforo forum thread topic more than a wordpress page.
That may be because of the duplicate content so will only list one. Google sees the forum as the authoritative one as it was there first. I would suggest doing that may be quite a risky strategy.
3. Last but not least there are lots of empty "content" posts like "great, thanks" which are not part of any cms page. The like system helps to reduce that "noise" but its not enough
Yes, this can be an issue. But sadly I don’t think there is much of a way round that without deleting posts and that wouldn’t go down well with your members.
 
The world of indexing no longer seems to want to categorise content systematically and correctly, regardless of quality, but to drown the user according to his or her browsing history. This also applies to CMSs
 
Same problem. Tried all sorts of fixes, nothing seems to work. Google still won't even read my sitemap after 4 months now.
 
Yes, this can be an issue. But sadly I don’t think there is much of a way round that without deleting posts and that wouldn’t go down well with your members.
I removed exactly the low content posts that appear as noise like "thanks", "great", "thumbs up". You could do that with older posts, not sure if it even has some effect as for sure the user comes from google for really good content and some "thumbs up" won't negate that to the effect that google disapproves the webpage. I guess the SEO work all helps a bit a real tiny bit. And for sure content is king and the issue is when the "content" of a thread is divided into 5 thread pages and lots of un-content-stuff is going on (user picture, user name, time of the posts => helps to address who added to the content and maybe make a guess of whether the content is reputable).
 
This used to be true, I somewhat feel it has changed to "What content Google deems worthy".
Yeah like sure you want to be pretty but there are many ways not all have to be natural. Like does make up make me prettier or is helping wearing a short dress to gather attention - its the same body and the same mind.
 
Same problem. Tried all sorts of fixes, nothing seems to work. Google still won't even read my sitemap after 4 months now.
I actually have the same problem that developers.google.com/search tells me my sitemap is not read - there was one read error some months ago (for which I guess I am responsible) and since then when I resubmit - nothing, but google actually crawls my page and the pages that are in the google index increase.
 
I think people depend and count too much on Google. You may want to search alternative traffic incomes which is advertising.
 
I think people depend and count too much on Google. You may want to search alternative traffic incomes which is advertising.
I’d like to know how cost effective that is, I’ve never seen an ad for a forum.

But it’s hard to say, the sheer amount of work involved in analysing statistics in order to know what works seems to me to brain numbing.
 
I’d like to know how cost effective that is, I’ve never seen an ad for a forum.

But it’s hard to say, the sheer amount of work involved in analysing statistics in order to know what works seems to me to brain numbing.
There is no certain cost effective amount can say. It all depends on what the user clicking your link his/hers intention is when visiting your forum. But advertising on networks, other similar forums or websites work more efficiently than depending on your google rank/traffic income.
 
But advertising on networks, other similar forums or websites work more efficiently than depending on your google rank/traffic income
I think advertising can only make people aware in general that your forum exists. Search results are very different and not comparable IMO in that they are (or should be) providing a site with a solution to a specific query.

So maybe both are valid and important, and if you can afford to advertise why not. I just don’t see it as a replacement for aiming to get good and relevant search results and organic traffic.

For example, if someone searches something specific and finds the answer on your forum - they may hopefully then decide to engage.
 
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