It hasn’t, however, promoted these new pages above other pages from the site in terms of other search terms so I also suspect that Google doesn’t just have a schedule for re-indexing pages but it has a schedule for rebuilding it’s index for search terms. Although undoubtedly indexes are updated on-the-fly, I suspect a major re-index is periodic as you suggest.

Kate Phizackerley

“I think they may be looking to fix the long standing UK hosted .com site problems.”

That’s an interesting observation – it makes me wonder if perhaps there is some issue using the geolocation data provided for in Webmaster Tools?

@Jez:

To be honest, #90 is such a weak position in the first place that a drop to #160 could have a number of factors. If I saw the same on one of my own sites I would presume that Google had failed to index some link value pointing to either the page or the domain in general.

Either way, would just require patience – and then some stronger links to push you up a few pages more. :)

Over the weekend pages I had been trying to optimise dropped form the SERP. I still rank on the terms, but much lower down and with less relevant pages. For example, one of the “category” pages (it is a WP site) Now ranks #160 for a term the root domain had ranked #90 on.

Another page which is linked off the front page which has quite a few external links into it was also dropped.

Webmaster tools report no external or internal links going into this second page, but, after the root domain it is the most linked page on the site.

Some of the -950 descriptions I have read sound relevant, but I did not really have any “authority links” linking with non relevant terms. The terms I am linking are in the domain (recently 301′d from another domain).

Just wondered what you made of this, whether this problem is similar to what you saw on the sites you were tracking.

Seems like a penalty for sure, not sure how long it will take to dig myself out of it…

Regards, Jez