Last week was really horrible for me. It all starts with a small drop in traffic I noticed last Friday. Eventually the guest viewers number fall down to zero. Checking Google Analytics shows that Google is no longer referring any visitors to our forums.

To fix this issue I tried all available options, uploaded a fresh vbulletin copy there, upgraded vbseo to latest version, removed some hacks, changed skins etc. No help. Then I have posted it in TheAdminZone forums & vbseo forums. The discussions there give me some interesting ideas.

1. Downtime, even for a few hours, can cause drastic effects in SE rankings.
2. Search engines sometimes do a frantic crawling process & may end up with 404’s.
3. Frequently changing Permanent redirect (301) may annoy search engines.
4. Once you install an SEO solution try your beat to stick with it.
5. Dedicated ips may cause damage if they are previously used for a banned website.

The last point rings some bells. We have switched to a dedicated ip around 3 weeks back.
http://www.techtalkz.com/blog/techtalkzcom-updates/tt-got-a-dedicated-ip-address.html

So I decided to switch back to our old host & changed the DNS at domainsite. All files transferred to new server, DNS is propagated & bingo no pages to display! Checking the cpanel gives me a blank addon domain page. So I need to add techtalkz.com as an addon domain. Alas it’s not allowing me to add a new domain. Ok it’s down for a 2 hours what to do. In desperation I decided to move back to the new host. I changed the DNS & opt out from the dedicted ip plan. When the dns is propagated & ip changed TT back online after about 18 hours of downtime.

Now to my surprise guests start appearing just after a few minutes of the transfer. Yeah now it’s back as normal. Traffic is steady no issues.

So what was the problem, the damn dedicated ip. Still I don’t know what was wrong with that ip. Anyway now I’m happy!