In a recent article on Microsoft’s bing, I felt it necessary to temper my enthusiasm for Microsoft’s commitment to web search by noting Microsoft’s decidedly checkered record as a good net citizen. What about Google?

It is almost too easy to write a glowing review of whatever new service Google unleashes. For example,

• Google Maps Street View enables us to preview a new client’s street and building prior to a first visit – a boon in city environments
• Google Translate has improved so significantly of late that it really is useful in providing rough draft translations of search marketing articles
• Google Squared provides an innovative take on structuring search results for items with multiple attributes.

However while enthusing over Google’s services one might ask,

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One day you note a fall off in the traffic Google sends your website. As Google is the main source of your traffic, as is the case for many websites, alarm bells naturally start ringing. Investigating, you realize that the site does not appear at all in Google or has poor visibility at best in search results. What is a poor site owner to do? Did someone say panic?

Understand why the site disappeared from Google

There are several reasons why a site no longer appears in typical Google search results.

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In theory, this is a marketing blog, focusing on search engine optimization, web analytics and other web marketing topics. So what does WordPress security have to do with Google and SEO?

Well one downside of the extended web ecosystem is that the same idiots who jump the queue in the supermarket will try to exploit your good blog as a way to jump their way to the top of Google’s search results.

One thing is certain, you won’t be feeling very groovy if you have the misadventure of being de-listed by Google as has happened to several of my fellow blogger friends.

I’m not a WordPress security expert, and I don’t play one on TV. That said, there are a few WordPress security best practices worth considering for your WordPress installation.

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