Indexed pages

[Runner]

Hi, I have been away from the forum for some time and it's good to be back. My site has been live since Jan 08. Unfortunately I have not been able to put much time into the site for the last 3 to 4 months due to personal circumstances.

Just recently orders have dropped off as well as phone calls. I've checked out webmasters tools. The amount of pages indexed from the sitemap is 55%. It used to be 92% some months ago. Is this because Google has not seen any activity/page changes etc?

I assume this is the reason for loss of orders etc?

I have done all the work on the site myself. I have just read a related thread and have just downloaded RuralWeb's SEO book as recommended.

Is there anything I can do quickly to get my site back to where it was a few months ago?

[Duncan Rounding]

A quick thought - Search the forum and look for some posts about using the xml sitemap and the possible pitfalls of doing so if not done correctly.

[Runner]

Good thought but I have been using the sitemap the same way as before and I was getting higher % indexed. The only difference is the amount of times per week it has been changed and uploaded i.e. hardly at all in the last few months (I have added pages and uploaded in the last week)

[leehack]

It used to need uploading once every 28 days at least IIRC. The Google algo has changed a few times too, maybe your site is now seen as smelling of wee and poo, whereas it was roses previously. So many factors can play a part in this happening, one things is for sure that doing nothing on the site for a good few months will almost certainly have done some harm. I presume you know this from reduced order amounts though anyway. Just start doing what you was doing before and get back into the swing of things, it will pick back up as long as you wasn't wearing a black hat in the past and have been caught out.

[Runner]

Every hat except black afaik

[Rich Brady]

I'd follow Duncan's advice and look at the xml site map. Your change frequencies are set to daily and weekly, yet you admit you haven't done anything for a few months.

As Lee says, the inactivity on your site will be a big factor. Get some new products listed, create some brochure pages and get the SEs interested again.

[Runner]

OK.

The change frequencies were set to reflect my previous upload activity. I now intend to upload sitemap as pages are added.... probably weekly at least.

If the sitemap is updated and uplaoded twice per week or weekly. If a specific page in the sitemap is not changed for say 2 months (or more even) and its freq is set to weekly, is this detrimental?