How an error on Google killed diablo2.io overnight, RIP this site and any future prospects for it

As I'm sure many of you know, diablo2.io has ranked at #1 on Google for search terms like 'diablo 2 trade' for 6 months now, pretty much staying at no.1 for the whole time with little to no variance in ranking. This was the main source of new users finding the site (over 50% of new organic traffic on average coming just from this one keyword search).

To get to this spot, I toiled for 2 years and made many personal sacrifices and overcame many challenges. I had no financial backing, no support from Blizzard (or even acknowledgement), no existing community to draw upon, no engineering team, no established Brand, and basically started this site on my own, from scratch, in an already competitive scene for D2 fansites. I have had to deal with DDOS attacks, competitors thieving art assets, other sites cloning my ideas, and being unfairly disadvantaged in the scene due to streamers shilling alternatives and being directly supported by Blizzard with paid promotions and partnerships. I even quit my job at sea to come and work on this project full-time close to Resurrected's launch, and have made many personal sacrifices to get the site to that no.1 spot on Google. Blood, sweat, and plenty of tears.

Last night, in a moment of fateful inspiration, I decided to launch an ad campaign for the site to bring in some more traffic in over the 2.4/Ladder launch period with Google Ads. The reason for this was two-fold - first of all to bring more users to the marketplace so that it would have more trading activity and utility for our community here, and also of course to try and recoup some of the losses the site has made financially for the last 3-4 months due to Resurrected 'dying'. I had the full reassurance of Google that buying an ad campaign would not negatively affect my organic search results and would not affect my organic search ranking. So guess what happened?

Immediately after activating the ad campaign, the site disappeared completely from the google results for 'diablo 2 trade' on desktop devices due to what I can only describe as a devastatingly unfortunate and damaging bug on their back-end. Now, when everyone coming back to play 2.4/Ladder starts searching for a trading site again, diablo2.io is no longer there.... at all:
I immediately contacted Google and went through several conversations with support agents to try and rectify this issue - but basically they don't understand what has happened and how devastating this has been to the site. They keep on telling me that paid advertising doesn't affect my organic search results, but here I am showing them screenshots of the site's no 1 position being instantly deleted from the organic results, and also the search console analytics data to prove it:
Not only that, but it appears that the url diablo2.io/trade (my landing page specified in the ad campaign) has been completely de-indexed from Google altogether:
I cannot begin to describe how angry, frustrated, and upset I am about what has happened. I won't get any compensation from Google for this huge present and future loss in traffic, and they deny that my paid advertising has had an effect on my organic results, despite strong data-driven evidence that shows the opposite. I literally just wanted to get the site some more users so the marketplace would feel revitalised for the upcoming changes to the game, and rather than doing that, it has completely destroyed any chance of the site ever being found again. Anyone who has used google search console, or tried to rank on their results, knows how finnicky and unreliable Google's algorithm can be and how difficult it is to regain rankings if the algorithm has false or erroneous data. They will also know that it is impossible to 'ask a human' to reconsider the situation and 're-rank' the site - it's all done by the algorithm and Google are very laissez-faire/supportive of whatever that algorithm's decision is in every case.

The site got de-indexed and disappeared from Google for these vital keyword phrases the moment I activated a paid advertising campaign with them. I have since completely removed and deleted this campaign, in the hope that the site would re-appear on the first page again, but alas, it is still missing and is still excluded from Google's search index. Trust me, I was very firm and clear about what has happened when I spoke to Google, but I am unable to

Pierce the corporate veil and actually get to someone who knows what they're fucking talking about, so I'm now at a dead-end where there's literally nothing I can do. I doubt that the site's rankings will ever recover, and with that prediction I have very little Faith in the site continuing to remain active if no-one can find it anymore.

Not really sure why I'm posting this to be honest, other than to just vent my frustration and feeling of having been very hard-done-by with an unfortunate bug courtesy of Google. You guys know how much energy and dedication I have brought to building this place, and to see it's prospects shattered in one night is just... devastating. I don't really know what to do now, years of work have basically gone down the drain.

My only sliver of hope is that somehow the algo realises it made an error, re-indexes the page, and re-assigns it it's original ranking at number 1. It has been hours since I normalised the situation by disabling the ad campaign, all we can do is wait and see I guess.

Teebling

I use duckduckgo on mobile and it seems that our sweet sweet home is still the first site to show up. I don t know what to say except thanking you again for your effort. Being a 15 years experienced software engineer i know what it means to create and maintain something like this.

Per our side pings - will help how I can here given my industry experience and having also worked at Google. My hunch here is that while short-term catastrophic and scary, this should normalize itself through re-indexing/re-spidering. Obviously there could be something unbeknownst to you (us) that we need to ascertain. Let's continue chatting on the side to understand who was handling your SEO (if it was you) or if you had assistance as maybe something occurred that we need to uncover.

won't help with google though

Hang in there! Glad you could vent but just some reassurance: All of your work will pay off, and this is only a minor hiccup. Hard work will get paid off, you just have to trust the process. You keep doing the next level things you do sooner or later breakthroughs will happen. It’s still early. Stay at it and in time things will be so rewarding you couldn’t even Dream them up. The

Key is doing things the right way, working hard and believing in what you do every day. Days of challenge come to build you up. Proud of this site and glad we have someone so passionate and talented. Good luck to you!

Still #1 on others famous search engines !

Maybe we can put it back #1 on Google by browsing into the search results until find diablo2.io and clicking on it ??

At the moment from France I see diablo2.io at rank #11 (second on page 2, and there is 9 previous results on page 1)

Thanks for the messages guys.

The issue is localised to Google only, and on desktop only, and specifically searches for the

Key phrase 'diablo 2 trade' not showing the URL for diablo2.io/trade.

You will notice that all of the results you guys are seeing from Google are for actually different and less related pages on the site (home page, random forum topics etc.) - the main page for diablo2.io/trade itself has gone. The most important one.

Just did a Google search on my phone with the

Key words "diablo 2 trade", and still see d2.

Io being the top result.

Then I tested in incognito mode, and got the same result.

Anybody else seeing the same?

Bisu wrote: 2 years ago

Just did a Google search on my phone with the

Key words "diablo 2 trade", and still see d2.

Io being the top result.

Then I tested in incognito mode, and got the same result.

Anybody else seeing the same?

It's only occurring on desktop devices - mobile devices are still showing the result, probably because they cache those results for longer to help performance on mobiles. If you try on desktop you will see that it has completely vanished.

Here's a screenshot in regular mode showing the trade landing page as the top result. The incognito mode won't allow proper screenshot but it had the same result.

From Poland diablo2.io is the first result on second page in google search, which is 10th result i suppose. I will check it every few hours if it went higher and hit the first page.

Bisu wrote: 2 years ago

Here's a screenshot in regular mode showing the trade landing page as the top resul

Thanks, but the issue is localised to desktop. On mobile you are likely seeing a cached result from days past. By that I mean cached on google's side, not your side, so incognito wouldn't have an effect. I'm certain that in a few days it will disappear from mobile too.

Teebling wrote: 2 years ago

It's only occurring on desktop devices - mobile devices are still showing the result, probably because they cache those results for longer to help performance on mobiles. If you try on desktop you will see that it has completely vanished.

Thanks for the info. Now I wonder if it will recover somehow by itself.

If ads campaign has had such a glaring bug, it's hard to believe it would pass QA and Release... But you never know. Just imagine what kind of irate they will face if the same happen with big corp clients.

Im just a normal guy who dont understand anything about this kind of world, but searching google with my android shows your site still on the top.

Domin92 wrote: 2 years ago

From Poland diablo2.io is the first result on second page in google search, which is 10th result i suppose. I will check it every few hours if it went higher and hit the first page.

I see the same. Will keep monitoring as well.

Pillumaakari wrote: 2 years ago

Im just a normal guy who dont understand anything about this kind of world, but searching google with my android shows your site still on the top.

I did the same as you. But the loss of ranking is only for desktop at the moment.

Bisu wrote: 2 years ago

Domin92 wrote: 2 years ago

From Poland diablo2.io is the first result on second page in google search, which is 10th result i suppose. I will check it every few hours if it went higher and hit the first page.

I see the same. Will keep monitoring as well.

Also note that that page will not be the main /trade page URL - its a side page or something unrelated.

Teebling wrote: 2 years ago

Also note that that page will not be the main /trade page URL - its a side page or something unrelated.

When i click it, i see the main trade stats page, which is trade-stats.php

Shit, Teebling. Just... shit. (Paraphrasing a classic here.)

You know what, maybe it's not as bad as it seems immediately? And the fact that d2.

Io/trade specifically is gone from the search results isn't a catastrophe, just super unfortunate? I mean, when somebody told me about your site months ago in-game, I landed on the main page and immediately fell in love with the design, and learned and explored the rest gradually. Maybe we can still get it up there?

For what it's worth, I'm still going to use d2.

Io only, recommending it to everyone I encounter while playing, and I love you for creating and maintaining this beautiful site.