Hi

Searched for www.coltwear.co.uk today and got a reference to an old
site. However on Sunday did a search and the most recent version of
the site was displayed. Also when searching for jodhpurs
Coltwear.co.uk was ranked 189 in the list on Sunday, 461 on Monday and
has vanished today. The volume of traffic to the site has been growing
as has the number of other websites linking to the Coltwear.co.uk
website as has the number of products for sale on the site. Can you
let me know why the site has been declassified?

Greetings, Coltwear!

Most Search Engines, especially Google, are quite secretive about
their inner workings, so it is not possible for anyone to say for
*sure* why your site has dropped in Google's Search Rankings.

However, I have identified at least one big reason for the drop.

The Googlebot has recognized that it is identical to your
www.hoofinabout.co.uk site.

Apparently Google recently tweaked and greatly improved the part of
their algorithm that recognizes duplicate sites, because there have
been several Questions similar to yours posted lately.

From the Google Information for Webmasters - Webmaster Guidelines:
"... Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with
substantially duplicate content..."
://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html

What you need to do is place a simple redirect on
www.hoofinabout.co.uk that points to www.coltwear.co.uk . Then write
to the webmasters of the sites which link to www.hoofinabout.co.uk,
asking them to change the link to www.coltwear.co.uk:

(Results 1 - 16 of 16)
://www.google.com/search?q=%22%2Bwww.hoofinabout.co.uk%22+-site%3Ahoofinabout.co.uk&num=100&filter=0

Any sites which get changed in this way will then be used in
calculation of the Page Rank for www.coltwear.co.uk - and wouldn't you
rather have a higher rank for one site than lower ranks for 2 sites,
anyway? Furthermore, the removal of the duplicate site should help the
Googlebot assign a higher relevance to the main site.

Then, write to Google at help@google.com , admit your mistake, beg
forgiveness, and ask them to please reinstate your site. Here's a
sample groveling letter you can use if you wish:
----------------------------------------------------  
Dear Google,  
  
I am the owner of
www.coltwear.co.uk  and
www.hoofinabout.co.uk 
  
I did not realize that creating duplicate sites was a bad thing that
would cause my site to drop in Google's Search Rankings.
  
I have now seen the error of my ways, and I apologize profusely. I
have removed my duplicate site, and I promise not to make this mistake
again.
  
I am asking you to Please Consider reinstating my website,
http://www.coltwear.co.uk , into Google's Search Results.
  
Sincerely,  
  
 
----------------------------------------------------  

And it might help (it can't hurt) to resubmit both sites to be
re-crawled by the Googlebot. Submit the hoofinabout site first, then
the Coltwear site:
://www.google.com/addurl.html 


Please bear in mind that there is NO guarantee that you will be
reinstated, or how long it will take for you to be reinstated.
 
 
Before Rating my Answer, if you have any Questions about the above
information, please post a Request for Clarification, and I will see
what I can do for you.
  
Best Wishes on a speedy reinstatement to the Google Index, and
increased traffic to your website!

aceresearcher

Thanks for the help. Would never have realised this.