Oh you GUYS!!  I am so sorry to do another personal post when I haven’t posted an airbrush anything in SO long … but MAN ALIVE … I have had a tough go here in the last little while!!

So, as you know, I just recently updated the look and feel of this site to make in INFINITELY cooler looking than it was – now, I knew that converting from an html site to a wordpress site was going to send my google ranks into the toilet for a while but I thought the change was worth it.  But I had no idea that THIS was going to happen …

Over the last few months I have watched this site PLUMMET and it has been heart breaking :(

I worked so hard on it, and now it was all falling to pieces … I have been frantically searching through the sites codes, and website forums, and seeking help from others to get things back on track and it continued to dive bomb.  My traffic is a 10th of what it used to be before I converted and I could just CRY!

BUT … OMG!

After finally accepting the problem and acknowledging that I would have to build the sites traffic back up all over again (aka: practically start from scratch) I decided that there is no time like the present to get re-started.  So, I hopped on the computer and, as I always do (like a million times before), I swung by Google Webmaster tools to check the status of the site and some other stuff and BAM … there it was … I finally saw the problem!

I know that I am getting all technical on your ass, but, by god, I have to share this with someone!!  You see, in order for google to see a site, it has to be indexed and to index it the website owner has to submit a sitemap that is in a special format.  On this new website, I have a plugin that automatically submits a new sitemap every time I post or make a change.  When searching for the problem on my site, I verified that google had the site map about a BILLION times.  They had it.  They had it the whole time.  I swear.

Here comes the “but” …

I can’t freaking believe this!!  ARRG!  During the upgrade from html to wordpress, I must have decided at some point to stop calling the site www.airbrush-guidance.com and instead call it airbrush-guidance.com (that is, with no www first) … well APPARENTLY that ACTUALLY MATTERS!!  Google sees these to names as TWO different websites and this whole freaking time I have been asking it to index the one that doesn’t exist anymore!!

GRRRR!!  I am so … so … so …. SO …. relieved :)

Yes, that’s right.  As frustrating as the interwebs can be sometimes (and trust me, this was BAD for me), it is also a great huge relief that I finally figured out what the problem is.  I only wish I found it sooner.

In celebration of fixing this problem, I will be writing again (previously I figured “what was the point” as very few people were visiting during what I will now be referring to as “the dark days”) and will be posting regularly as promised.

I MISSED YOU GUYS!!

Love Shani