We have been on the first page of Google for a number of years for search terms including 'SEO Agency', 'SEO Agency London' etc.

A few months ago we made some changes to the design of the home page (added a blog feed), and made changes to the website sitemap.

Two days ago (two months after last site changes were made) we dropped subsantially in the SERPs for all home page keywords. Where we are found, a date appears before the description in the SERPs, dating February 2012 (which is when we launched the original website). The site has been through a revamp since then, yet it still shows 2012.

This has been followed by a few additional strange things, including the sitelinks that Google is choosing to show (which including author bio pages showing in homepage site links), and googling our brand name no longer brings up sitelinks in the SERPs.

The problem only affects the home page. All other pages are performing as standard.

When Penguin 4.0 came out we saw a noted improvement in our SERP performance, and our backlinks are good and quality, largely from PR efforts. Of course, I would be interested in additional pairs of eyes on the back links to see if anyone thinks that I have missed anything!

We have 3 of our senior SEOs working on trying to figure out what is going on and how to resolve it, but I would be very interested if anyone has any thoughts?

Hi yes that was me that posted the previous question. It does appear to be a bug, and Google has taken the date that the video was uploaded onto Youtube. Short term solution has been for us to remove the offending video and request a fetch, long term solution obviously is that Google needs to notice problem and fix it,

Hi yes that does seem as though it is probably it. I have checked a few sites that appear to have the same issue, and they have videos on home page too. We will remove and check.

Very annoying as the substantial decline in rankings coincides direct with this, and it does appear to be a bug. Let's give Rand and the Moz comm the heads up on this. If he points it out you can bet that it will be noticed by the powers up top!

Thanks very much for your help!

Ed