We are so confused. A year ago I put so much SEO work into our site and we have ranked high on the first page for the search term "hockey equipment" in Google for about the last year. Our site has been around since 1998 and we have enough links pointing to us for Google to give us a PR4.
2 weeks ago, we completely dropped off the map. We didn't change our site or anything. We are now on the 4th page for "hockey equipment". And we have dropped off for most other of our big search terms.
And it's just us!
It seems as if we have been hit specifically because all of our competition is still exactly where they have always been on the first page. We are the only site that dropped off.
We have the same keyword densities, amount of text on the screen, and links as most of our competitors. You will notice we have a lot of pictures on our front page instead of text, but so does most of our competition. Why is everyone all of a sudden killing us?
I have done so much research about SEO in the last couple of years and I am just scratching my head here. Sure there is a lot more we could do to our site like putting up more articles and getting more links obviously, but it just doesn't make sense how we were up there and we all of a sudden are now gone.
Possible reasons
It seems like usually when webmasters freak out like me it is because google has changed their algorithm, but I can't see how it would effect our site and not our competition... It makes me wonder if our site specifically has been punished? But I have no way to know if that's the case?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated
I would appreciate it SO MUCH if someone could just take a quick look at our site and see if they could and see anything we are doing wrong that could have lead to this?
Is there any way to know if Google specifically did something to OUR site? or if someone reported us for some kind of spam? I have no idea how that kind of stuff works.
I feel like someone out there has sabotaged us or something... It's very sad and is killing our business.
Do keep in mind that it can be off-site factors, not just on-site. So just looking at your site won't help alone. Your site looks very similar to your competitors', so the issue is likely somewhere else.
Here are a few things that come to mind:
- competitor sabotage - could your competitor have added you to spammy linkfarms that Google has red-flagged? Do a Yahoo site:domain.com search and check the links.
- although this is a minor (and I have to emphasize, minor!) aspect, your competitors have larger sites. Your competitors have 4,000 - 11,000 indexed pages and you only have 1,300. If your site really is smaller, then your homepage doesn't get as many internal links as theirs do (assuming similar navigation). If you have plenty of pages that Google simply doesn't index, then see what you're doing wrong. Are you using flash, are all your pages within 2-3 levels from homepage (=1-2 clicks away from homepage), are you using messy designs/code that makes each page bulky?
I'd try to put in more text into the homepage and put that on top so that the images go lower. Make careful use of h1 tags and use bold/italic wisely on keywords only.
Also, you have a links page. You may want to revisit that and see if the sites that you link to are alarming. Get rid of the ones that don't serve a purpose (=link back to you) or themselves are spam sites that Google has red-flagged.
And you may rethink your homepage title tag. The word hockey takes up 4 words out of 8. Your competitors are spamming the title tag with the word hockey too, but honestly, you're doing it the most. Do something like: Hockey Equipment, Skates, Sticks, Gear. Note that Hockey is first.
And where is your sitemap? And what's up with all that Javascript? Create real pages that are linked to traditionally instead of javascript popups. Do js popups only when you need to. Also, the images on your homepages are too big in file size. You can resize those dimensions from 40kb to 25kb easily. I just recompressed one of your images from 43kb to 27kb. How? Tiny images should be gifs, large images should be jpgs. Well, your homepage has large images that are gifs, so go figure.
And lastly, you say that you haven't changed anything with your site. While it's good to stick with something that works, obviously now we know that it doesn't work. Google loves updated content. You should always update your homepage and tweak your pages every once in a while (i.e. change a few phrases each week on a few select pages). The key is to not take away from content that you already have but to add and enhance. It seems to me that while you were playing it safe, your competitors were building larger sites with newer content. Freshen things up. Be a writer for a day and surprise Google with some brand-new articles (that you keep on YOUR SITE ONLY - no article submissions) that are linked from your homepage. The articles that you have now are too short to be called articles and they have many misspelled words. This may be the right time to do the Frequently Asked Questions page that doesn't exist (but should according to your homepage).
Good luck. BTW, I'm no SEO, so use this advice at your own peril .
<meta name="Description" content="Goalie Masks at Discount Hockey, we offer Itech 1200 Profile Hockey Goalie Mask, Itech 1200 Profile Hockey Goalie Mask - Youth , Itech 1201 Profile Hockey Goalie Mask - Senior , Itech 1400D Hockey Goalie Mask - "Blade", Itech 1400D Hockey Goalie Mask - "Slime", Itech 1400D Hockey Goalie Mask - "Speed", from manufacturers such as Nike Bauer, Rbk, CCM, Itech, Mission, DR, Tour, Montreal, Jofa, Koho, Vaughn, Tps.">
Hockey Goalie Masks / Helmets to choose from. These Hockey Goalie
Masks / Helmets do come in senior, junior and youth sizes. Some of
these Hockey Goalie Masks / Helmets are made of high impact plastics, and
some of these Hockey Goalie Masks / Helmets are made with a blend of
fiberglass and kevlar. There is also a choice in these Hockey Goalie
Masks / Helmets of "cateye" cages that have larger openings for better
vision and some come with the standard cage. Some of these Hockey
Goalie Masks / Helmets are a solid color and some come with designs.
And I won't even go into all the hidden text in your title="" tags.
So, now that I've seen what I needed to see, I don't think you'll find much when checking whether or not your competitors sabotaged you. No offense, but you overstuffed and overspammed. Instead of building a site for your visitors, you built a site for robots. And now they have caught on to this trick of yours too.
Thanks so much for all of your advice. I will defenitely be looking into some of the suggestions you made in your first post.
As far as your second post, it kind of got to me, and I think you are right. I guess sometimes it can take a HUGE drop like we have just had to realize the importance of not doing things like keyword stuffing, and also the importance of optimizing for the long run.
After what you said, I went and looked at the different pages of our site and how the meta and links were setup. We had set up something awhile ago that for the meta keywords and description, the pages of our site dynamically pulled products from the page. When you copied and pasted that example, it made me see how bad it actually looked. Also, I have removed all of the occurrences "-hockey equipment" in the title tags. I also reworded the text at the top of the goalie masks page that you had commented on. (I will defenitely be revisiting ALL pages as these paragraphs at the top of pages were put in about a month ago.. funny timing eh?)
I really do want to go through the entire site and take out anything that is considered "unethical" as far as seo goes.
Would you mind looking at the page you had pointed out as an example before one more time (I just updated it) and telling me if you would consider anything else on it spammy or keyword stuffing? (discounthockey.com/goaliehelmets.html)
It will help me in going through the entire site and changing things around.
Are you referring to the fact that we have the links page as that would be considered as a "link exchange"?
Hi Jason. well sudden drops are more usually caused by devaluation of links you already have. its not a penalty as such, they just downgrade the value of the links and your rank adjusts accordingly.
I see sites with keyword stuffed metas all the time ranking really well, so although you do need to sort that out, i doubt thats the reason.
far more likely if you have exchanged links (links page) that they've downgraded the value of those links and hence you now rank where you should do without those links?
note i didnt look at your site, just a general comment from the posts above.
Thanks. I was actually thinking about putting a meta no follow at the top of the links page and try to get it deleted from Google Cache all together.
It is a pretty blatant "link exchange" and if it's not being flagged now, I'm sure in the future they will figure out some way to penalize for it in the algorithm.
Do you guys know what the best way to completely delete a page from Google cache is? Can do anything other just putting the meta no follow in the head of the page? Like is there a way to delete the page via Google webmaster tools?
I dont think theres any harm in doing link exchanges but you have to be careful who you link to and some of them want you to put their entire keywords in the anchor text.
I have had some requests lately from sites snided with spyware, link farms etc which will do more harm than good.
Stacy, you are not wrong but won't you think, you are a bit harsh on the Jbobicb(sorry if i spell it wrong) afterall what he follow here is not Black hat Keyword stuffing but White hat.I think the primary reason for your downfall is Keyword Spamming and plz do focus on reducing the no.of anchor text you have.
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Ryanphilips
Last edited by 3ncryptabl3_lick : 11-19-2008 at 04:12 AM.
smallbusinessseo-
Yes. That's what I was thinking.
am not sure I see the purpose in that to be honest? I would have to assume that the people youve exchanged with will see their links disappear and remove theirs to you?
as I said its not a penalisation as such, if this is what caused the drop, then all Goolge have done is negate the benefit from those links.
removing your page from Google's index probably isnt going to give you the juice back? also I ran the backlinks checker on your site later yesterday afternoon and you seem to have lost several links from these type of places that could also be the reason for a sudden drop? (didnt investigate properly but they show as missing)
http: //www. discounthockeygoaliee... missing
http: //www. discounthockeystuff.com/ missing
http: //www. rollerhockeystuff.com/ missing
http: //www. missionfuelhockey.com/ missing
http: //www. itechhockeygoalie.com/ missing
http: //www. rbkhockeygoalie.com/ missing
http: //www. khl-mladost.hr/linkov...
not the best looking links in the first place but if they were a part of your rankings then losing them would cause a sudden drop.
I would focus on getting new & better links and leave the ones you have.
SmallBusinessSEO brings up a good issue and I was curious to get everyone's take on it.
Do you guys think that Google really punishes sites for external links to their site?
I realize that Google wants to crack down on people buying links and things of this nature, however I don't see how Google could punish people for external links when in reality you may or may not have control over those links.
If a link farm (or anyone in a "bad neighborhood') links to your site, do you think Google's algorithm actually would do more than just devalue or disregard the link to the extent where they would penalize your site?
Because if this is the case, then what's to stop someone from going to one of these "seo" companies that say "$179 for 800 directory links" and paying $179 to sabotage someone in their competition.
I'm not saying this has happened to me, but it just makes me wonder if we can really get penalized for external backlinks. I'm sure the geniuses that write the Google algorithm understand that you really don't have control over who links to you.
What are your guys' take? Do you think Google penalizes for bad links to you or simply devalues or disregards them?
no they definitely dont "penalise" for who links to you.
if you shouldnt have been ranking from those links in the first place, then removing their benefit isnt a penalty, its just restoring things to their rightful levels before you gained credit you werent supposed to in the first place.
ive seen this discussed at great length, many many times across many different forums, by all the SEO pros, seen all the quotes from Matt Cutts and Google themselves on the matter.
for exactly the reason you state (sabotage) it has to be this way.
some still say it may be possible to hurt the competition using hi tech black hattery, redirecting banned domains at them etc, or thousands & thousands of spammy links but Google are more than aware of what and how things could be done and try very very hard to not ever let this be the case.
i think we have to trust that 99.99% of the time theyre right.
Google all of a sudden hates us :(
.
external backlinks? really?
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