Penalized by Google..(how do you know?)

[WM-Scott]

How do you know if you have been Penalized by Google. One of my websites dropped from Page 1 (and number 1 on that Page) to 50th. I'm hoping it's a Fluke, but it's been a few weeks. Lastly, I Number 1 for almost a year, so this is pecuilar, and frustrating. Also, my site is a PR3, and shows no errors in webmaster tools. cheapwebdesigninelgin.com (key phrase, and combination of 'elgin web design'

[~kev~]

cheapwebdesigninelgin.com - Your site title is saturated with keywords and its TOO long. The site title should be short. Your site title has around 52 words. I dont know if St.Charles is one or two words.

The word "web" is used 5 times in the site title.
The word "cheap" is used 3 times in the site title.
The word "design" is used 5 times in the site title.

The meta description is is for a brief description of your site. It should NOT be 61 words long. You have a space between 100 and the % sign, thus making it two words.

Both the meta description and title are full of trash words, such as - in, cheap, free, design, from, over, 40, no,,,,,, the list goes on and on.

Your email is linked at thetop and bottom of the home page - email harvest bots love people like you.

Use the nofollow tag on images - This will force google to index more of your keywords and not your images. Do you want to rank well in keywords, or for body-gray-border.png images?

Your images directory is not protected with an index.html file. This results in google indexing even more of your images.

Edit the .htaccess file to redirect http: request to www.

A search of google for links to your site only resulted in 9 links. It looks like most of those are from directories?

The lack of back links tells me that your site is some what new, even though the domain was registered in September of 2007.

Suggestions:

Clean up your site title
Clean up your meta description
Move to something like wordpress so the site is easier to update
Work on the quality of your back links.
Use nofollow tags on your images
Protect your directories with a blank index.html file
Get a "real" contact us form insalled instead of exposing your email address.

The lack of quality backlinks is REALLY hurting your site. For one, google does not know "where" to rank your site. Join as many webmaster forums as you can - but make sure the signatures do not have the "nofollow" tag, insert your signature with keywords and start posting. Over the next few months google will see these links and start ranking your site better.

In google webmaster tools, go to statistics - what google bot sees and that will tell you what google sees in your page. The wrong link building strategy can harm your ranking.

[regmac]

Other factor why you had been dropped to a lower position is that competitors might be working well and maintaining their inputs as of the moment. So you just have to get back to work and put your site to where it should be.

[bogs]

try to check if your site is still index... you can also use a tool.. http://www.selfseo.com/google_ban_tool.php

[felixt]

I think your competitors are hitting you and the others hard, and Google might have announce you as a loser. Get up!

[phoenix06007]

i think you are not penalized by Google..maybe these are the factor why your site experienced that:
*- gain more backlinks
*- your keywords is not that competetive
*- your competitor is dong well.

[shrivcom]

Focus on Basic SEO Techniques to get backlinks and review ur title and description tags......

Thanks;

Software Development India

[deka]

Emphasize on SEO.

[WM-Scott]

Thanks for the advice, and I am working on cleaning up as much as possible. BUT, it still doesn't explain why I was #1 for 7 months, and still #1 at Yahoo, and MSN. I still think it may be a fluke, the next crawl may tell.

[kenbleu]

Originally Posted by WM-Scott

Thanks for the advice, and I am working on cleaning up as much as possible. BUT, it still doesn't explain why I was #1 for 7 months, and still #1 at Yahoo, and MSN. I still think it may be a fluke, the next crawl may tell.

the answer WM-Scott, is because last 7 months the algorithm of Google is far different from the current. Google actually saying that they are changing their algorithms every week. While Yahoo actually announced on their blog last November that they have changed their algorithm and there will be a great rank position shuffling while Live well, they are keep on experimenting their algorithm and they are still don't have fixed algorithm as of the moment.

[hem]

I think your competitors working hard on off-page optimization. So you must collect relevant backlinks for your website.

[joejonson]

Webmaster tools will help you identify penalties

[core8284]

Cool, this is new to me....Thanks a lot for sharing it...

[ariyes]

Hi thanks to all but still i dont find the OP's ans! How do i know that Google band my site or not? Is there is any tools to know that? iwebtool.com have a tool but that tool is not working! so any other way to know?

Thanks

[ceweqsakti]

use google ban checker or search your site by using site:
or try to contact google

[tdd1984]

Originally Posted by WM-Scott

How do you know if you have been Penalized by Google. One of my websites dropped from Page 1 (and number 1 on that Page) to 50th. I'm hoping it's a Fluke, but it's been a few weeks. Lastly, I Number 1 for almost a year, so this is pecuilar, and frustrating. Also, my site is a PR3, and shows no errors in webmaster tools. cheapwebdesigninelgin.com (key phrase, and combination of 'elgin web design'

Have you been building spammy links? Such as submitting to free directories and etc? If so that probaly the problem or have you been getting links from duplicated content sites?

[mic93304]

I think you should definitely listen to kev at the top all his information is great and you should do everything he says. You really don't need to write the words web and design in your title bar so many times that looks like spam. You need people to link to your site but not a link for a link, that will cancel the link out. If you are looking to see what pages are indexed in Google just type the word site: in front of your web sites name.
Like this: site:cheapwebdesigninelgin.com

[shakir]

suddenly loose from #1 to #50 is penalization from google, webmaster tool will not give u correct idea. better make ur site well optimized and also add good and quality BL