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~~* OMG *~~ I am in LOVE! ( with google tools ) (In: Google)
Google PR (In: Google)
Google (In: Pay Per Click - Google/Yahoo & Others)
How much Organic Traffic do you get from Google (In: General Search Engine Optimization)
Yahoo Hates Me ? (In: Yahoo!)
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jbobich
Joined: Jul 23, 2008
# Posts: 5
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Posted: 2008-Jul-24 01:45
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.
Our site:
<url removed>
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.
Truly thanks to anyone in advance,
Jason
[ Message was edited by: JimBot 07/23/2008 10:32 pm ... Reason: Place your url in your profile only. Linkdropping is not allowed here. ]
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Quadrille
Joined: Nov 15, 2000
# Posts: 1064
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Posted: 2008-Jul-24 09:19
I think it's fairly unlikely that Google hates you - or your site. in fact, I think it's most unlikely that Google has any feelings either way.
There's plenty of possible reasons for a rapid drop in Google, and without spending a fair time on your site, I can't say for sure.
But the most likely answer is that you you have done something that clashes with their guidelines; and most likely within that range, is that your linking practice has broken the rules.
Check your internal navigation with xenu,and look into Google Webmaster Tools.
I notice you have many links to to other sites. have you checked them lately? Are any of them to sites in bad neighbourhoods, or sites that have gone bad lately?
Are any of them unrelated reciprocal links, the product of link exchange schemes, or paidlinks?
While you may have built those links up over time, and not changed them lately, the sites you link to may have changed. Google increasingly cares about Quality links; so you'd do well to check all of yours, removing any that are in any way likely to have damaged your site (or likely to in the future).
If you really cannot bear to remove suspect links, then make them 'nofollow'.
That particularly applies if anyone else can place links on your site (forum, guest book etc).
Do also check your page's content, especially if you use a CMS, and look for duplicate URLs, identical TITLES and poor meta descriptions.
SEO is never a one-off task - it needs to be revisited, even a continuous process; and links *must* be checked regularly, or they'll sink you sooner or later.
[ Message was edited by: Quadrille 07/24/2008 01:34 am ]
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Prowler
Staff
Joined: Aug 14, 2000
# Posts: 1788
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Posted: 2008-Jul-24 10:08
As Quadrille has covered the main points, I will just add one bit here. It is always a good policy to verify the site as yours in Google Webmaster tools and check the details there. It tells you the information arranged in months. If your site is getting penalized for some reason, they rarely tell you this here.
But the details of rankings over a period of time is very useful to gather from this Webmaster control panel.
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jbobich
Joined: Jul 23, 2008
# Posts: 5
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Posted: 2008-Jul-24 17:52
Quadrille -
Thanks, I will defenitely look in to those things.
Prowler-
I have been using Google webmaster tools for the last year or so. It's really a great tool... ha but also shows proof of our recent fall off of all keywords.
-
What is your guys' take on receiving links from bad websites? I can understand that Google would want to penalize webmasters who go out and get links from places like link farms, but at the same you can't really control anything off of your site.
If a competitor of ours listed our site in directories and link farms, do you think that we would be penalized for that?
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jbobich
Joined: Jul 23, 2008
# Posts: 5
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Posted: 2008-Jul-24 18:04
Another quick note about about external links...
In searching through my backlinks with Yahoo, I have noticed a lot of "directories" are indeed linking to us. However, they have all of our competitors on the list as well. And many of them are obviously getting the listings from DMOZ.
I don't see how if someone wanted to get a link farm going and they started by pulling sites from DMOZ, that the sites being linked to could be punished...
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Quadrille
Joined: Nov 15, 2000
# Posts: 1064
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Posted: 2008-Jul-24 18:14
What is your guys' take on receiving links from bad websites? I can understand that Google would want to penalize webmasters who go out and get links from places like link farms, but at the same you can't really control anything off of your site.
Google gets that, and quite specifically will not penalize you for incoming links, unless those links are part of a link exchange scheme or another result of your actions.
You cannot stop others linking to you ... but if you choose to encourage them, then the consequences are yours!
So membership of link farms, plus paidlinks and a myriad other schemes could place your site at risk.
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jbobich
Joined: Jul 23, 2008
# Posts: 5
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Posted: 2008-Jul-24 18:37
Yeah... it's scary... If that were the case where Google penalized you for external links, I'm sure it would be worth it to another hockey store to pay one of these "SEO" sites the "$179.99 for 800 directory sumbmissions" for a couple of competitors.
-And obviously that's not just right at all.
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freeflyer
Joined: Aug 06, 2007
# Posts: 211
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Posted: 2008-Jul-25 09:55
google loves us all...
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