Wee Bit Of Progress In Google

[beth]

Here's the latest on my continuing saga to get my high rankings back after Gladys.

For one brief moment we made it on to page two and then just minutes later we fell to page 3. Beats showing up nowhere but is lousy compared to our previous first page that we held for so long. I want it back!

I'm wondering what you experts think might have both helped and hindered:

1) We trimmed the number of times our main keyword phrase appeared. This didn't seem to do anything at first. We still showed up nowhere even when Google had the trimmed version. Maybe a delayed reaction?

2) We updated our news page. We have a separate news page where we provide abstracts of current news stories. The most recent 3 stories show up on the bottom of the home page. We realized that we lost our rankings while we were out of town and not updating the news. As soon as we updated the news abstracts with the new ones, we made it back into google for our important key phrase.

Could this have been the cause of our fall out of Google? Non-updated news?

3) We changed our Title tag. I think this may have screwed us up a little. Google had the old title when we were briefly ranking on page 2 (after we updated the news). Then when it dumped us to page 3, I noticed it was with the new Title. Maybe just coincidence?
The old title I never liked because it had an old fashioned look that made it look like meta tags when it showed up in the results. The new title is simply:
WebExit Online Exit Interviews improve employee retention.

Should we take out the product name WebExit and just make it Online Exit Interviews improve employee retention?

Thanks for all your continued help and ideas!!

Beth.

[Brian Turner]

If I may...my personal take on why sites are losing ground in Google at the moment is especially a links issue.

In short, they have either too few, or too many from just a handful of sites.

I think I've said elsewhere that SEO's are really being forced back to basics, after having what could be described as something of a "free lunch" previously on Google.

What that means in terms of links is to try and get as many as you can from other sites relating to your themes and topics.

This can be very hard, which is precisely why so many webmasters have previously turned to expansive off-topic linking - a policy that can be only doomed in the long-term.

Firstly, get yourself in some directories - there's a good list in this thread.

Also, note the value of considered link exchanges, but be aware that extensive link exchanging (especially via automated software) may look very artificial and could be easily recognised and flagged by search engines (I recently read an old article by Dan Thies where he claims that this issue was addressed by Search Engines some time ago).

I know getting bona-fide links from other topic-sites is hard - that's where really good content really helps encourage others linking to you - but, really, it's an issue of perseverence.

Just try an spend a few minutes each day looking at developing a couple of links from other sites, if possible. It will be frustrating, but the rewards accrue over time.

Of course, there may be onsite factors that may help, but I personally think that it's links where webmasters can make the most progress over time. And as I stated at the beginning, it's those that don't that I personally feel lose out most in Google - certainly at the moment, and for the future.

[beth]

Thank you, Brian.
Links have always been one area that we have not excelled in. It never was a concern because we maintained top rankings without them.

I will take your advice seriously and begin to look at ways we can link up with other important websites in our industry. We have some good content that I think we can parlay into mutually beneficial links.

PS. Am I the only one who gets the feeling that a google adwords link is worth the most of all? A competitor site which is nor particularly well optimized has been ranking high since they started running google ads.

Beth

[Brian Turner]

I'm not sure that AdWords should convey any particular advantage at all - it's a JavaScripted links isn;t it? And Google isn't at all fond of JavaScript - though I hear they intend to index JavaScripted links soon enough.

Don't fall into the trap of thinking that AdSense will help, either. A spider will visit the page after someone has been on it, to ensure that the ad is on topi. Really, you're not seeing indexing, just use of Applied Semantics (Circa Technology) that Google bought up a while back. If your page can be spidered anyway then it will be spidered anyway. If your page cannot be indexed then AdSense certainly won't help, and AdSense will merely display generic (non-targeted) ads.