emergency dropped `120 positoons in google in 1 day

[krisidious]

my name is Kris I run www.aboveallhouseplans.com

i bought IBP and did 4 things and lost 120 positions

1. changed my title from this
"aboveallhouseplans.com House Plans, Home Plans, Floor Plans, Custom House Plan Design"
to this
"House Plans from aboveallhouseplans.com, Home Plans, Floor Plans, Custom House Plan Design"

2. I changed the text on my footer to be NOT bold
(this footer apears on all pages)

3. i made all text that was size 1, size 2

4. changed the description from
"house plan designer's exclusive collection of Limited Edition house plans, Custom House & Home floor planning services available"
to this
"An exclusive collection of extraordinary house plans, home designs created for enhanced living. These house plans designs vary from one level, luxurious estate house plans, to small starter house plans."

I am destraught, I don't understand I only did what this $180.00 program said I should do...

any help on what to do? and when will google reindex my site?

[wednesday]

Originally Posted by krisidious

any help on what to do?

Maybe... you'd try undo.
Of cource there may be other factors, but... Just my guessing.

[krisidious]

oh my why didn't I think about that?

nice bit of SEO smartass there

I have tried to undo what I have done, however I did not backup my site before I made the changes so its hard to know every letter typed or action taken.

the only thing I have not undone is the small text size.

anyone else got any ideas?

[beanstalk]

I'm on my way out the door on my way to a date with my wife (who's currently getting ready so what better way to kill time than checking out the forums right? ... please tell me i'm righ ;)

Anyways, checked out the MSN cache very quickly and it appears to be different. Can't tell exactly how different but it may be an old cache in which case it's a good copy of your old site.

You also might want to try the wayback mochine at http://www.archive.org/web/web.php.

And now she's done so I'm off.

Good luck!

[krisidious]

Beanstalk,

thanks for that I copied that file too bad I have to insert all the graphics but nice to have that back up.

I don't know if I should wait this out or if i should just switch back now

[cbp]

I can not see how any of those changes would result in a drop. What keyword did you drop for?

CBP

[krisidious]

my main key word is House Plans

[cbp]

House Plans should be the first words of the title as suggested by IBL

You are ranked 74th in Google for that term

I still think the changes you made are not responsible - a Google algo tweak that allowed you to rank higher, no longer does...

I can't see 'house plans' as the anchor text in many of the backlinks I checked. Even your DMOZ listing is "A Point of View" - you really need a lot more with that anchor text.

I also think you have way too many links on your home page, all those links in the Home Designer Directory on the home page may be sending 'poor quality signals' - personally, they all should be moved to a sub page - they are not a lot of use to the visitor there, so maybe G sees that as well?

CBP

[cbp]

House Plans should be the first words of the title as suggested by IBL

You are ranked 74th in Google for that term

I still think the changes you made are not responsible - a Google algo tweak that allowed you to rank higher, no longer does...

I can't see 'house plans' as the anchor text in many of the backlinks I checked. Even your DMOZ listing is "A Point of View" - you really need a lot more with that anchor text.

I also think you have way too many links on your home page, all those links in the Home Designer Directory on the home page may be sending 'poor quality signals' - personally, they all should be moved to a sub page - they are not a lot of use to the visitor there, so maybe G sees that as well?

CBP

[krisidious]

I show that I am 192nd for the term (House Plans)
as of 03-24-74 it was 77th

in google directory I am 40th for the same term

http://www.google.com/search?q=house...start=190&sa=N

one of my changes was moving the house plans term to the front but I changed it back. not only because of the drop but becase the other top sites looked too similar

I agree there are too many links on my home page but as soon as I put all of those links on my traffic jumped from 100 unique hit a day to 700 so I am very reluctant to remove them. and i do have them listed on sub pages such as the link exchange directory

right now i am working on contacting everyone that links to me and asking them to change my BL text.

dmoz has finally changed my listing after 2 years of begging, position 5 is mine. where did you see the "A Point of View" that is my old listing

http://www.dmoz.org/Business/Constru.../Design/Plans/

thanks for your help btw

Kris

[cbp]

where did you see the "A Point of View" that is my old listing

Whoops - I got it from DMOZ clone - did not go back to DMOZ to check

(BTW, I am not 100% sure, but I would be surprised if the DMOZ title stays the same --- it just does not look right)

CBP

[krisidious]

how do you mean doesn't look right? and where did you see my site listed at 74 for house plans?

[krisidious]

wtf is going on now that I check again my site is listed at 69 on google for house plans

what is going on

but this time I'm not arguing if it stays there.

[cbp]

how do you mean doesn't look right?

I am not sure it complies with the guidelines - but i can't see what part of the guidelines it does not comply with --- hence not so sure.

where did you see my site listed at 74 for house plans?

http://www.google.com/ie

CBP

[cbp]

how do you mean doesn't look right?

I am not sure it complies with the guidelines - but i can't see what part of the guidelines it does not comply with --- hence not so sure.

where did you see my site listed at 74 for house plans?

http://www.google.com/ie

CBP

[krisidious]

wow I haven't used that google page before...

it now shows me at 69 too. google seems to be indexing my site daily... strange

well lets do this, I'm going to experiment.

if you own something like IBP look at my site as is today and see that it breaks many of the SEO rules

1. size
2. OB Links too many
3. to much text
4. too many graphics
5. too many repetious keywords

but it seems to be working so what do I do?

so I'm going to remove all the links in that directory group and see if google like me better or not... wanna see?

however I will lose alot of other traffic because of the lack of all the key words. i get alot of traffic from 4 & 5 word key phrases and from people looking for my competition and I show up sometimes before they do for a search for their own business name.

well let's experiment

P.S.
I'm backing up the index page now...

[krisidious]

hers the proof in the pudding

04-02-2005 rank for keyword House Plans
http://www.aboveallhouseplans.com/04...houseplans.bmp

we'll see what the removal of all the links does...

[Paul B]

I feel the repeat of 'house plans' in your index page is close to spamming at 11.76 %...

[krisidious]

Paul B Posted:
I feel the repeat of 'house plans' in your index page is close to spamming at 11.76 %...

you would think so but if I tone it down i drop in rank dramtically

who'd a thunk it...

[larryweiss]

My mattress site dropped a lot more than your sits did, and I did nothing. Perhaps your actions had no bearing at all on your results.

[krisidious]

if you read all the replies here you will see I regained my placement.

by reverting to my old version

maybe you should think of doing the same?

[buddhu]

Kris, Google seems to be in such a state of flux at the moment that I wouldn't be 100% sure that either the original changes or going back to your old version were necessarily what caused the change in position...

Since December (from where I sit, anyhow) has seemed to be tweaking algos at a desperate rate. SERPs are less stable than for a long time.

[krisidious]

thanks buddhu

for scaring me even more... you know that what i hate about SEO crap... there is never a simple instruction to do it right... don't they know thats what helps us do it right?