one more for the page rank drop

[ldylion214]

Hi,
I know others are experiencing this problem but I wanted to start a new thread incase there are things special in my case someone might notice. My page rank has dropped along with my search engine rank. At one time I was #1 for Native American Jewelry. That hasn't happened in a while but I continue to drop in the rankings. It seems the sites that rank higher now are cluttered on their home page. Any thoughts are welcome and appreciated.
Thanks! Nicci

[mjtaylor]

Originally Posted by ldylion214

Hi,
I know others are experiencing this problem but I wanted to start a new thread incase there are things special in my case someone might notice. My page rank has dropped along with my search engine rank. At one time I was #1 for Native American Jewelry. That hasn't happened in a while but I continue to drop in the rankings. It seems the sites that rank higher now are cluttered on their home page. Any thoughts are welcome and appreciated.
Thanks! Nicci

You might want to do some on site optimization ... Try changing your internal navigation to your home page links to your domain name (instead of linking to index.asp) and use the your target keywords in your anchor text. You might put alt and title tags on your home page graphics, as well.

Perhaps you would be better off with your blog as part of your own domain ....

Cheers, MJ

[LobsterWebDesign]

Your page layout is confusing. You have a H1 tag but its a link and its below the first section of text. Not a problem in itself but its more logical to have the H1 header at the very top. You also need to make sure that your Title bar text is the same as your H1 text and these both need to be the search phrase you're optimising for on each page.
The other thing to look at is your outbound links. SEO's bang on about inbound links all the time and these are very important but outbound links used correctly can be useful.
The only outbound link you have on the page is to StatCounter. I've seen this effect a site before and it seems that, if there is only one outbound link, and its not related to the subject of the page, it counts against you as Google seems to think your page is just a gateway page to that site.
I would recommend removing the link to StatCounter but you might also think about linking to other Native American information sites. Not too many, just a handfull in a resource section perhaps.

[mjtaylor]

Excellent advice on outgoing links ... a favorite tactic of mine.

Cheers, MJ

[tamecrow]

Another vote for outgoing links here. 'Hoarding' credit does nothing other than show Google that you're refusing to play an active part in the community. Give, and thou shalt be given...

[ldylion214]

Thank you all for the wonderful advice. This will give me something to work on for a while. One thing I've found is you cannot be away from your site for any length of time. I've had a change in my life that has taken me away and that's when the problems started. Energy begets energy too.
Again thank you mjtaylor, LobsterWebDesign and tamecrow.
Nicci

[tamecrow]

Originally Posted by ldylion214

Energy begets energy too.

A great philosophy to have. In fact, I'm expanding on this for my new philosophy:

{x} begets {x}

[ctabuk]

Your page headings need doing more than probably anything else (Although I agree Statcounter link must go)

Look
Handmade Jewelry by Ron Henry

Remove the ItemList and have longtailed URL's based on the keywords

Here's how I do mine
Social Homebuy - Shared Ownership Schemes Information by CTAB

You have to click through to see the full headings

[ldylion214]

Originally Posted by ctabuk

Your page headings need doing more than probably anything else (Although I agree Statcounter link must go)

Look
Handmade Jewelry by Ron Henry

Remove the ItemList and have longtailed URL's based on the keywords

Here's how I do mine
Social Homebuy - Shared Ownership Schemes Information by CTAB

You have to click through to see the full headings

I'm a little confused about this. Do you mean to put this link on the homepage?
Thanks! Nicci

[ldylion214]

Originally Posted by tamecrow

A great philosophy to have. In fact, I'm expanding on this for my new philosophy:

{x} begets {x}

I think this is a big reason why my rankings have dropped. I know all the wonderful advice I'm getting plays a huge role but really when I'm not working neither is my site.

[ldylion214]

Originally Posted by LobsterWebDesign

Your page layout is confusing. You have a H1 tag but its a link and its below the first section of text. Not a problem in itself but its more logical to have the H1 header at the very top. You also need to make sure that your Title bar text is the same as your H1 text and these both need to be the search phrase you're optimising for on each page.
The other thing to look at is your outbound links. SEO's bang on about inbound links all the time and these are very important but outbound links used correctly can be useful.
The only outbound link you have on the page is to StatCounter. I've seen this effect a site before and it seems that, if there is only one outbound link, and its not related to the subject of the page, it counts against you as Google seems to think your page is just a gateway page to that site.
I would recommend removing the link to StatCounter but you might also think about linking to other Native American information sites. Not too many, just a handfull in a resource section perhaps.

Do the links need to be reciprocal or can they just be links to sites such as anything Native American I feel is good info?

[incrediblehelp]

Check out this link:

Google Update Not Just Visible, Some Reporting Major Ranking Reductions

[ldylion214]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

Check out this link:

Google Update Not Just Visible, Some Reporting Major Ranking Reductions

THank you! I guess there is some comfort in knowing I am not alone.

[mjtaylor]

Originally Posted by ldylion214

Do the links need to be reciprocal or can they just be links to sites such as anything Native American I feel is good info?

They don't need to be reciprocal ... Google will like it if you link out to related sites. Anything you honestly respect and want to share ... it helps if they are "authority" sites for your niche ...

Cheers, MJ

[ldylion214]

Originally Posted by mjtaylor

They don't need to be reciprocal ... Google will like it if you link out to related sites. Anything you honestly respect and want to share ... it helps if they are "authority" sites for your niche ...

Cheers, MJ

Thanks alot!! Nicci

[weslinda]

The key to your success is to start with the basics. Work on a well structured page, reducing code bloat and issues, optimize title, description, and keyword tags and use a semantic structure through your site.

Basics will help, then worry about outbound links and other items like that.

Feel free to PM if you'd like to discuss this in more depth.

[Skywoolf]

My main site (Car Sales Asia - Home (Hong Kong) Classifieds, Forums, News, Articles, etc.) home page has been at 4 and other main sections at 3 for about a year. For the last couple of weeks they have been dropping, going back up, dropping again and now seem to have stopped at 2 and 1 respectively. As far as I see the content of the home page and other pages is continuously changing but otherwise the site has not changed.

[ldylion214]

Originally Posted by weslinda

The key to your success is to start with the basics. Work on a well structured page, reducing code bloat and issues, optimize title, description, and keyword tags and use a semantic structure through your site.

Basics will help, then worry about outbound links and other items like that.

Feel free to PM if you'd like to discuss this in more depth.

Thank you. I will PM if that's ok. I appreciate the help alot.
Nicci

[ldylion214]

Originally Posted by Skywoolf

My main site (Car Sales Asia - Home (Hong Kong) Classifieds, Forums, News, Articles, etc.) home page has been at 4 and other main sections at 3 for about a year. For the last couple of weeks they have been dropping, going back up, dropping again and now seem to have stopped at 2 and 1 respectively. As far as I see the content of the home page and other pages is continuously changing but otherwise the site has not changed.

I'd love it if anything stayed the same for anytime.

[Clint1]

Originally Posted by ldylion214

Hi,
I know others are experiencing this problem but I wanted to start a new thread incase there are things special in my case someone might notice. My page rank has dropped along with my search engine rank. At one time I was #1 for Native American Jewelry. That hasn't happened in a while but I continue to drop in the rankings. It seems the sites that rank higher now are cluttered on their home page. Any thoughts are welcome and appreciated.
Thanks! Nicci

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned this. You don't say what your PR was and is now, but if it's dropped too low, your pages are in the process of being penalized to the supplemental index where they will not show up for searches, because their PR is too low.

You can do all the changes you want, all the "optimization" you want, but none of it is going to help if you've dropped due to low PR. Thank google for that. I don't know how low is too low though. PR0 is certainly low enough. If your pages are PR2 or higher then PR probably isn't the problem.

[ldylion214]

Originally Posted by Clint1

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned this. You don't say what your PR was and is now, but if it's dropped too low, your pages are in the process of being penalized to the supplemental index where they will not show up for searches, because their PR is too low.

You can do all the changes you want, all the "optimization" you want, but none of it is going to help if you've dropped due to low PR. Thank google for that. I don't know how low is too low though. PR0 is certainly low enough. If your pages are PR2 or higher then PR probably isn't the problem.

Hi Clint,
Thank God on they aren't that low. My index page was at one time PR5 but is now a PR3. I hope they 0 isn't coming but I'm going to do all I can to optimize and restructure based on the good advice of all the helpful people here. My link pages have gone from PR2 to 0. I'm not sure what caused that either.

Best, Nicci

[Clint1]

Originally Posted by ldylion214

Hi Clint,
Thank God on they aren't that low. My index page was at one time PR5 but is now a PR3. I hope they 0 isn't coming but I'm going to do all I can to optimize and restructure based on the good advice of all the helpful people here. My link pages have gone from PR2 to 0. I'm not sure what caused that either.

Best, Nicci

Well that's good about the main page because there's nothing you can really do about that. But your PR0 pages are probably going to end up in the supp index.

[cass-hacks]

There are a couple of technical things that could use a looking at.

Besides the index.asp issue mjtaylor mentioned you also have a canonical issue in that your server replies equally well to the www and non-www version of page requests.

You currently have 208 page indexed without the www and 5 with the www. That 5 may not seem like a lot but that does indicate there is some competition between the two.

Having essentially two different versions, 1 URL = 1 page, 2 URLs = 2 pages, will cause Google to have to decide between the two and also if you have some links to one version and some links to the other, the value of inbound links will be reduced where there are splits.

What would be good to do, in both cases, index.asp and www/non-www is use 301 Permanent Redirects from what you don't want to use to what you do want to use.

In the case of index.asp, redirect from index.asp to the site root /

In the case of www/non-www redirect from the www version to the non-www version since it seems the non-www version is what Google has more of in its index.

Lastly, it does seem as if there are some Supplemental page count issues because of the 208 pages Google has indexed from tribeazure.com, only about 41 of them are in Google's Main index.

But, with the PageRank that is displayed for many of the pages, either your actual PageRank that Google uses and maintains internally has dropped or the PageRank you actually have is not being distributed throughout the site well enough because it seems to me you should have more pages in Google's Main index.

[jeffposaka]

I think there is a ton of great advice here, I would not do everything at once though. Recently I had a site that was penalized/filtered/etc. for over-optimization. I would fix the canonical issue first, then the page titles, then move on to other issues. IMO, if you fix too much too fast it trips some filters...

[cass-hacks]

I agree with Jeff's, "step at a time" suggestion but for different reasons, not that his are bad, just different than mine.

I'd do things in the order he suggested because it is important, I think, to see what effects changes have. I've seen too many cases where a "shotgun" approach is used and all too often, things get worse. The problem then becomes one of deciding whether it was something you did, that needs to be undone, or it was something totally unrelated.

The more things changed at one time, the more confusing things can become.

Also, dealing with the canonical issues is a quick and easy job that won't take but a couple of minutes for someone to do and another couple of minutes to verify they are working correctly.

If working correctly, moving on to the next thing quickly is no problem because you can't go wrong fixing canonical problems, once they are fixed, things can only get better, from that point of view anyway.

Page titles and header text, as long as you keep the basics in mind are another area that is pretty hard to go wrong in. But, to see the effect that any changes have takes as long as it takes for the pages that have had their titles and content changed to be crawled again and their caches updated.

That said, I have a slightly different opinion about page titles and h1 tag content. I am not sure I would make them exactly the same as it could end up looking "over optimized" as well as cause you to miss an opportunity to try to give more weight to alternate terms and phrases to try to capture more searches.

But, I've tried it both ways and never seemed to come up with any conclusive evidence either way although it *seemed* it was maybe marginally better with slightly different title and h1 tag content. The problem was that it took so long for the changes to be re-cached that I can't know if something else may have changed in the interim.

[mjtaylor]

Originally Posted by jeffposaka

I think there is a ton of great advice here, I would not do everything at once though. Recently I had a site that was penalized/filtered/etc. for over-optimization. I would fix the canonical issue first, then the page titles, then move on to other issues. IMO, if you fix too much too fast it trips some filters...

I have to disagree. I frequently do complete redesigns of sites and have only seen positive effects. If you are not *over* optimizing you will not trip any filters.

Cheers, MJ

[mjtaylor]

Originally Posted by ldylion214

Hi Clint,
Thank God on they aren't that low. My index page was at one time PR5 but is now a PR3. I hope they 0 isn't coming but I'm going to do all I can to optimize and restructure based on the good advice of all the helpful people here. My link pages have gone from PR2 to 0. I'm not sure what caused that either.

Best, Nicci

What caused that was Google's attack on links pages - the PR changes this year have not just targeted paid links, though that gets most of the hoopla, but also links pages, especially where most links are reciprocal.

Originally Posted by Clint1

Well that's good about the main page because there's nothing you can really do about that. But your PR0 pages are probably going to end up in the supp index.

PR0 pages are already in the supplemental index. That's what makes a page "supplemental" - it is not deemed important; or to put it another way, the liklihood of a random surfer landing on the page is virtually nil.

Google has changed, that, though ... your links pages are not that unlikely to be clicked ... Google has simply changed the way it calculates PR ...

If you want to get your links pages out of the SI, you will need to change their content to include a healthy number of outgoing links that are not reciprocated *and* you will need to point more links to those pages, whether internal or external links.

Personally, I think it would be better to restructure and rename your links pages rather than trying to pull them out of SI. Either way, you need to change the balance of links and it would help tremendously if you would change the pattern from Title: Desc to a contextual style of presentation ...

Let me know if you want to talk more about this.

Cheers, MJ

[cass-hacks]

The question I would have, regarding links pages is, what would the actual benefit be for a links page to be in the Main index?

If by being in the Main index, a links page would then possibly show up for searches, what type of searches would it show up for?

For most links pages one sees, just about any search one can think of, the actual sites that a link on a given links page points to would be a much more useful result.

With most links pages people have, if there is anything more than bare links, there is rarely anything more than a sentence or so about what the link points to which makes it very unlikely to be a useful resource to anyone in a search situation.

From a searcher point of view, if they just came from a search engine and were looking at a link with a snippet, what is the value to them to end up on a page with just another link and just another snippet?

Assuming a given links page is in the Supplemental index, considering the PageRank that it would cost to bring a links page out of the Supplemental index, mightn't that PageRank be better applied, both for the site owner as well as potential searchers, to a page that is more likely to show up in search results ?

On the other hand, if a given links page adds sufficient quality content that isn't just a rehash of the linked to site's meta description and provides something unique that would benefit searchers, it could then become a valuable resource.

It is not so much having or not having pages in the Supplemental index although of course it would be better to not have any there but the real question is, are there any pages in the Supplemental index that would be good SERPs bait and if so what would it "cost" to get them out.

If a site has a limited PageRank "budget", it is best to be careful about where it is spent.

[mjtaylor]

Excellent points about links pages and SI, C-H ... and you touch upon one of the reasons I favor a contextual style for links. Creating content that makes sense out of a collection of links can give searchers options if they haven't found what they want on the site.

For the site owner, the site then has a page which has value in a link trade. Link trades are not dead no matter how Google might like them to be. And, naturally, people would prefer to trade with a site that will help them raise their own PR. If the link is truly relevant, I believe MC himself would say there is nothing wrong with that trade.

Let's take this a step further: even if I'm not trading in anticipation of getting PR, I would still prefer a link from a higher PR page - as it is more likely to generate traffic. We know that because at its most basic, PR is a calculation of the liklihood of a page being visited by a random surfer.

There is further advantage to well ranked links pages. I have several strong links pages among my clients in a particular niche and they do come up for relevant, popular searches. That's terrific for a new site, as a link from the older site means they can be found before their site is 'seasoned' enough to rank higher in the SERPs than the link page.

There's one more reason to rescue the links page: the links that are reciprocal need to be maintained or incoming links may be lost. When I check my link partners and find my link is now on page that has no PR or less than it had, I ask them to move the link if they want to keep mine to them.

IMO, MJ

[cass-hacks]

Originally Posted by mjtaylor

Excellent points about links pages and SI, C-H ... and you touch upon one of the reasons I favor a contextual style for links. Creating content that makes sense out of a collection of links can give searchers options if they haven't found what they want on the site.

Exactly my thinking as well.

Originally Posted by mjtaylor

For the site owner, the site then has a page which has value in a link trade. Link trades are not dead no matter how Google might like them to be. And, naturally, people would prefer to trade with a site that will help them raise their own PR. If the link is truly relevant, I believe MC himself would say there is nothing wrong with that trade.

Content that is of benefit to the visitor and unique is SERPs bait no matter how you dress it up.

Originally Posted by mjtaylor

Let's take this a step further: even if I'm not trading in anticipation of getting PR, I would still prefer a link from a higher PR page - as it is more likely to generate traffic. We know that because at its most basic, PR is a calculation of the liklihood of a page being visited by a random surfer.

And therein making my having a link on your links page of more value to me in terms of the potential traffic. The basics of traffic sharing 101, before search engines started clouding the issues in people's minds.

The thing is though, traffic sharing, if done for that, hasn't changed even with the advent of search engines. It is only people's perceptions of what search engines "allow" that has changed.

Originally Posted by mjtaylor

There is further advantage to well ranked links pages. I have several strong links pages among my clients in a particular niche and they do come up for relevant, popular searches. That's terrific for a new site, as a link from the older site means they can be found before their site is 'seasoned' enough to rank higher in the SERPs than the link page.

Would it be possible for you to post a link to one of those link pages? Seeing it done right would be a valuable resource for this forum. Or better yet, I could see an entire new thread on this topic.

The funny thing is though, even ignoring search engines, what has been the value of most of the links pages out there? Little to none. Big deal, some webmaster likes "this" site, so what? On the other hand, the webmaster explaining why the site is liked and what the visitor would benefit from going there, not only is that a totally different ballgame but unfortunately, something that was rarely done. Many people seemed to have links pages just to have links pages.

So, a thread on this would not only show people how to make a links page work with search engines but more so, the benefits that could be realized with a links page in the first place and ignoring search engines. Getting back to basics!

Originally Posted by mjtaylor

There's one more reason to rescue the links page: the links that are reciprocal need to be maintained or incoming links may be lost. When I check my link partners and find my link is now on page that has no PR or less than it had, I ask them to move the link if they want to keep mine to them.

Fair enough. If part of the desired benefit of having a reciprocal link on someone's links page is PageRank, it would seem only natural for the benefits to be mutual.

Lastly, although I know you know this, reciprocal links that are in part for the benefit of PageRank are not "against the law". What is however is "excessive" reciprocal linking for that purpose only.

I really would love to see you start a thread on your experiences with setting up links pages and making them work. I don't personally use any, although I have set some up for various clients but I think the discussion not only could help webmasters here improve their sites but also, help correct a common misunderstanding that a lot of people seem to have regarding the "legality" of links pages in the first place.

[davecr]

Originally Posted by LobsterWebDesign

Your page layout is confusing. You have a H1 tag but its a link and its below the first section of text. Not a problem in itself but its more logical to have the H1 header at the very top. You also need to make sure that your Title bar text is the same as your H1 text and these both need to be the search phrase you're optimising for on each page.
The other thing to look at is your outbound links. SEO's bang on about inbound links all the time and these are very important but outbound links used correctly can be useful.
The only outbound link you have on the page is to StatCounter. I've seen this effect a site before and it seems that, if there is only one outbound link, and its not related to the subject of the page, it counts against you as Google seems to think your page is just a gateway page to that site.
I would recommend removing the link to StatCounter but you might also think about linking to other Native American information sites. Not too many, just a handfull in a resource section perhaps.

RE: outbound links - In the last month I added rel=nofollow to scores of outbound links and even moved them to a directory blocked from spiders - all because they made my site heavily unbalanced in terms of quality inbound vs. quality outbound. In other words, I was following what I thought to be good s.e.o. practice. Looks like it may have cost me a PR drop from 4-3 on my index page, while some internal pages went from 1 or 2 to 4!

So quality outbound links are good - what about the rel=nofollow and hiding them from google bot?

Thanks...

[ldylion214]

Originally Posted by cass-hacks

There are a couple of technical things that could use a looking at.

Besides the index.asp issue mjtaylor mentioned you also have a canonical issue in that your server replies equally well to the www and non-www version of page requests.

You currently have 208 page indexed without the www and 5 with the www. That 5 may not seem like a lot but that does indicate there is some competition between the two.

Having essentially two different versions, 1 URL = 1 page, 2 URLs = 2 pages, will cause Google to have to decide between the two and also if you have some links to one version and some links to the other, the value of inbound links will be reduced where there are splits.

What would be good to do, in both cases, index.asp and www/non-www is use 301 Permanent Redirects from what you don't want to use to what you do want to use.

In the case of index.asp, redirect from index.asp to the site root /

In the case of www/non-www redirect from the www version to the non-www version since it seems the non-www version is what Google has more of in its index.

Lastly, it does seem as if there are some Supplemental page count issues because of the 208 pages Google has indexed from tribeazure.com, only about 41 of them are in Google's Main index.

But, with the PageRank that is displayed for many of the pages, either your actual PageRank that Google uses and maintains internally has dropped or the PageRank you actually have is not being distributed throughout the site well enough because it seems to me you should have more pages in Google's Main index.

I can say I am truly overwhelmed. I will get it tho. It will just take me some time to do the reading and research.

Isn't there a chance of being penalized by using the 301 Permanent Redirect or is that mainly if you are trying to slip another domain into the place of the old one?

Thanks to all of you for the great info. I'm reading. As I go along I will be asking many questions.

Nicci

[ldylion214]

Originally Posted by mjtaylor

Excellent points about links pages and SI, C-H ... and you touch upon one of the reasons I favor a contextual style for links. Creating content that makes sense out of a collection of links can give searchers options if they haven't found what they want on the site.

For the site owner, the site then has a page which has value in a link trade. Link trades are not dead no matter how Google might like them to be. And, naturally, people would prefer to trade with a site that will help them raise their own PR. If the link is truly relevant, I believe MC himself would say there is nothing wrong with that trade.

Let's take this a step further: even if I'm not trading in anticipation of getting PR, I would still prefer a link from a higher PR page - as it is more likely to generate traffic. We know that because at its most basic, PR is a calculation of the liklihood of a page being visited by a random surfer.

There is further advantage to well ranked links pages. I have several strong links pages among my clients in a particular niche and they do come up for relevant, popular searches. That's terrific for a new site, as a link from the older site means they can be found before their site is 'seasoned' enough to rank higher in the SERPs than the link page.

There's one more reason to rescue the links page: the links that are reciprocal need to be maintained or incoming links may be lost. When I check my link partners and find my link is now on page that has no PR or less than it had, I ask them to move the link if they want to keep mine to them.

IMO, MJ

What is the risk in deleting links all together?

[Clint1]

Originally Posted by mjtaylor

PR0 pages are already in the supplemental index. That's what makes a page "supplemental" - it is not deemed important; or to put it another way, the liklihood of a random surfer landing on the page is virtually nil.

No, not all PR0 pages are in the SI! Myself and I'm sure many others have some PR0 pages that are indeed found in the main index in searches.

If you want to get your links pages out of the SI, you will need to change their content to include a healthy number of outgoing links that are not reciprocated *and* you will need to point more links to those pages, whether internal or external links.
Personally, I think it would be better to restructure and rename your links pages rather than trying to pull them out of SI. Either way, you need to change the balance of links and it would help tremendously if you would change the pattern from Title: Desc to a contextual style of presentation ...

I think you meant to address that to someone else. My main links page is PR2 and not in the SI. (Yet).

[ldylion214]

Originally Posted by mjtaylor

If you want to get your links pages out of the SI, you will need to change their content to include a healthy number of outgoing links that are not reciprocated *and* you will need to point more links to those pages, whether internal or external links.

Personally, I think it would be better to restructure and rename your links pages rather than trying to pull them out of SI. Either way, you need to change the balance of links and it would help tremendously if you would change the pattern from Title: Desc to a contextual style of presentation ...
Let me know if you want to talk more about this.

Cheers, MJ

I'm all for restructuring the links pages if it will help my rankings. I'm also good with outgoing links. I would actually prefer them but I've always been under the notion that will drop rankings.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by ldylion214

Hi,
My page rank has dropped along with my search engine rank. At one time I was #1 for Native American Jewelry. That hasn't happened in a while but I continue to drop in the rankings. It seems the sites that rank higher now are cluttered on their home page.

I think that when you say page rank, you mean the green bar. Right?`Can you tell approx. when did your rankings drop? How long ago?

Please provide me with this valuable info, and then I will also have a closer look to you site and see what I can add here too.

Thanks.

[ldylion214]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

I think that when you say page rank, you mean the green bar. Right?`Can you tell approx. when did your rankings drop? How long ago?

Please provide me with this valuable info, and then I will also have a closer look to you site and see what I can add here too.

Thanks.

Yes, I do mean the green bar however my listing rank has dropped significantly too. I'm not 25 for native american jewelry when at one time I was 1. However I held around #8 for a long time. I would say in the last month I started to decline in the rankings. My green bar rank is now 3 when it was 5 then 4.
I did do some optimizing last nite on my site as advised by the webmasters.

Best, Nicci

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by ldylion214

Yes, I do mean the green bar however my listing rank has dropped significantly too. I'm not 25 for native american jewelry when at one time I was 1. However I held around #8 for a long time. I would say in the last month I started to decline in the rankings. My green bar rank is now 3 when it was 5 then 4.
I did do some optimizing last nite on my site as advised by the webmasters.

Best, Nicci

Thanks for the info Nicci. And by the if webmasters already gave you tips and you have implemented them, then I guess we should wait to see if the tips were helpful so far. If not, then drop a note here and I will have a look.

Off-topic: By the way, very nice jewelry. And I am half Native American (Cherokee) myself. My great grandfather was from North Carolina.

[ldylion214]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

Thanks for the info Nicci. And by the if webmasters already gave you tips and you have implemented them, then I guess we should wait to see if the tips were helpful so far. If not, then drop a note here and I will have a look.

Off-topic: By the way, very nice jewelry. And I am half Native American (Cherokee) myself. My great grandfather was from North Carolina.

Thank you very much for your support. Yes I suppose making the changes and waiting to see the results would be best.
I will pass those kind words on to Ron. He does beautiful work. He's half Navajo but I am Cherokee too, only 1/16 but still I cherish it.
Best, Nicci

[isharli]

Originally Posted by LobsterWebDesign

Your page layout is confusing. You have a H1 tag but its a link and its below the first section of text. Not a problem in itself but its more logical to have the H1 header at the very top. You also need to make sure that your Title bar text is the same as your H1 text and these both need to be the search phrase you're optimising for on each page.
The other thing to look at is your outbound links. SEO's bang on about inbound links all the time and these are very important but outbound links used correctly can be useful.
The only outbound link you have on the page is to StatCounter. I've seen this effect a site before and it seems that, if there is only one outbound link, and its not related to the subject of the page, it counts against you as Google seems to think your page is just a gateway page to that site.
I would recommend removing the link to StatCounter but you might also think about linking to other Native American information sites. Not too many, just a handfull in a resource section perhaps.

Could someone look at my site? We have an index page with a recent PR0 - is it because we have added a few outbound links to other sites? Any help here would be greatly appreciated.

thanks

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by Clint1

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned this. You don't say what your PR was and is now, but if it's dropped too low, your pages are in the process of being penalized to the supplemental index where they will not show up for searches, because their PR is too low.

You can do all the changes you want, all the "optimization" you want, but none of it is going to help if you've dropped due to low PR. Thank google for that. I don't know how low is too low though. PR0 is certainly low enough. If your pages are PR2 or higher then PR probably isn't the problem.

Supplemental Ratio for tribeazure.com: 78.37%

* Google has a total of 208 pages indexed from tribeazure.com
* 45 are in the main index
* 163 are in the supplemental index

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by isharli

Could someone look at my site? We have an index page with a recent PR0 - is it because we have added a few outbound links to other sites? Any help here would be greatly appreciated.

thanks

I guess you do not realize that you are hijacking a thread of someone else. You better start a new thread and ask your questions there.

Thanks.

[ldylion214]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

Supplemental Ratio for tribeazure.com: 78.37%

* Google has a total of 208 pages indexed from tribeazure.com
* 45 are in the main index
* 163 are in the supplemental index

Would this be considered decent or inadequate?
Best, Nicci

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by ldylion214

Would this be considered decent or inadequate?
Best, Nicci

This is considered inadequate.

[ldylion214]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

This is considered inadequate.

Yes, after I reread what you originally wrote, I see that only 45 out of 205 is poor.
My goal is to have more pages indexed but this is where the rub lies.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by ldylion214

Yes, after I reread what you originally wrote, I see that only 45 out of 205 is poor.
My goal is to have more pages indexed but this is where the rub lies.

No, you are wrong. 163 out of 205 are poor.

[subhzash]

Main reason for dropping and search rank is optimization. See if your site is listed with some keyword you should not stop the optimizing see other end some other seos are sitting as your compitators so continous updations and optimizations will allow you to stand in higher positions

[ldylion214]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

No, you are wrong. 163 out of 205 are poor.

45 downright SUCKS!!

Originally Posted by subhzash

Main reason for dropping and search rank is optimization. See if your site is listed with some keyword you should not stop the optimizing see other end some other seos are sitting as your compitators so continous updations and optimizations will allow you to stand in higher positions

I'm really starting to see that in concept anyway. Thanks! Nicci

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by ldylion214

45 downright SUCKS!!




I'm really starting to see that in concept anyway. Thanks! Nicci

I am not sure if I understand you. To make sure, once again:

45 pages are OK. The rest not. I am sure we can fix a lot. But as I said on the other thread, PM me and I will tell you what I can do for you. My support will remain for free, not that someone thinks here that I want to sell you my services.

[ldylion214]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

I am not sure if I understand you. To make sure, once again:

45 pages are OK. The rest not. I am sure we can fix a lot. But as I said on the other thread, PM me and I will tell you what I can do for you. My support will remain for free, not that someone thinks here that I want to sell you my services.

I appreciate that. I sent you a note. Yes I think I'm confused about the numbers.
Best, Nicci