None of the Theories Fit Our Reality

[Ozdachs]

I have read postings that seem related and appreciated the wisdom and general advise others are giving about Google’s new results. However, for my clients' sites, the explanations don’t match what I’m seeing.

Best example, www.sterckenfield.com. Before the update it was #5 for “CPA San Francisco”. Now, we’re off the radar. We’re in Google (not banned). I don’t think we’ve done anything evil, and I can find the site when looking by our name or unique text.

Google visited our site on 2/1/04. Our home page has PR5; it’s in ODP. There are a number of links to it – (I know about many more than show up when I do a link: inquiry.)

The site is not small – maybe 30 pages. They have content and the home page and other pages are updated recently – although the text content on the home page is unchanged from when we were #5.

We advertise in Adwords, too. Although I don’t think that affects the organic ranking, conspiracy theorists might want this data.

If I were looking for a CPA in San Francisco, our site is one which I would want to see!

Does anyone have any unified theory – conspiracy or otherwise – that explains why we were dumped. In the search results now there’s junk like “San Francisco Jobs”, bulk telephone listings, and even some CPA’s with very thin sites.

I am puzzled. Any suggestions and crystal ball readings would be appreciated.

[cbp]

Have you read this thread:
http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic...10802&start=25
Location specific sites have been more affected, maybe becasue of the Applied Semantics/CIRRC technology.

CBP

[Ozdachs]

Thanks! I hadn’t read that thread.

The question about “Why me?” is still puzzling, especially when I look at the off-topic pages Google is returning now. They’re picking up casual references to “CPA” in pages from energy sites and in lists of speakers at seminars.

If I had to guess, I think we’re being filtered for referring to “San Francisco CPA” too often in text links. Many of our links do use “San Francisco CPA” in the link – these are both in-site and association, Chamber of Commerce, and other third-party sites.

I followed one article to the Google Answer thread which gave the IP to do a Scroogle filter test. That said we’d be #1 without a filter.

Of course, like so much on this topic, I have read precisely opposite advice. Many postings say not to be concerned about a mythical filter and to simply optimize our text.

Regardless of what is happing to my client’s site, the average Google user seems ill served by having results from places like “Websitenames.com” come up instead of local CPA firms.

I appreciate comments and suggestions. The Truth is Out There.