dstiles - 9:36 pm on Jul 14, 2008 (gmt 0)

RedCardinal - thanks for the response re: verification.

Martin Ice Web - only a handful of the sites I own or manage are in WMT. A couple of our high-profile non-WMT sites are approximately where they used to be, around 1-3 for certain key phrases.

Another site, in WMT and with sitemap, is about 10-20 down on where I would expect and its sister site (not in WMT) has taken over some of its slots despite being less relevant, with the main site nowhere in top 50. The site title belongs to the sister site, the description is taken from text on the primary site (this is technically feasible in this case but nowhere linked as such). If google is supposed to be using the site title as a major keyword it's screwed up big time (again).

(These are UK sites hosted in UK, all on same server; searched using google.co.uk using both Web and UK searches.)

Our own primary company site has been hovering around 14-16 for the past few days (at least) for one key phrase. It used to be around 2-5 but I can't say when it began dropping. But one thing about the listed result: it's got the wrong description! Entirely. The text that google claims is our description has not been used on the site for several years and no longer exists online, although we know it's still archived in dmoz at #1 for the old site's keywords.

The incorrect description could account for our lower position if google is parsing that actual (old) page, since it never had much in the way of relevant keywords (change of use).

Last night I added the site to WMT with a sitemap. We'll have to see if that makes any difference. Probably lose it altogether! :(

A thought about dmoz: I don't suppose google are trying to relate new site content to dmoz? If so then it's seriously out of line - that dinosaur has been dead for years!