underglass - 1:31 pm on May 14, 2012 (gmt 0)

@ Tedster

Thanks for the response!

You should verify the technical transition to a new URL structure no matter what (301s as appropriate, with no internal lnks going through a 301.)

I did not change the URL structure. I deleted categories that were similar to others and products no one was buying.

watch out for what the third party SEO company is actually doing to generate 1-way links

Will do. I am waiting for the first report.

@ enigma1

Thank you as well for the response!

Did you change domains?

No. But we did switch where our name was registered.

You said you moved to a dedicated server from what? A vps?

A shared server. We moved to the VPS - dedicated. Well known company, expensive package.

Did page load times worsen or improved?

At first they worsened, then after removing code bloat, they improved.

Any connectivity problems?

No

Did you change the dns settings?

Yes.

You removed 2.5K of pages but you did not place 301 redirects to equivalent or nearest pages, since pages removed, were contributing to your site's rank and these requests are associated with your site's content.

I thought since I deleted them, it would be better for Google (the SEs) to see them as gone as opposed to 301'd. But on second thought, I should have 301'd the sub categories since they were related to the main category.

Then you did various content and link changes, how did you validate those? Are you saying you paid somebody and he placed a ton of external links to your domain to improve SEO?

We changed our title tags, h1 and h2 tags, and body content based on their recommendations (in early March). They do not do the tons of external link method; rather, they build links slowly over time, natural looking. But I am waiting for the first report...will check their work.