Latest ranking shift on Google

too many keywords in text?

[ortelius]

I just joined -- I'm not a web designer, but a co-owner (on the sales side) of a small web design company. I have also owned a small site selling antique maps and prints since 1998. My antique map site got hammered in the latest shuffle on Google, and I discovered this forum as I searched for answers. I slipped from page 2 - 3 on the major keyword search for my product to page 44. Nothing like this has ever happened before.

I have been tinkering with the site to improve SEO recently. Most recently, I rewrote the copy on the home page to include, in context (or so I thought), my keyword phrase, repeating it eight or nine times in about 4 or 5 paragraphs. A few days later, I was on page 44. I don't know if this keyword "stuffing" hurt me or not. Any ideas?

Thanks.

[caveman]

Welcome.

Join the crowd. So many here with the same problem.

If those 8 or 9 mentions are truly in context, and if the user wouldn't think twice when reading the copy, then you should not be too worried...yet. If you want, you could cut back one of two mentions, but hard to say that would help.

Many are hoping Google will come to its senses soon and fix this problem.

If you can afford to wait, sit tight and hope for the best. If you can't afford to wait, there's little else to do anyway, except stay in touch with the notices in here from time to time and see if anyone has found a way to deal with this.

Hope that helps.