Searching on "CompanyName"

Producing unexpected results

[Bradley]

Hello everyone,

I am perplexed with the results that Google is producing for our site. When I search on my domain name without the " .com " our site is ranking 24th. When I search on competitors' names, their sites are ranking #1.

For example, if you search on "webmasterworld" the webmasterworld.com site is appearing #1. When you take this approach with our site, we are ranking 24th.

Is there a particular reason for this? Would this be indicative of a SERP penalty of some sort?

[Knowles]

I dont think it would indicate a penilty, I was 3rd before this last update. I think it just has more to do with page rank, yours may be lower than theirs.

[Bradley]

I don't think it has to deal with PageRank because our site has a PR of 7.

[Knowles]

What if you just search for CompanyName with out the .com?

ps. I wouldnt worry about it to much unless its been this way for awhile. Mine only lasted an update.

[Bradley]

If I just search for CompanyName without the ".com" the site is not even listed on the first page of results.

There are several other websites that are hosted on the same server - they all are experiencing the same issue. Any thoughts about this?

[ciml]

Bradley, given your placement and your PageRank relative to the pages above you I am perplexed as well.

How long has it been this way?

[Bradley]

ciml, it has just started with this new update by Google.

To further complicate matters, other websites hosted on the same server are experiencing the same issue.

Our website is using the webhosting services of a company that *might* not be in Google's good books. I just hope our website was not knocked somehow because of being "guilty by association" We are simply using thier reliable webhosting services - nothing more, nothing less.

I'd be happy to provide my URL if this issue could be researched. There are several hundred other website owners, all using the same webhosting services that I am, that are experiencing this same problem. I'm perhaps a voice for their concerns as well.

Bradley

[rogerd]

A site I work with had this happen as a result of a PR0/low PR penalty. Google's algo is usually VERY good at identifying sites by company name (barring generic or very common names). During the run of the penalty for that site, various imitators and competitors ranked higher for a company name search. I take it that the PR for your site still looks normal. Nevertheless, I'd be concerned about this unwelcome development. How are other pages doing? Could this be a variant of the +N penalty, where N is the number of positions you are dropped? I don't want to be alarmist, and start seeing penalties every time a ranking changes. If this is an algo change, though, it's not a good one.

[Bradley]

rogerd,

The search on our CompanyName definitely does worry me. Our PR still remains at 7. Other pages contained within our site have dropped accordingly as well for their respective search terms. I am also in agreement with you in that I don't want to decree a penalty. I raise this as an issue because the 100% independent businesses, hosted by the same webhosting company, all *seem* to be affected because of recent actions by the hosting company. Its not because my one site was affected.

I just want to make sure my efforts are not hampered by things outside our control. **IF** our hosting company is negatively affecting their clients, I will need to find another provider. Then hopefully Google's algorhythm will disassociate our site with the hosting company because we are not associated with them in anyway (except that we using their hosting services, but that's it).

[ciml]

> Our PR still remains at 7. Other pages contained within our site have dropped accordingly as well for their respective search terms.

Do the pages inside the site have reduced PR, or just reduced rankings.

One of the penalties allows the home page to show PR, but not pass it on. It doesn't sound as though that's your problem.