Web optimisation

in one week we've dropped 6 pages in organic searches...why?!

[pagey_3]

Last week I changed one page of my site very slightly, so that the main topic - '[snip]' - was more prominent in the HTML before the spiders hit all the java script for the menu (which I'm in the process of altering). I changed the keywords in the meta tags to have a few variables on the above topic, instead of just that phrase as it had before, and added '[snip]' to a header so that it was the first text on the page, and added alt tags to the title image saying '[snip]'. In the one week since this was done, we've dropped from 5th page of free searches to the 11th page for search '[snip]' in the UK - why is this - should I revert back to the old page? We weren't trying to get first place or anything, just trying to do a few little tweaks to help, and it has affected us v v badly! Please help - what's the best step to take next? Thank you!

[edited by: pageoneresults at 2:31 pm (utc) on Nov. 23, 2004]
[edit reason] Removed Specifics - Please Refer to TOS [/edit]

[Mark_A]

pagey_3, some things to think about:

1. are you sure you dropped, because the same effect could be caused if others rose. i.e. are the other sites all one click higher as a result of your falling or has more changed.

2. can you be sure from your logs that the gbot did come and spider your new page and could have taken it into consideration in the new ranking i.e. if gbot did not visit the page between its change and its reduced rank then it is not caused by your on page changes but by something else.

3. if you were sure that a) your page was the only one that moved in the serps and b) that gbot did come and copy it (check its cache if you want) you might want to change back some of the modifications but perhaps not all, to guide you I would look at the pages ranking above yours and look in each place on their page, what do they have and what do you have, plus check their inward link counts and PR level also.