Showing below unrelated sites for 1 kw but doing well on others

[tmtim]

Hello guys,
I have been scouring these forums for hours trying to figure out why one of my sites is ranking very poorly(past #600 or so, or not showing at all sometimes) for a 2word keyword phrase that is extremely relevant to our content and domain/URLs/company name while I am showing number 1 and 3 for other very good phrases that are a bit less related to my content but still relevant. Even some sites that are linking to us that really aren't too relevant and have a much lower PR, not much contentat all are ranking above us because only because the link has our company name which of course contains that 2word phrase I wish to rank for. It's really the only phrase my boss is interested in so he disregards the fact that we are #1 for some other good ones, it's getting irritating I can understand though since some of the sites contain no real content relating to our field. It seems we should be on the first few pages because after that it starts to get unrelated to the search.

Could it be that I have over optimized for my most relevant phrase? It is part of the name of the company and it is used very often in our content since well it is what our content is about, it's hard to avoid using it. It's hard to get under 7% density or so and the page names use it only because it makes sense and as I said it is also in our company name.

thanks guys for any input on this. I haven't heard anything similar yet.

[tedster]

It does sound like it might be over-optimization. Have you read about the -950 penalty [webmasterworld.com]? That seems to be the machanism for dealing with over-optimization.

The name -950 is a bit of a misnomer. The penalty attracted that name because the most dramatic examples, the ones that first caught webmasters' attention, involved dropping from page one to the last page... or near the last page. But there never was any particular "minus" number.

I've been assuming that the phrase-based spam detection patent is in play to detect over-optimization. If that's the case, you can think of the so-called -950 penalty like this. First the algorithm calculates raw relevance scores, not specific ranking positions. The SERP positions could then be generated by putting the urls in order from the highest relevance score to the lowest.

However, if over-optimization is detected for any of the urls in the result set, the "penalty" kicks in before the final ordering happens. The preliminary relevance score can either be multiplied by some fraction, or have a certain amount subtracted. Then the SERPs are then re-ranked according to the order for those adjusted scores.

If your Company Name includes keywords that are in this particular query, then you are in a position to unintentionally trigger the over-optimization penalty.

[tmtim]

I am really thinking that this may be it. Reading over the content with this in mind it almost looks like I'm trying to keyword stuff, honestly this was not meant to be. The content was written by someone who knows nothing about SEO and wouldn't try to overuse the words on purpse.

Since the phrase is not only in the domains,menus,category titles(which become URLs with my CMS) it looks like this www.bluewidgets.com/big-blue-widgets/the-super-blue-widget/ and then those pages have the phrase in the content describing the widget. Maybe I could rename my categories since my content kind of needs to have the words it uses for it to make sense.

So far I have went and taken every use of the word out that still allows the content to be readable and get the point across but through the whole site that was only about 6. I'll try renaming the categories and creating some new 301 redirects to the new URLS. I just wish I knew if this is going to make it worse or not and I don't want to go to far with un-optimizing :) I guess it takes a couple months to see.

Thanks

[tedster]

I suggest being very attentive to anchor text, rather than content. Links and anchor text are Google's most ticklish spot.

[tmtim]

when you say anchor text you just mean the text between <a href="blah.php">Anchor Text?</a>? Or those anchors that people use to navigate through scrollable content?

[tedster]

Page fragment anchors are not so problematic as anchors that link to other pages or domains, but still be careful about repeating keywords in all of them.

[SEOPTI]

Try image navigation with gifs.

[outland88]

What I find so frustrating about the mentioned problem is that sites dealing in entirety about the same subject tend to have phrases, keywords, and sentences overlap on various pages that end up getting filtered and penalized. This is especially true on commerce sites that utilize the methodology to sell products. As one poster on another thread learned by using completely legitimate methods he was penalized by Google but saw his traffic jump substantially in Yahoo. With dilution of the pages he’ll likely loose all he gained in Yahoo and more, plus find further losses in Google where many leading sites seemingly are given a bye against penalties.

Bottom line IMO Google is leading many webmasters to believe they are doing something wrong when in reality the webmasters are utilizing completely legitimate methods. Google on the other hand is showing favoritism to sites that deal in an array of dissimilar subjects that can’t possibly incur penalties because there is limited repetition within the site.

[SEOPTI]

Keyword repetition is about the spam patent, not about the -950 patent.

[b2net]

I have a similar issue with OOP for my main keyword

I run a site widgets.com and target keywords widgets and cheap widgets. The site less than 4 months old but it has been released from the sandbox. It was getting better in rankings with page 3 for "widgets" and page 1 for "cheap widgets". Early September the site dropped way down for these keywords, now at pages 10 and 4.

Only the main page is affected, and only when the word widgets appears in the search phrase. Subpages rank ok (even with the widgets word) and the main page ranks fairly ok for other searches.

All backlinks are natural and all outgoing links are marked as nofollow. Because our site name and domain include the main keyword it is used on most of the backlinks as anchor text. I think this has tripped an "over-optimizing for a specific keyword" filter. Depending on the datacenter a subpage can outrank my main page for "widgets" which is odd and clearly shows the main page is under a filter.

What should I try to do? It's difficult to vary the anchor text on my backlinks. If someone links to my site they will of course use the best word that describes my site and the content which is "widgets". If I add my site to a directory it wouldn't make much sense to use another word. As for linking from my own sites, I'm trying to avoid it after Google noticed it and manually checked all domains with my name in the Whois. Lesson learned.

Maybe as the site gets older and gets more backlinks the trust rank gets higher and G will be more forgiving for the fact that I clearly target a specific - and yes, commercial - keyword with my site.