Got PR5 - main keyword does well in Bing, but badly in Google

[traged]

Hi,

I have created my site just 3 months ago, and after Caffein update i have PR5. But it means anything - for main keyword, my site is at about 400th place. For some other keywords, it is placed well, in first 10.

The main keyword is in page title, in H1 tag, in domain name, in most external links anchor text. Is is also in the text of page, but i still think the keyword density is ok.

In bing.com, my site is nr. 3 in SERPs for the main keyword.

Can someone tell me why the hell is google ignoring/punishing my main keyword? It doesnt any sense...

Thx

[traffik daddy]

Start building trust. Try getting some authority backlinks pointing to your website.

PR5 in 3 months? Are the backlinks really relevant or was it simply aimed at gaining pagerank? Relevance is the key, not pagerank.

Also, how quickly did you build your backlinks? Building links too quickly on a new domain is risky.

And look at keyword competition, if you are aiming at a popular 2 word combination then you are going to find it harder to manage, many website owners these days aim at longtail as many of the sites that occupy the top spots are pretty hard to shift. At least for a new website that is probably the best place to start in order to get more natural backlinks. Financial, for instance, is a tough industry to crack if you dont research your keywords properly.

Last of all, domain age (in relation to trust) - you may experience a lot of bouncing in the serps until your domain has settled. Give it time, besides, I dont think caffeine has truely rolled out yet and when it does expect loads of tweaks from Google :)

In the meantime you could work on some issues that many think could be beneficial in 2010, such as site loading time (gzip compression).

[walkman]

The main keyword is in page title, in H1 tag, in domain name, in most external links anchor text. Is is also in the text of page, but i still think the keyword density is ok.

That's your problem IMO. Too SEOed and probably google pushed you back by filter. Vary the anchor text and try removing it from the H1, just to see. What worked in 1999 gives you e penalty now :)

[traged]

Many thanks for your answers!

I am also surprised a bit that i have PR5, according to yahoo, i have 150 backlinks - well, most of them from sites with high PR also and most of them are relevant to my topic.

I think i was adding backlinks slowly, 2 or 3 each day - anyway, all this would affect my whole site, not just the main keyword - am i right?

I suppose Walkman is right, maybe my main keyword is too "SEOed" (i like this word :) But if i look at SERPs, pages in top 10 for this keyword (it is 3 word combination) have this combination also in page title, H1 tag and somewhere in text...well, these are old sites, maybe my site is just too fresh.

And third place at bing.com means it just has different algorithm?

[piatkow]

I used to have a lot of "fun" plotting the different positions of various key phrases in different search engines. Getting roughly the same position in G, Y and Bing isn't guaranteed.

I used to run site for a community arts group and positioned the site number one for location + subject. I am now running a similar site for a London based organisation and can't get the number one slot for our own name because the word London just has so much competition.

[walkman]

"And third place at bing.com means it just has different algorithm?
"

Yes, Google IMO is more sensitive to unnatural patterns.

[traged]

So can google penalize me if i use the same anchor text too often?

I think this would be the reason :(

[tedster]

Repeating the same backlink anchor text can be an indicator that those links are not "freely given" but rather under your control. Too much of that and you can be zapped - and penalties can be applied just to a specific keyword.

[traged]

OK so it seems this is my case :( What to do now with it? Should i try to change some old backlinks anchor text to something else? And add more backlinks with different anchor text?

Thanx

[tedster]

People have had some success with either approach - but they have also had no results. On the other hand, some people have seen the penalty lift (after a few months) without doing anything at all. And others say they are just plain stuck in it.

So it's hard to say what is the best in any particular case. Assuming that the penalty is for backlink manipulation, I can see that showing further evidence you can manipulate backlinks might also be a bad signal to send to Google. So I would lean toward growing more quality links and not controlling the anchor text.

However, the final results probably rest on quantity - on how many loaded backlinks you created. If you went over the top, then you may have to wait it out no matter what you try.

[walkman]

To be safe (or safer) you should forget the anchor text in many cases. Link as yourname.com or Your Name or just leave it to the people that link to you.

Google is saying: it is likely that he freely got 1500 links with the same identical anchor text? Nope, so let's put him aside until we can see it more carefully in the months ahead. Like tedster said, if google suspects manipulation, they will act.

[traged]

Well i have my keyword even in domain name like key1-key2-key3.com and lot of anchor texts are in this format, that is also bad...

I have changed my anchor text in signature in one forum with high PR in topic pages, hope google will not penalize me for this again :) And i will simply add more backlinks with completely different anchor text + hope for some natural links.

Many thanks for all of you!