My EMD website not showing a match on keywords in domain name

[incywincy]

Hi everyone,

I haven't posted on here for a long time but I'd like some frank views please. I have an exact domain match website www.bluewidgets.net , i have a competitor www.bluewidget.co.uk which is a very good site and dominates the SERPs for most blue widget related search terms as well as EDM.

For close domain name matches such as 'blue widgets in <town>' my site is like 2nd page (used to be in top 3 of 1st page) but for EDM it is ranked 199! The url at that position isn't even the home page and what is even weirder is that although all other sites have 'bludwidget' in bold my exact www.bluewidget.net does not.

I'm not saying my site is the best or should be #1 but 199th? Not the home page? And the keywords are not recognised?

Any advice welcomed, Ive been suffering for about 2 years now, previously the site ranked really well for 'bludwidgets' abd '<town> blue widgets

[aakk9999]

Have you been affected by EMD update? I am asking because you say that you have been suffering for about 2 years now, and EMD update happened in September 2012.

EMD itself is not enough any more, but if you can tie your ranking drop with a known Google update, this may give you some indications what the problem may be.

Another question: Have you tried to compare .co.uk competitor with your site to see what they are doing different? Is it the content, or the authority links or something else?

[Whitey]

What have you been relying on to rank, and given the updates that have been flowing, which of those updates seem to conflict with your SEO practices.

Highly competitive verticals have been even more prone. Hopefully you haven't needed to do anything wild to stay in the rankings.

The bigger hitters are the series of Panda and Penguin updates which are well documented and have been widely applied causing a lot of angst. But there have been a lot of others to, which have slipped by more covertly - in particular the one mentioned above, the EMD update.

My starting point would be re my opening comment. Others may approach things differently to pin point the issues.