a network is disappearing from serps

[allanp73]

About 2 months ago I worked on a project where I built a series of real estate sites to expand on a group of pre-existing sites targeting new markets. There were about 10 original sites, which at the time were ranked in the top 10 for their key terms. Even the New York site was ranked #19 for it's very competitive term. Each site had unique and excellent content about 100-300 pages each.
Wanting to expand upon the success and I created 20 new sites again each having unique high quality content. The new sites all incorporated the successful marketing techniques which were employed before.
Then I made a mistake. I decided to heavily cross-link to sites in order to build a network. I learned later this could cause problems so I removed the cross-links. However, Google had already indexed the sites. That months update the sites dropped to the 100 position . This month's update, even after the correction, they dropped even further (only two of the sites maintained their positions).
I don't understand how sites with many less links, no keywords in meta-title, keywords barely mentioned on the pages, and pages which are deep-deep links are ranking better than the sites in created.
I am totally confused, frustrated, and desparately in need of help. If they were my own sites, it won't be as big of a deal. However, each site has agents that it generates leads for.
Sorry for the length of the letter. I would appreciate any help. (I will sticky the link if you want to see the sites.)

[jdMorgan]

allanp73,

This month's update, even after the correction, they dropped even further

Are you sure the corrected pages were deep-crawled on or about October 4th? This recent update used pages spidered at that time. With Google and most other SE's, everything takes a month or more...

Best wishes for a speedy recovery!
Jim

[allanp73]

yes, I corrected the pages a month before the deep crawl. The sites were only cross-linked for about two weeks. They were deep crawled after the pages were corrected. I wonder if they are over optimized or something. The sites are behind really crappy sites with few pages, no links, and no keywords. At first I thought the sites were penalized but they show pr4 in the directory. They used to be pr 6 though.

[jdMorgan]

There was some discussion here recently about "link devaluation" due to the increased number of pages now in Google's index. Also, there seems to have been some devaluation of Google's directory pages, and possibly ODP as well. If these are important PR sources for your pages, they may have dropped because of this. I lost track of that "devaluation" thread, but you might want to hunt for it.

Anybody else got some advice for allenp73 here?

Jim

[allanp73]

It is not just link devaluation because as I said the sites still have many more links then sites that ranked above them.

[wasmith]

I'll be glad to look at the sites if you sticky mail me.

[Robber]

You might want to take a look at Googles cahed copy of your pages if you haven't already. Recently I have seen some quite old pages being used in new indexes despite more recent deep crawls.

[lazerzubb]

It's not always about the number of inbound links, you can have a site with 1000 inbound links from different guestbooks etc, and have 1 single link from yahoo.com you will probably rank higher for whatever keyword you target with the inbound link from Yahoo.com

About Cross-Linking, it's not always bad, just be sure that you don't do it only for the inbound links sake, if it's relevant for the user Google will not think you are trying to do anything to trick them, but as stated many times before, do it carefully.

Also i would check the inbound links you have and see what anchortext is used, Google place a heavy weight on this, try using the allinanchor:keyword
and then you should see a pretty good result if you have optimised your site correctly. More about how to use allinachor: [webmasterworld.com]

And there is more than 100 things that Google uses to rank pages/sites, so don't focus all your energy on links (even though Google place very much weight on links)

[allanp73]

Google's cache shows the latest version of the sites. The sites have a base of 35 links coming from network all with excellent anchor text. Then they have a links from major directories like Yahoo, DMOZ, major community portals, university, and government sites. Google shows that the sites have excellent links. Still the sites are extremely poorly ranked.

added: Actually, I just did an experiment with "allinanchor: keyword" suddenly the sites rank in the top 5. So this isn't the problem. I can't understand why the sites poorly ranked.

[MeditationMan]

Hi Laserzubb

And there is more than 100 things that Google uses to rank pages/sites

Do you know of any lists of these variables? I'm in a similar position to allanp73 -- I have a good site with lots of quality content, but it ranks below sites with less content and fewer links. The title has the main kw at the start and the KWD seems okay. So I'm hungry to find out what the heck I could do better.

Bodhipaksa

[lazerzubb]

There is one guide better that anyone i've seen out there:
[webmasterworld.com...]

Successful Site in 12 Months with Google Alone

Have fun.

[allanp73]

At one time I thought I was searh engine guru. I could consistently create sites that ranked in the top ten of Google. Now my network of sites is dead.
I once believed the following would lead to high ranking:

1) Avoid spamming techniques
-hidden text
-redirects
-meta-refresh
-too small text
-repeating keywords to an extreme
- link farms
- mirror sites

2) Avoid frames - search engines have real problems with these. Though it is possible to create sites that do rank well with frames using a the "no frame" tag, it is better to avoid their use.

3) Keywords should appear in title meta, on page near top, in h1 or links gives boost, and should appear disputed throughout the page and at the bottom. These keywords should appear in sensible text. Text near the top has more value that text which appears lower on the page.

4) Links pointing to the site should have keywords in them. Links from sites like Yahoo, Dmoz, and high quality sites (high pr and few outgoing links) which are relevant in content are the best.
Government and university sites are excellent.

5) Keywords in an image don't help because spiders can't see images. However, they can see the alt tags and in the image name. Sometimes spiders have problems seeing links within an image.

6) Sites which have excellent internal linking structure and excellent content generally do well and are top ranked. Quantity of pages is important.

7) Google sees keywords in comment tags do not in javascript.

There are more things, but these are the main points. I did all of these things and still the sites are ranked poorly. I have better links, better text, better code, better internal linking, and worse ranking. It doesn't make sense.

[MeditationMan]

Hi allanp73,

I have better links, better text, better code, better internal linking, and worse ranking. It doesn't make sense.

I really sympathize. My own site is doing more poorly than I wish, although I've put together sites and single pages for a few orgaizations and they all rank highly. And in fact my own site was doing well until the big change two months ago.

There is probably something simple that we are getting wrong, and if we can sort that out then we'll be flying high again. In the meantime, however, it's hard to stay confident.

Bodhipaksa

[MeditationMan]

Hi Laserzubb,

Successful Site in 12 Months with Google Alone

It's a good article, and I think I'm doing pretty much everything he recommends.

My site was doing great until two months ago (#6 or 7). It's not dreadful now, but #13 is not where I want to be. I have at least 3 times more relevant content than any of the sites above me, I don't spam in any way, and I have more links than most of the sites above me. I'm frustrated not knowing what I could be doing better!

Heck, two of the pages ranking above mine have 0% KWD for my main search term! Hopefully they'll drop at the next indexing.

Bodhipaksa

PS Allanp73 -- please check your stickymail. I may have a suggestion for you.

[allanp73]

After looking into the rankings more, I noticed that it was not just me that was affected. Some other excellent sites have been dropped from the top 10. I find that Google is producing less relevant results. (conspiracy theory) I wonder if Google is purposely weakening its results in order to encourage people to click on adwords ads and increase profits. (Googleguy do you want to comment? :) )

[Yidaki]

MeditationMan, allthough i don't do any meditation (except sitting in front of my screen, thinking about what the heck could push my sites at google ;-)), if find your site awesome! Really great content! Fine done, well structured!

However, the anchor feature could give you a insight at why you only rank at #13 for your most important keyword. Do a search for:allinanchor:meditation [google.com] and you'll see you're at #13. This means, there are others that get more incoming links with "your word" in the anchor text. So i would go hunting for some more links - try to let use the word "meditation" in their anchor text.

All in all i see exactly the same with my sites. I dropped for single keywords but moved up for multiple keyword searches / phrases. But i get a lot more traffic now than before! So, think about all the other related keywords and phrases that are not allready taken by somebody else.

I see, you allready have some really good positions for highly related phrases. I wouldn't stress myself about the single word "meditation".

[MeditationMan]

Yidaki,

Thanks very much for the tip. I'll try to get people to link using the keyword you mentioned.

Since I dropped from 7 to 13 for that keyword, my traffic has gone down by 30%, so I am concerned about it even though we rank highly on other terms.

Incidentally, the allinanchor:keyword search seems to give results that are identical to just plain old "keyword" in the few searches I've tried. This suggests that how often your keyword is in a link is the single most important factor in ranking these days.

You're a star!
Bodhipaksa

[wasmith]

<allanp73> Posted in public because i believe i can provide other readers some help without revealing anything about your site. </allanp73>

I've looked at many of the sites and some of the sites linking to you. looking on a site by site basis PR seems in order so far from what i've looked at. I know a quick look often does not show all the reasons for the PR of the page (Me, myself and I often hide links by getting them to a subpage with different keywords and then linking to the main page from that subpage . I am sure the vast majority of people who look at my main page don't know why i got my PR) but from what i saw looks right (you are welcome to correct me if i missed something).

Looking at the cache of some of the sites and I do see heavy interlinking on one its on the main index page.

I am not sure that i should assume you have lost some PageRank (well maybe i should alot of sites did but other that the 3 billion pages loss of PR). Your menu spreads the PR across the site fairly evenly with the current version of google's algo. Normally having PR spread out over more pages helps get more traffic depending on how you use them to target keywords.

If the answer is yes you have lost PR and it was based on the interlinking in a few of the cache pages i've seen. Then i am inclinded to say those interlinks were identified and the effect removed. But you don't have a blackmark.

I would move those interlinks to a sub page, Maybe one link off the main page to the sub page but not linked to from every page (check the PR of the interlink page to determine if a link from another page may help). but dont make it a menu item or a common footer, I kind of think it is very natural as a footer link off the main page though (feedback, copyright, and contact pages are often overlooked to reuse PR). Some people may be more worried about the crosslinks than me, and some may only want them on one site! I would not say they were wrong, but its a site by site choice.

I tend to think if you have good links coming into your sites google stops considering you a bad neighborhood after all Danny Sullivan is part of a neighborhood of sites, but its a good neighborhood.

You seem to have lots of good links, but i would take it easy on crosslinking untill google does not provide most of the traffic. but that is why i tend to think you are on cource. and you are not going to disappear from the SERPs, its just lastest wave, sometimes its a rollercoaster.

[wasmith]

>> At one time I thought I was searh engine guru

Search engines keep letting me know that i am not one. But i keep tring.