Backlink Process

Quite Confusing Please Help

[JoeHouse]

Hello

I need some information about backlinks and how it suppose to help with rankings.

I have a website about two years old. I was told by some SEO experts that in order to get my site noticed and get better ranking on the search engines I would need to go out and get some relevant backlinks and use the keyword in the anchor text that I want to increase in rankings.

I am not going to kid anyone, this keyword is quite competitive.

Over the course of the last 2 weeks I have obtained about 40 quality relevant backlinks with the anchor text that I need to promote.

However instead of my website moving up in rankings for this keyword I actually dropped in rankings for this keyword.

Its not just one engine its all the major ones!

How could this happen? Doesn't make any sense.

The only thing I can think of is that I did a redesign of my website just about a week ago and I did change the title tags on the homepage.

Do you think that is the cause for the drop in rankings?

Can anybody lend me some advise on this subject? Thanks!

[defanjos]

>>Over the course of the last 2 weeks I have obtained about 40 quality relevant backlinks with the anchor text that I need to promote

Big mistake in my opinion. This could be the cause of your drop.

For example, if you want to rank for "cheap red widgets", try getting links like "red", "low cost widgets", "buy red widgets", "reddish widgets", "affordable red widgets online", "widgets", "cheapest widgets" etc. -- you get the idea. Do not go after the keyphrase head-on, you will be punished if you overdo it.

Of course the title changes could have had an adverse effect also.

[JoeHouse]

Are you sure about this?

Why is it then that most sites in my industry who have the most backlinks with a particlular anchor text lets say: "red widgets" they rank number one on google?

I have many anchor text with different keywords.....however I desperately need this particular keyword phrase in order for me to survive.

So I went out and starting promoting it head-on because it appears that those who have has gotten rewarded for it in rankings.

[defanjos]

>>Why is it then that most sites in my industry who have the most backlinks with a particlular anchor text lets say: "red widgets" they rank number one on google?

They probably obtained those links over time in a natural way. Also, they may have high trust rank sites linking to them.

You can still use your target keyphrase as anchor, but do not overdo it, and make sure things are not too perfect. For example, the page giving you the link is not over-optimized for your target keyword/phrase.

[JoeHouse]

Thanks for the advice....

At this point I been in no mans land for two years for this particular keyword phrase....so I figured I had nothing to lose.

btw: do you think the drop in ranking on google had anything to do with my redesign of my site as well as my hompeage title tag?

I'm thinking when you make changes like this google and other search engines drop you a bit and then rerank your site.

What is your thought on this?

[dickbaker]

I'd guess that the redesign had more to do with your drop in rankings than the links you acquired. Unless your redesign didn't affect the way the SE's view your site (navigation, text, etc), you may have to wait a bit before your rankings go back to where they were.

Just my .02 from personal experience.

[Go60Guy]

I agree. If I had to render an opinion I would say that it's the revamping of the site rather than the links that produced the drop. As it happens, all the pages with links won't be spidered and indexed at the same time. The latter conceivably could be an issue, but in all probability, it's not.