Gaps in URL a problem

[Mandala72]

Hi There

I use a simple WYSIWYG editor for my page and have recently
realised i have spaces in a 2 of my web page urls.

e.g. www.example.com/first example

I recently read this may cause problems .

My questions:
-Is this likely to harm my Search engine ranking with google.?

-How should i go about fixing the problem as the site has been established ,like this for several years?

-My search engine ranking recently fell quite sharply, could this be a factor?

Thanks for any advice

[jbinbpt]

Have you always had those spaces? If not what was the URL?

If yes,then the drop in ranking is unrelated. Is the drop sitewide or just on those pages?

Welcome to WebmasterWorld!

[Mandala72]

Hi Jbin

yes the gaps have been there for a long while

Its the main page (which has no gaps) that has dropped down to about 100. thats the one i monitor mainly.

I recently added some more unique text content to some of my pages and i am thinking maybe i over optimised it using too many keywords. I have re edited it so the number of keywords are the same as before the issue.

I also put a keyword in the author tag along with my name,
something like "Bob Smith: Artist"

i have since removed this but am wondering if that was what caused the problem. I dont use link farms or buy links.

However i did recently pay for manual submission to 100 directories.

Would it be worth resubmitting it to google?

Cheers for you feedback

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

However i did recently pay for manual submission to 100 directories.

Perhaps this is your problem. Google can see this as unnatural link growth.

[jbinbpt]

You want to keep it as natural possible. Change is expected to your pages, but it's easy to over do it. It is also a long term endeavour. Make a change and wait to see what happens.

Do you track the other SE's? Up, down or the same?

When you do a bulk submission it can backfire. Google knows you are paying for it.

[Mandala72]

Yeh Bee, i think i made a mistake with the bulk submission
I won't try that again.

Jbin, I'm at number 4 in yahoo
and at number 1 in Bing for my main phrase

I just did a sweep for any 'hidden text' that might have mistakenly got on my site. When i viewed the site with jacascript disabled (as an seo site suggested),i saw a link from my web hosting company back to one of their sites, at the top of every single page on my site!

Its a free host package i recently changed to.

Would google classify this as a 'hidden text' issue ?

I certainly didnt know it was there! lol

Looks like a need a better hosting service

[jbinbpt]

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