Website dropping like a lead balloon down the rankings

[lounge2]

Hi
I haven't posted before never needed to you guys seem to have come across all ive needed in the past. but i would like a SEO review of my business site http://www.headboardsuk.co.uk its 8 years old and had a few design overhauls last one being 14 months ago on V10 and has had a fair share of that ranking well on all search engines and still dose apart from Google where it has fallen from grace i have asked Google if it has been blacklisted for any-reason and they assure me its not in there radar for malware or any thing else i have tested it though all online SEO checker tools and it dose well for the keyword "headboard". I have had a few SEO company's assure me that " we will have at page 1 in a few months" but as we all know that is not a cert and so far they have all failed.
At the last index it was at page 70 for the keyword headboards.
Page 1 on Bing and Yahoo for the same keyword.

So any pointers would be greatly appreciated.


Regards
Mike

[leehack]

I just took a quick look and my initial reaction was i am not surprised. Everywhere i looked you had taken the chance to write the word headboard twice, when common sense and plain English would say to write it just once. It just looks spammy and not natural, i reckon your keyword density is way over the top and Google perhaps with a recent update have said enough is enough. When you write a page title with 7 or 8 words in it, there really is no need to say the word headboard twice is there? Nor with product and section name?

Looks like you built it for Google and they said seeya i'm afraid.

[lounge2]

Hi Lee,
Thank you for having a look and will amend to your recommendations and remove a good percent of the none grammar keyword "headboard headboards".
Any one else got any ideas? or a SEO
Regards
Mike

[MDN]

Hi,

A search on Google for the Flute Headboard gave me:

http://www.headboards-uk.co.uk/store...headboard.html

About the 4th result, however the link you provided has to your site is the same ithout the hyphen so you also have:

http://www.headboardsuk.co.uk/acatal...headboard.html

I think you problem is duplicate content on two urls, my advise would be to drop one and redirect it.

[lounge2]

Hi Lee (MDN),
Thanks for having a look.
I was advised by the SEO at the time (not employed any more as made no difference) to set up a back up when my site began to fall. It was to put it on a different hosting company with a different IP address. It dose bring in some orders, so reluctant to switch it off and also not sure about what redirect would be the best way ahead?.
I did check duplicate content with headboardsuk against headboards-uk and vice versa and at the time they were no red flags on any on-line test I could find.
Will have another look and do some home work on it.
Thanks again
for you time and help
Mike

[chris ashdown]

Welcome to the forum Mike long time to remain in the background

The way I see it with two or more sites selling nearly the same thing is it's very easy to wast money on PPC or confuse the customer on natural listings, so I would suggest making a difference if you can on the second site to say a new name maybe something Like "Leather Headboards" or Traditional Headboards" you get the drift

Then say have the old site with all the headboards and the new site with just the specialist headboards whatever you choose

[Mike Hughes]

It looks to me as if the two Lees have pretty much cracked your problem. The only thing I'd add in general is the lack of good on page content and poor choice of anchor text.

If you put up two similar sites Google will spot it and drop one of them. If it's obvious to us that the two sites are the same what makes you think that Google can't see it?

Mike

[lounge2]

Hi Chris & Mike,
Thank you for looking and views.
I will drop the Headboards-uk site ASAP and do what Chris suggests at a later date as soon as my main site starts to move.
Has anyone any idea what type of redirect mentioned by Lee in the previous post, and its set up for best SEO results if any?
Will look at more relevant content per page, but not sure what you mean by the "poor anchor text choice" mentioned by Mike, is this a easy fix for me?
Thanks again for all your help
Mike

[Southwest Test]

Has anyone any idea what type of redirect mentioned by Lee in the previous post, and its set up for best SEO results if any?

It has to be what's known as a 301 permanent redirect, Mike. It's quite easy to setup. Should be lots of info on Google, etc

Anchor text is simply the text that the viewer is presented with in the form of a clickable link. Search engines look at the text you've chosen and use it to decide if your content is relevant in their search results.

For example, your Metal, Traditional, brass, nickel, ivory, white hyperlink would be better entitled Metal Traditional Headboards

If you stop and think about it you'll see why... If you wanted to find metal headboards on Google what would you type in the search box?

Don't get overly hung up on keywords. Pick a few good ones and maintain the same theme throughout in your meta tags. But SEO has changed radically over the years. Nowadays factors such as page loading time, blogs, integration with social networking, alt tags, and sub-domains are all probably just as important (if not more so)

And if Google thinks you are 'stuffing' your pages with unnecessary keywords you can be certain it will penalise your site heavily

[chris ashdown]

Lee old bean, well done on your postings being over 15,000 and each one real value to the reader

I think Sellerdeck should give everyone with over say 10,000 posts a bloody good bottle of malt whisky or wine as a thanks you, as without this sort of support given freely the forum would be much the poorer

God show old boy

[leehack]

Thanks Chris, sounds like a plan to me. :-)

[lounge2]

Hi Paul
Thank you for looking and advise.
In the middle of changing anchor text for more human reading.
as for redirect i have found that i can forward domain to another domain using DNS on hosting package, also your suggested 301 redirect in a htaccess file in root directory? just finding more info before attacking this step.
Is there a way to tell Google to stop indexing the dropped domain?
Thank you again for your help.
Mike

[Southwest Test]

Hi Mike,

Just set up a 301 redirect in your .htaccess file and Google will sort everything else out automagically

Forwarding a domain to another domain is not exactly the same thing... 301 redirection is the way to go if you want Google to sit up and take notice

[Mike Hughes]

Domain forwarding is a bit of a minefield and can lead to even more confusion. personally, I'd drop the second domain completely and not bother with the redirecting. Redirecting from other domains can also be seen by google as a spammy tactic.

Is there a way to tell Google to stop indexing the dropped domain?

The easiest way is to add a robots.txt file blocking the search engines. You should also be signed up to google webmaster tools for your sites which might well offer other ways of doing this.

Mike

[Southwest Test]

+1 I agree with Mike... his suggestion is even better... best to avoid a second domain unless you're really sure what you're doing