How to Check for Keyword Ranking Drop in Google.

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If you have experienced your keyword ranking dropping suddenly in Google then the following may help expose the reason for the decline.

CHECKING GOOGLE'S INDEX:

Search for your business name. Unless you come up #1 then your site may be penalized or filtered out of Google results (unless other sites use the same name).

Use this command in Google site:yourdomain.com. It should list all the pages that Google has indexed for your website. If Google doesn't have your website listed, and it was previously, then your site has probably been banned from Google results.

BREAKING GOOGLE GUIDELINES:

Make sure you are not breaking any of the following Google quidelines:

Hidden test or links
Cloaking
Sneaky redirects (302 or 301 redirects pointing at other sites)
Using an automated keyword ranking tool
Spammy text
Duplicate content
Doorway pages
Thin Affiliate with AdSense ads (no original content)
Adding too many pages or backlinks too fast
Selling or buying links
Overoptimized content
Alt tag spam
Split doman
Duplicate home pages
Linking to banned websites
Multiple Domains with same content
Faulty Robots text or Htaccess file

HIJACKING OR COPIED CONTENT:

Hijacking a website doesn't happen too often any more because the culprits can loose their website or ranking. However if anyone sets up a 301 or 302 redirect pointing at your site it can cause your keyword rank to drop drastically and suddenly. The best way to find these is to watch your stats program for odd backlinks. See my article on Hijacking Web Pages and related articles on how to report hijackers.

If your important pages are copied, unless your site is several years old, it can also cause a seriious ranking problem for your website. Check your website frequently in copyscape.com for this problem.

OTHER PROBLEMS AFFECTING KEYWORD RANK:

These are not necessarily a penalty but affect ranking nevertheless:

Titles all the same
Descriptions all the same
Links in Framed pages, Image Maps or Javascript
Important text in Flash
Keywords in Images

When your titles are all the same (usually caused by not properly utilizing a WYSIWYG program) then search engines think you have the same content on every page. The same with description tags. If you don't use a description tag then search engines will pick up the first text on your page (usually the menu text) which usually does not tell the viewer what your page is about. Both of these can severely affect your keyword ranking.

Google is getting pretty good at indexing text and links in Javascript and image maps but other search engines are not, so best to use CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to control mouseovers on links. Search engines also can't read text in images and the same can be said for Flash so make sure your important text is repeated on the page in plain text.

ASKING FOR REINCLUSION

If you believe your site was penalized by Google fix the problems and then ask for reinclusion through Google's Webmaster Tools. You'll have to set up a Google account for your website first. Tell Google everything you know about the problem.

TIME TO RECUPERATE

After you fix the problems it may take a while for Google to notice the changes if it hasn't been indexing your website very often. Check the cache date before you start fixing your website and frequently thereafter to get an idea of how long it takes for Google to come back. Then assume it may take a few weeks or months for the changes to show up in Google.

Lori Eldridge
Lori's Web Design
Copyright February 7, 2008
All Rights Reserved
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