Google Rank crash from #1 to 1000 with PageRank = 5?

Can anyone point me in the right direction to see where I might have
gone wrong?

The website in question is a 400 page personal travelogue site that
prior to the end of last year had very good rankings for a variety of
key words. Specifically a search using terms "Cross Country RV Trips"
was usually #1

My only attempts at SEO were to include the Page Keywords in the Page
Title, Page Description, and in H1 letters at the start of each page.

All pages are indexed by Google, and the root page at
www.gaidus.com/rvtrips/ still has a page importance of 5/10?

I would have expected a possible drop in ranking due to a change in
Google’s search algorithm, but this seems more like I’m being punished
for some inappropriate coding behavior.

My questions are:

1. Does it sound like I'm being penalized by Google - (or am I
just being paranoid)

2. If so, is there a site or checklist that would help me find
out what behaviors I might be being punished for?

3. If I put the entire thing under a new domain - would that
help, or hurt since I already have links into the old site (and is
there anyplace that best describes how to perform such a site
migration without adversely impacting your existing links and
rankings)

Thanks for your help!


--
Herbert Gaidus
Lolo's Extreme Cross Country RV Trips
www.gaidus.com/rvtrips/

Herb wrote:

1. Does it sound like I'm being penalized by Google - (or am I
just being paranoid)

2. If so, is there a site or checklist that would help me find
out what behaviors I might be being punished for?

3. If I put the entire thing under a new domain - would that
help, or hurt since I already have links into the old site (and is
there anyplace that best describes how to perform such a site
migration without adversely impacting your existing links and
rankings)

In reverse order:

3. I would avoid a new domain -- part of ranking is the age of the page
and it will take you at least six months to get back up to PR5, and
that's only if you do some heavy (but careful) marketing of your site.

2. Google's Quality Guidelines. There's nothing magic or hidden about
what they don't like. In a quick check I didn't see any evidence of
anything untoward on your site, and you wouldn't have kept your PR5 if
Google thought something was wrong.

1. Google now attempts to contact webmasters when they ban a site, but
your whois contact info needs to be correct for that to work.

Your internal linking *might* need some help. I don't know how relative
linking (e.g. <a href="index.htm">Home</a>) is counted WRT links to
your site.

Other than that, if you want to get boosted back to first place I'd
work on text links with good anchor text. Start a blog on your site;
that seems to be working for everybody else. Google still loves blogs,
but I suspect that will change this year since the web is inundated
with them now. You might as well get some benefit from them while you
can, though.

RFM
http://www.cyclelicio.us/

On 30 Jan 2006 12:50:40 -0800, "Fritz M" <nospam (AT) masoner (DOT) net> wrote:

In reverse order:

3. I would avoid a new domain -- part of ranking is the age of the page
and it will take you at least six months to get back up to PR5, and
that's only if you do some heavy (but careful) marketing of your site.

2. Google's Quality Guidelines. There's nothing magic or hidden about
what they don't like. In a quick check I didn't see any evidence of
anything untoward on your site, and you wouldn't have kept your PR5 if
Google thought something was wrong.

1. Google now attempts to contact webmasters when they ban a site, but
your whois contact info needs to be correct for that to work.

Your internal linking *might* need some help. I don't know how relative
linking (e.g. <a href="index.htm">Home</a>) is counted WRT links to
your site.

Other than that, if you want to get boosted back to first place I'd
work on text links with good anchor text. Start a blog on your site;
that seems to be working for everybody else. Google still loves blogs,
but I suspect that will change this year since the web is inundated
with them now. You might as well get some benefit from them while you
can, though.

RFM
http://www.cyclelicio.us/

Thanks for the advice Fritz,

I didn't really want to use a new domain if I didn't have to.

I wasn't sure why they would have changed the ranking so heavily
though. Especially when I see some of the 1000 sites that rank above
my current ranking, and are essentially devoid of content.

My whois should be correct, but as you say, they probably would have
removed the PR5 if something was really wrong.

When the site was listed at the top, it seemed that a lot of sites
would link to it - but they were reallly nothing other than a
collection of top google ranked links. Could this be an issue?

I also have the content of 3 pages listed on another travel site. They
asked for permission to reprint them, and I agreed. Hope that this
would not be a problem with Google.

I did include a Site Map with static links and Google has indexed all
of my pages. It's just not ranking them anymore.

I'll think about a Blog, or maybe adding a Forum.

Thanks for your help
--
Herbert Gaidus
Lolo's Extreme Cross Country RV Trips
www.gaidus.com/rvtrips/

On Mon, 30 Jan 2006 17:32:09 -0500, Herb <websub (AT) REMOVEgaidus (DOT) com>
wrote:

On 30 Jan 2006 12:50:40 -0800, "Fritz M" <nospam (AT) masoner (DOT) net> wrote:

In reverse order:

3. I would avoid a new domain -- part of ranking is the age of the page
and it will take you at least six months to get back up to PR5, and
that's only if you do some heavy (but careful) marketing of your site.

2. Google's Quality Guidelines. There's nothing magic or hidden about
what they don't like. In a quick check I didn't see any evidence of
anything untoward on your site, and you wouldn't have kept your PR5 if
Google thought something was wrong.

1. Google now attempts to contact webmasters when they ban a site, but
your whois contact info needs to be correct for that to work.

Your internal linking *might* need some help. I don't know how relative
linking (e.g. <a href="index.htm">Home</a>) is counted WRT links to
your site.

Other than that, if you want to get boosted back to first place I'd
work on text links with good anchor text. Start a blog on your site;
that seems to be working for everybody else. Google still loves blogs,
but I suspect that will change this year since the web is inundated
with them now. You might as well get some benefit from them while you
can, though.

RFM
http://www.cyclelicio.us/

Thanks for the advice Fritz,

I didn't really want to use a new domain if I didn't have to.

I wasn't sure why they would have changed the ranking so heavily
though. Especially when I see some of the 1000 sites that rank above
my current ranking, and are essentially devoid of content.

My whois should be correct, but as you say, they probably would have
removed the PR5 if something was really wrong.

When the site was listed at the top, it seemed that a lot of sites
would link to it - but they were reallly nothing other than a
collection of top google ranked links. Could this be an issue?

I also have the content of 3 pages listed on another travel site. They
asked for permission to reprint them, and I agreed. Hope that this
would not be a problem with Google.

They should really have just linked to them. I'd get that stopped if I
were you. It may well confuse Google and just possibly, possibly get
you a duplicate content penalty.

BB
--
http://www.crystal-liaison.com/willow-tree/index.html kruse (AT) crystal-liaison (DOT) com
Gifty! Shiny! Arty! BB!

On Mon, 30 Jan 2006 23:23:16 GMT, Big Bill <kruse (AT) cityscape (DOT) co.uk>
wrote:

They should really have just linked to them. I'd get that stopped if I
were you. It may well confuse Google and just possibly, possibly get
you a duplicate content penalty.

BB

Thanks Big Bill,

I didn't think that 3 pages out of 400 would be considered an issue,
but I'll see if I can have the content removed.

Maybe also try to tune the keywords a bit.

I've got one image link from the domain root to the subdirectory.
Hopefully that's not an issue.

--
Herbert Gaidus
Lolo's Extreme Cross Country RV Trips
www.gaidus.com/rvtrips/

On Mon, 30 Jan 2006 20:31:19 -0500, Herb <websub (AT) REMOVEgaidus (DOT) com>
wrote:

On Mon, 30 Jan 2006 23:23:16 GMT, Big Bill <kruse (AT) cityscape (DOT) co.uk
wrote:


They should really have just linked to them. I'd get that stopped if I
were you. It may well confuse Google and just possibly, possibly get
you a duplicate content penalty.

BB

Thanks Big Bill,

I didn't think that 3 pages out of 400 would be considered an issue,

I don't really but I'd still stop it. It's something I'd feel
uncomfortable about and experience has taught me that while I was
stumbling about in the code other stuff might well occur to me.

but I'll see if I can have the content removed.

Maybe also try to tune the keywords a bit.

Never hurts.

I've got one image link from the domain root to the subdirectory.
Hopefully that's not an issue.

Wouldn't have thought so...

BB
--
http://www.crystal-liaison.com/willow-tree/index.html kruse (AT) crystal-liaison (DOT) com
Gifty! Shiny! Arty! BB!

Herb wrote:

I'll think about a Blog, or maybe adding a Forum.

Blogging is just a simple form of CMS so you'll want to put some
thought into it. How do you manage the content of your site right now?

Forum: If you can get a successful forum running, it's a great way to
get lots and lots of return traffic and help you keep track of what's
going on. Forums are not generally helpful for search engine ranking,
in my experience. I don't know how interested you are in making money
from your site, but forums are lousy for conversions.

I could be wrong about the forums. Does anybody have other experiences
with them?

RFM
http://www.cyclelicio.us/

"Herb" <websub (AT) REMOVEgaidus (DOT) com> wrote

On Mon, 30 Jan 2006 23:23:16 GMT, Big Bill <kruse (AT) cityscape (DOT) co.uk
wrote:


They should really have just linked to them. I'd get that stopped if I
were you. It may well confuse Google and just possibly, possibly get
you a duplicate content penalty.

BB

Thanks Big Bill,

I didn't think that 3 pages out of 400 would be considered an issue,
but I'll see if I can have the content removed.

Maybe also try to tune the keywords a bit.

I've got one image link from the domain root to the subdirectory.
Hopefully that's not an issue.

--
Herbert Gaidus
Lolo's Extreme Cross Country RV Trips
www.gaidus.com/rvtrips/

I've got one image link from the domain root to the subdirectory

Static links are highly desirable from the home page, otherwise you are
relying on links from elsewhere to get the sub-sites spidered at all. I
found the two image links in the toe caps !. However, I have also found
what looks like two hidden <h3> links in the html code which are actually
marked "visibility: hidden", so these may be generating a hidden links
penalty. The sailcrew directory still seems OK however which is not
logical, but I would nonetheless delete those hidden links.

Best regards, Eric.

On Tue, 31 Jan 2006 20:47:51 GMT, "Eric Johnston"
<nospam (AT) redyonder (DOT) co.uk> wrote:

Static links are highly desirable from the home page, otherwise you are
relying on links from elsewhere to get the sub-sites spidered at all. I
found the two image links in the toe caps !. However, I have also found
what looks like two hidden <h3> links in the html code which are actually
marked "visibility: hidden", so these may be generating a hidden links
penalty. The sailcrew directory still seems OK however which is not
logical, but I would nonetheless delete those hidden links.

Best regards, Eric.

Eric,

Thank you for your review!

The RV site started out as a way for my wife to document our travels -
and grew to something bigger than anticipated.

The toe cap image links were there so that I could tell friends just
who wanted to see the sub-sites, to just click the image.

Originally I was reluctant to have a text link from the "Business"
site to the "Pleasure" site since it might appear that I was more
pleasure than business. :-)

The H3 hidden links were there when I didn't know how else to get the
sub-sites spidered. I can eliminate them now I think without penalty.

What is still perplexing to me however, is that I have changed
nothing, all sites are Google indexed, PageRank is still 5, and yet a
Google search on the most obvious terms Cross Country RV Trips, yields
nothing?

Prior to last October? - we would be #1 for this term, and probably
many others in some sense inappropriately. If someone searched for the
some of our more obsure stops like Kouchibouguac National Park, we
would show up on the first page - Probably because the term appeared
as H1 headline, Keywords, Page Title, and within the Page Description.

I thought this was a good thing to do? And prior to October we had an
average of 400+ visitors per day - mostly from Google. At this point,
Google is reffering almost nothing.

Thanks for your help Eric,


--
Herbert Gaidus
Lolo's Extreme Cross Country RV Trips
www.gaidus.com/rvtrips/

On 31 Jan 2006 11:37:44 -0800, "Fritz M" <nospam (AT) masoner (DOT) net> wrote:

Herb wrote:

I'll think about a Blog, or maybe adding a Forum.

Blogging is just a simple form of CMS so you'll want to put some
thought into it. How do you manage the content of your site right now?

Hi RFM,

Manage might be too strong a word. :-) Basically I ask the wife to
update an Access database with a travelogue of our last trip - I add
links to photos - and the whole thing goes up to the server.

I started to write a few "administration pages", where we could make
changes, fixes to the database that resides on the actual webserver,
but we haven't used it much since we usually wind up getting out of
sync with the local database.

Forum: If you can get a successful forum running, it's a great way to
get lots and lots of return traffic and help you keep track of what's
going on. Forums are not generally helpful for search engine ranking,
in my experience. I don't know how interested you are in making money
from your site, but forums are lousy for conversions.

Money would be great - (cover hosting costs and maybe a few beers),
but at this point it's more of an opportunity for me to "feed my inner
geek", and for my wife to "inspire others to travel with their kids"

I was thinking about a forum when we were getting lots of e-mails
asking for advice, and answering the same questions five times.

My current thought is to go with a PHPBB - mostly so it would force me
to learn a little PHP and MySQL - and maybe someday if I was inspired
I could rewrite the whole thing from ASP to PHP.

I could be wrong about the forums. Does anybody have other experiences
with them?

RFM
http://www.cyclelicio.us/

Thanks for your help!


--
Herbert Gaidus
Lolo's Extreme Cross Country RV Trips
www.gaidus.com/rvtrips/