Site gone from Google for certain keywords - help!

Hello --

I have been reading numerous posts in this thread, and I see that I
am in the company of many experts related to search engines, Google,
etc. This is good because I am just a small Pilates Studio owner with
a BIG problem related to Google. I am just hoping someone can help me
with this:

For the last three years my site (www.houseofpilates.com) showed up as
number 3 and 4 when the search phrase "Orange County Pilates" was
typed in the Google search bar. This is because I was one of the first
Pilates studios located in Orange County since the Pilates trademark
was opened up in 2000. Suddenly, I think it was sometime in February
or maybe March, my site disappeared completely from Google when those
keywords were used. Fortunately, or unfortunately, however you look at
it, I have received nearly ALL of my clients from my website, so this
complete disappearance has had a devastating affect. The site is still
listed in the Google index, still listed in the DMOZ, and it now comes
up first when "Irvine Pilates" is searched on, but when "Orange County
Pilates" is used -- nothing.

But here is the strange part: If you click on "Advanced Search" on
the Google home page, and change the "Occurrences" drop-down to "In
the Title of the Page" OR "In the text of the page" my site shows up
exactly where it was two months ago! It's only the default search
that results in my site going completely missing from the results.
The default seems to be "anywhere in the page." This makes absolutely
no sense to me, and I am going a little crazy trying to figure out why
this has happened.

I would greatly appeciate it if anyone knows what could have caused
this. I wrote to Google and they finally wrote. They never answered
as to why the different types of searches showed my site where it used
to be. But they did say the following:

1. They found my site listed in their index.
2. They never make manual adjustments to site listings per keyword.
Everything is automated.
3. I should check the guidelines for webmasters.
4. If I continue to have trouble, I should buy their AdWords.

Well, I know I'm still listed in the index, I have checked the
guidelines and have made sure I'm not doing anything they don't like
(or at least don't think I am), and I don't really want to buy their
keywords, especially when I see that sites that are listed where I
used to be are breaking their rules left and right (hidden text, etc.)
and they aren't paying for AdWords.

So, if anyone can help me I would really appreciate it. I would at
least like to know WHY, even if I can't do anything to get my site
back in the search results. Thanks very much --

lm

www.seo-serps.com wrote:

On 1 May 2004 23:38:30 -0700, lisamay (AT) houseofpilates (DOT) com (lisamay)
wrote:

I am just hoping someone can help me with this:

I'm not an expert but I notice that you rank 46 for your search term. So
as seo-serps says there are just better optimised pages out there. I
would change your title to:

Orange Country Pilates

and if you have additional search terms create extra pages for them
pointing to your home page.

Although I'm puzzled why: www.oncenterconditioning.com/rael_message.asp
ranks no.3 with the same PR with few inbound links and lots of cruft on
the page. Any comments?

Here's 10 mins optimisation of your home page-

on the original and optimised versions there is a hanging </center> tag,
I would run the whole page through a verifier.

I don't think it would be too hard to take no.1 slot for the desired
search terms.

"lisamay" <lisamay (AT) houseofpilates (DOT) com> wrote

Hello --

I have been reading numerous posts in this thread, and I see that I
am in the company of many experts related to search engines, Google,
etc. This is good because I am just a small Pilates Studio owner with
a BIG problem related to Google. I am just hoping someone can help me
with this:

For the last three years my site (www.houseofpilates.com) showed up as
number 3 and 4 when the search phrase "Orange County Pilates" was
typed in the Google search bar. This is because I was one of the first
Pilates studios located in Orange County since the Pilates trademark
was opened up in 2000. Suddenly, I think it was sometime in February
or maybe March, my site disappeared completely from Google when those
keywords were used. Fortunately, or unfortunately, however you look at
it, I have received nearly ALL of my clients from my website, so this
complete disappearance has had a devastating affect. The site is still
listed in the Google index, still listed in the DMOZ, and it now comes
up first when "Irvine Pilates" is searched on, but when "Orange County
Pilates" is used -- nothing.

But here is the strange part: If you click on "Advanced Search" on
the Google home page, and change the "Occurrences" drop-down to "In
the Title of the Page" OR "In the text of the page" my site shows up
exactly where it was two months ago! It's only the default search
that results in my site going completely missing from the results.
The default seems to be "anywhere in the page." This makes absolutely
no sense to me, and I am going a little crazy trying to figure out why
this has happened.

I would greatly appeciate it if anyone knows what could have caused
this. I wrote to Google and they finally wrote. They never answered
as to why the different types of searches showed my site where it used
to be. But they did say the following:

1. They found my site listed in their index.
2. They never make manual adjustments to site listings per keyword.
Everything is automated.
3. I should check the guidelines for webmasters.
4. If I continue to have trouble, I should buy their AdWords.

Well, I know I'm still listed in the index, I have checked the
guidelines and have made sure I'm not doing anything they don't like
(or at least don't think I am), and I don't really want to buy their
keywords, especially when I see that sites that are listed where I
used to be are breaking their rules left and right (hidden text, etc.)
and they aren't paying for AdWords.

So, if anyone can help me I would really appreciate it. I would at
least like to know WHY, even if I can't do anything to get my site
back in the search results. Thanks very much --

lm

Presently 13 pilates 24%, 4 county 7%, 4 irvine 7%, 4 orange 7%
Try changing to 7 pilates, 8 county, 8 orange, 4 irvine, 3 or less for
next word

pilates presently 2x in title, 3x in description All a no no; so you can
get rid of 3 easy.

Note that all words are not equal information value which may explains why
irvine (high information value) wins out over orange and county (both
lower). pilates is significantly more value than orange or county which are
about equal, so for good results on 'pilates orange county' you need orange
and county above pilates, like the 7,8,8 count suggested above. irvine is
so high value it will be quite happy at 4 and, to avoid dilution, all other
words must be less then this - important.

This is just a start, as all the anchor text of all incoming links needs the
similar analysis applied, but the above will be a good start.

Best regards, Eric.

On Sun, 02 May 2004 19:24:31 +0200, David Off
<david.off_dumpthisbit_ (AT) voila (DOT) fr> wrote:

I'm not an expert but I notice that you rank 46 for your search term. So
as seo-serps says there are just better optimised pages out there. I
would change your title to:

Orange Country Pilates

and if you have additional search terms create extra pages for them
pointing to your home page.

Generally I'd agree with the above, but the OP mentioned doing well
for another phrase that is in the title currently. The suggestion
above would likely impact the other SERP since there are only a few
pages on the site and none are even close to being optimised for the
other phrase.

The new page I suggested should be enough to get top 10 for the main
SERP without detrimentally affecting the other SERP, in fact I took
the other SERP into account, so should enforce it's position.

David
--
http://www.seo-serps.com

You should try to add some new pages to the site if you can as that
will help. Long term try to get some more links to your home page
using the anchor text Orange County Pilates.

David

Exactly right.

The folks getting to the top are the ones with the right keywords in
their
text links. You have 4 backlinks and i am guessing they all have
"houseopilates.com not "orange county pilates" as the text link.

I am about 100 pages or more of PR 5 and would be willing to give you
he backlinks you need until you can establish some backlinks of your
own.

Tim

"David Off" <david.off_dumpthisbit_ (AT) voila (DOT) fr> wrote

www.seo-serps.com wrote:
On 1 May 2004 23:38:30 -0700, lisamay (AT) houseofpilates (DOT) com (lisamay)
wrote:

I am just hoping someone can help me with this:

I'm not an expert but I notice that you rank 46 for your search term. So
as seo-serps says there are just better optimised pages out there. I
would change your title to:

Orange Country Pilates

and if you have additional search terms create extra pages for them
pointing to your home page.

Although I'm puzzled why: www.oncenterconditioning.com/rael_message.asp
ranks no.3 with the same PR with few inbound links and lots of cruft on
the page. Any comments?

Pardon for showing my ignorance here, but what's "cruft"?

Ian

Jaxtraw <jaxtraw (AT) nospamnobigfoot (DOT) com> says...

Pardon for showing my ignorance here, but what's "cruft"?

Tsk! Tsk! You just asked for the definition of a word when it's on the
first page of a Google search! ( http://www.google.com/search?q=cruft
result #9 to be exact...) Am I stiil in alt.internet.search-engines???


(Note to the humor impaired; the above is an example of good-natured
kidding among friends. Alas, the limitations on a text-only medium
don't allow the vocal inflections to get through.)

You guys are nothing less than scientists! Thank you all so very much
for both allaying my fears that we were doomed and pointing out things
that people just don't generally know. Everyone I met casually who
"knew all about search engines" basically shrugged their shoulders at
the whole thing. I will try to implement these suggestions. Thanks,
Tim, for the offer of the backlinks. I'm sure it will help. Last
year I had a steady Google Rank of 6, but those days are over. So
thanks very much. Let me know what I should do to facilitate it --
thanks again, everyone!

lisamay


lisamay (AT) houseofpilates (DOT) com (lisamay) wrote in message news:<10ad6076.0405012238.7addda8e (AT) posting (DOT) google.com>...

Hello --

I have been reading numerous posts in this thread, and I see that I
am in the company of many experts related to search engines, Google,
etc. This is good because I am just a small Pilates Studio owner with
a BIG problem related to Google. I am just hoping someone can help me
with this:

For the last three years my site (www.houseofpilates.com) showed up as
number 3 and 4 when the search phrase "Orange County Pilates" was
typed in the Google search bar. This is because I was one of the first
Pilates studios located in Orange County since the Pilates trademark
was opened up in 2000. Suddenly, I think it was sometime in February
or maybe March, my site disappeared completely from Google when those
keywords were used. Fortunately, or unfortunately, however you look at
it, I have received nearly ALL of my clients from my website, so this
complete disappearance has had a devastating affect. The site is still
listed in the Google index, still listed in the DMOZ, and it now comes
up first when "Irvine Pilates" is searched on, but when "Orange County
Pilates" is used -- nothing.

But here is the strange part: If you click on "Advanced Search" on
the Google home page, and change the "Occurrences" drop-down to "In
the Title of the Page" OR "In the text of the page" my site shows up
exactly where it was two months ago! It's only the default search
that results in my site going completely missing from the results.
The default seems to be "anywhere in the page." This makes absolutely
no sense to me, and I am going a little crazy trying to figure out why
this has happened.

I would greatly appeciate it if anyone knows what could have caused
this. I wrote to Google and they finally wrote. They never answered
as to why the different types of searches showed my site where it used
to be. But they did say the following:

1. They found my site listed in their index.
2. They never make manual adjustments to site listings per keyword.
Everything is automated.
3. I should check the guidelines for webmasters.
4. If I continue to have trouble, I should buy their AdWords.

Well, I know I'm still listed in the index, I have checked the
guidelines and have made sure I'm not doing anything they don't like
(or at least don't think I am), and I don't really want to buy their
keywords, especially when I see that sites that are listed where I
used to be are breaking their rules left and right (hidden text, etc.)
and they aren't paying for AdWords.

So, if anyone can help me I would really appreciate it. I would at
least like to know WHY, even if I can't do anything to get my site
back in the search results. Thanks very much --

lm

Presently 13 pilates 24%, 4 county 7%, 4 irvine 7%, 4 orange 7%
Try changing to 7 pilates, 8 county, 8 orange, 4 irvine, 3 or less for
next word

pilates presently 2x in title, 3x in description All a no no; so you can
get rid of 3 easy.

Note that all words are not equal information value which may explains why
irvine (high information value) wins out over orange and county (both
lower). pilates is significantly more value than orange or county which are
about equal, so for good results on 'pilates orange county' you need orange
and county above pilates, like the 7,8,8 count suggested above. irvine is
so high value it will be quite happy at 4 and, to avoid dilution, all other
words must be less then this - important.

This is just a start, as all the anchor text of all incoming links needs the
similar analysis applied, but the above will be a good start.

I like your theory here as it makes me think it is possible that
google is giving weight to certain "informational" words.


However how would you explain this:

A search using the term "money making ideas yeilds a site that does
not have "money making" on it. Only the word "ideas"??


Tim

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache...ng+ideas&hl=en

vgo_2000 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com (Tim Arnold) wrote in message news:<2c80a852.0405021210.7afe52d5 (AT) posting (DOT) google.com>...

The folks getting to the top are the ones with the right keywords in
their
text links. You have 4 backlinks and i am guessing they all have
"houseopilates.com not "orange county pilates" as the text link.

I had a look with alltheweb.com and noticed houseofpilates had 10
incoming links whereas the no.2: www.oncenterconditioning.com, had 22
incoming links. A case where even lower PR links do count for
something. As you say, link text may be significant too.