My Google Position Went Down Suddenly

[Merrows]

I am a sole trader and building redburg.co.uk. This is an e-commerce site selling baths, showers, taps, towel rails, and accessories. It uses a databases and all pages are generated. Currently there are around 5,000 pages - on page per product.

The site started in April 2003, and was indexed in June 2003. The site had 1-10 positions on relevant keywords from June2003 - January 2004. Then in Jan 2004 it vanished and then slowly came back. Now positions are at 40-50 on average.

I did not use hidden text, spams, an SEO's dubious methods, duplicate pages, mirrors, doorways or anything else which would cause the search engines offence.

My site is not optimised as my work is at building the site. The site is built in XML and the HTML is made via XSLT. Therefore, it is very easy to change the HTML. Also the XML is built from MS SQL so it is also very easy to change the XML. In short the site can be redesigned and rebuilt very easily.

I have been using alexa.com and some other sites to measure the site's positions and the results show poor placements.

My main competitor is boundarybathrooms.co.uk, and others are plumbworld.co.uk, smrbathrooms.co.uk, showerright.co.uk, bathroomexpress.co.uk.

Has anyone got any ideas on how I can improve my placements in google.com and the other search engines?

[Lever]

Hi Merrows,

Just a very quick look at your homepage I see an h2 tag but no h1 tag, your page title has your name, 'quality etailing' and 'bathware' whereas your main competitor's homepage title includes 'bathrooms & showers'. How do people find you, on what terms? Also a quick glance at the density of words doesn't indicate that any one word or set of words is particularly prominent...

[DarrenC]

One word.. LINKS!

Also look at the keywords which perform. You really need to concentrate on researching your competition and the type of keywords and SEO that they have done, also don't be afraid or worried about getting links from your competition, it's certainly helped my rankings in the SE's.

Darren :)

[DarrenC]

I see an h2 tag but no h1 tag

Hasn't it being proven that the h2 tag has more benefit than h1?

[Merrows]

Hasn't it being proven that the h2 tag has more benefit than h1?

Just to clarify my site emphasis has been on data control. I have not really done any SEO work at all. I have been working on the MS SQL and the XML.

The home page, and the very few asp pages are only temporary pages. I intend to replace them all with HTML, also generated from XML. However, I have to first build the data behind the pages and also the routines which support them so that they can be changed quickly.

But my point was why the change? The site was appearing in the top few placements on searches until early 2004 and then it just vanished. A search term like "Stuart Turner Pumps" had me at #1. I sell these pumps (http://www.redburg.co.uk/stuartturner/index.html). Now my site is at #69 (when I last checked).

I dont really understand the sudden change which happened in January 2004 and the site has never come back.

[Merrows]

Hi Merrows,

Just a very quick look at your homepage I see an h2 tag but no h1 tag, your page title has your name, 'quality etailing' and 'bathware' whereas your main competitor's homepage title includes 'bathrooms & showers'. How do people find you, on what terms? Also a quick glance at the density of words doesn't indicate that any one word or set of words is particularly prominent...

I wish I knew the commonly used search words. I only know the brand names (eg bristan) are popular and the common nouns like showers, bathrooms.

I know the owner at boundarybathrooms.co.uk and he spends a lot of advertisements.

My own stats are not very informative. I have Urchin, but they just say "no referral" for almost everything. I tried to get more details, but the host says I need to add Javascript to the pages. I tried this, but everything still said no referral.

[Merrows]

One word.. LINKS!

Also look at the keywords which perform. You really need to concentrate on researching your competition and the type of keywords and SEO that they have done, also don't be afraid or worried about getting links from your competition, it's certainly helped my rankings in the SE's.

Darren :)

And how do I find pages to give/sell me links?

I know google has a "Link To" option and a "Contains" option. I find the Link To option seems to miss a lot out.

Also when I enter my URL into google, I get:

www.redburg.co.uk/baths/myson/B31_1.asp. This asp page is very old and does not exist - it has not existed for months. (In fact I think the whole folder is gone).

[Lever]

I wish I knew the commonly used search words.

Sit back and pretend to be a punter - what terms might they use? Put some terms in the keyword suggestion tool (http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/) and see what it outputs... remember that very popular terms are likely to be strongly contended so you may have a speciality or niche you want to focus on...

Peruse these forums, take some time to get a feel for it all and then formulate a strategy, work on it and give it some time to see the results - put your keywords for your site (and others) in the keyword tracker (http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/keywords/) and get addicted to watching it everyday :D

Hasn't it being proven that the h2 tag has more benefit than h1?

If that's so, then that just shows I need to spend much more time here myself ;) Been an HTMLer for 6 years but only at SEO for 1.

[Merrows]

Sit back and pretend to be a punter - what terms might they use? Put some terms in the and see what it outputs... remember that very popular terms are likely to be strongly contended so you may have a speciality or niche you want to focus on...

Peruse these forums, take some time to get a feel for it all and then formulate a strategy, work on it and give it some time to see the results - put your keywords for your site (and others) in the and get addicted to watching it everyday :D



If that's so, then that just shows I need to spend much more time here myself ;) Been an HTMLer for 6 years but only at SEO for 1.

This is harder than you think. I will try and explain why.

Before the Web, people just wanted a bathroom, shower etc. They asked a shop sales person who sold them something.

Now however people are searching on very specific terms. I get queries where people even quote 8 digit part numbers to me, and ask for a price.

The one thing I have learned since selling to the public is keep it very simple. People are confused very easily. However, if a customer gives non-prompted feedback it is very valuable.

There are several types of searches:

Brand names: Hudson Reed, Stuart Turner, etc (about 300)
Product Type: Showers, Taps (about 10)
Part: Bristan Prism Taps

Combinations of the above, eg electric shower aqualisa

Only access to good stats will reveal what words people are using.

I got a call from Hitwise and the sales rep said he can say what people are using in searches, but he wanted 4,000 pounds (about 7000 dollars) for the basic services and 40,000 pounds for the premium services.

[Lever]

I've used the tracking system provided by http://www.123counts.com/ for about 18 months. The javascript they provide may prevent your pages being W3C HTML validated, if that's important to you, but otherwise it's been a good tool IMO

[Foxy]

Hasn't it being proven that the h2 tag has more benefit than h1?

No ....and no.....and no

Someone in another forum came up with this saying that he had proved it - I changed my H1 to H2 on a site that is seasonal [so it didn't matter] to test this theory and it immediately dropped 10 positions from 6 to 16 - I changed it back and back up it went - so I went to the forum to point this factor out only to see that someone else had disproved it also.

[Merrows]

I've used the tracking system provided by for about 18 months. The javascript they provide may prevent your pages being W3C HTML validated, if that's important to you, but otherwise it's been a good tool IMO

I have just viewed their site, I will have to get a demo and see what is does. I really something quite advanced as I just moved everything (about 20 domains) to a dedicated server, and I need to get more details about what is happening. I have trade accounts for a lot of products and I will soon a few more sites.

Therefore, I have to understand what the search engines are doing.

[Mel]

It sounds like to me that handling 20 sites is justification for getting someone to help you.

If you want really good details on your site visitors and what they are doing I would suggest click-traks, which I think will cost you aroung 1000 pounds for a package to track all your sites. This will also tell you where they came from and what keywords they searched on if they came from a search engine, but it will not tell you about searchers you missed because you are not ranking on the terms they are searching on.

If you take a short term subscription to WordTracker you will get a very good handle on search terms and how many are using them for a very low price 5 pounds for one day and something like 20 pounds for a month. Its well worth the money.

[expat]

Has anyone got any ideas on how I can improve my placements in google.com and the other search engines?
You can try and engage me or read a lot more about this on this forum.
As long as I find pages like this

<html>
<head>
<META http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<title>Airbath Welcome</title>
<link rel="STYLESHEET" href="../aspnet/menu.css">
</head>

I'm not very inclined to help.
M

[Legend]

I'm also doing a bathroom site! http://www.spabath.co.nz

I'm marketing and selling bathrooms online. Of course we specialize in Spa Baths, but we do all the other things like vanities, showers and the like.
If you want to review it, I'm still tweaking it a bit ... maybe add a shopping cart in later :)

[mddv]

yeah the samethin ghappens to me alot oneday i will be ranked 20 the next day i will be 9999999 but it is vary variable as i have learned.