So I cleaned up my site, codewise, hired a programmer to fix errors. I reduced the page's file size by about 1/4. My members say the site loads faster than ever. I reduced clutter on the site and removed aspects of it that were presenting as keywords I didn't want to rank for {like "posts" "desks" and "sub boards", which appeared as elements since it's a forum} removed the word "index" from my main page, so it's just my site's name there now. I re-ran a keyword check from several different "seo grading" sites to check for accuracy etc. I am getting way better marks now by all of them. Not too dense and not too sparse and looks natural, since the sentences were pretty much unchanged, only the extraneous text was largely removed leaving the content to dominate more. So Google now removed me from 3rd place for my main keyword and stuck me down at 8th. I don't know what I'm really asking for, I guess an explanation for what I did wrong. It's the site in my signature. The keyword is "warrior cats rpg." We were in spot #3 only 2 days ago.
I have noticed google shifting alot of my site's lately aswell, do you know if theres been any change to the back links you've been receiving?
Thanks for the compliment on my site it is my baby. Far as I know all my links are the same. Yep--just checked all my major links and link sources {reciprocals, one-ways, and forums that I post with my sig links} All up and normal. And none of them devalued or anything as far as I could tell. No nofollows added, no sites de-indexed, not that I link in "Bad Neighbourhoods" anyway. I don't use Xrumer or any other automated software. Every link I place I do it manually, and I don't spam. Even if the links aren't all perfect, most of them are on relevant sites, since that's where I tend to hang out most; and they sure weren't any worse last week, when I was up at #3. I haev SEOQuake running so it doesn't take me long to check all this every few days. What is ironic is that this past week has been the week I did more on-site optimisation than I have ever done. Not only did the SEO grading sites definitely like it more this way but so do my members.
I have noticed this too when I make major code or site changes. Goes up then drops a few places but eventually just keep linking and it should go up a few spots. Google should love the fact you removed a lot of the duplicate stuff that was on each page ....
Yes, even I checked for the Search rankings and your site is back. This is actually very normal wrt Google, any minor changes to the site can push you back in Search results but with continuous SEO efforts and backlinks to your site, you could again regain the same position or even better in a quick span of time, which has actually happened with your site as well. So congratulations, this make sure that you have done the right changes to your site.